The thoughts I have while watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is one of the best shows on Disney Junior because obviously. But it certainly brings up more questions than it answers. Here are the thoughts I have on the reg while I watch it:

How come Donald is the only one who says "present!" during roll call?

Sometimes I get frustrated when they ask dumb questions. 

How come in that one episode when they were looking for something purple, they didn't just snatch the bow off Daisy's head? SHE'S STANDING RIGHT THERE.

Donald has an Uncle Scrooge, and Huey, Dewey, and Louie are Donald's nephews. Where are anybody's parents?? And how does Ludwig von Drake fit into any of this? 

When are Minnie and Mickey gonna give in and get married already?

How do they have slides that go up?

How come Donald is the only one who doesn't wear shoes? Is it because of his big flipper feet? Wait, doesn't Daisy have big flipper feet??

Now I'm thinking about how painful it is for Daisy to walk around all day with those big flipper feet shoved in those heels. Get some comfier shoes, girl.

Wait, Pete is a CAT???

I don't understand how they're just revealing that information now. Pete looks nothing like a cat. He's bigger than Goofy! That is one fat cat.

Goofy! It's called a MOUSKETOOL. Not a mousketowel or mouskewhatsits. You are stumbling over literally the easiest part of that word to remember.

What if they got to the Mystery Mousketool, and they needed to get over a bridge or something, and they got a banana? Like why is it always so perfectly helpful all the time?

How do they just have a baby elephant hanging around all the time to be one of the Mousketools? Does he fit in the tool box? Where is his mother? I AM CONCERNED ABOUT THIS BABY ELEPHANT. Set him free, Mickey!

Donald was just swimming and he was wearing swim trunks, but now he changed and is only wearing that shirt thing. I don't get his style.

Minnie turns her feet impossibly far during the hot dog dance.

I want to live in the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

This is the best show.

Come what may, and do what now?

Last night, I had the opportunity to see Sutton Foster perform at BYU. For those who don't know, Sutton Foster is a Broadway babe, who also recently starred on the ABCfamily show Bunheads. She is crazy talented, sweet and charming, funny, and was just delightful. I love music so much, I love Broadway music so much, but I got a new found appreciation for both after seeing her perform. Beautiful.

Sutton (let's pretend we're on a first name basis) brought along with her another Broadway star, Megan McGinnis. They performed in Little Women together, and their voices sounded so amazing together.

Megan sang a song from her new musical, "Daddy Long Legs" and talked about it a little bit beforehand. It's the story of an orphan girl, who is sent to college by an anonymous benefactor, and his only request for her to continue going is to write him a letter each month chronicling her life there. The song she sang comes after a particularly bad day, and she quoted a line from the play that struck me right in the soul:

"It isn't the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh—I really think that requires spirit."

The words so quickly went from ears to my heart, that I barely had time to figure out why. It wasn't until this morning, when I was still thinking about them, that I asked myself why. Thinking about everything that I've had to deal with, and the "crushing tragedy" that I had faced, I wondered if I even believed this sentiment at all.

But I find truth in it, and I find strength from it. In retrospect, it was relatively easy to convince myself that things would be okay after Josh passed. I know that we will see each other, and I even know that he is watching over us just as much as he can. That doesn't mean that it isn't still hard every day though, and I guess that's kind of the point. We can get these big, meaningful answers to big meaningful questions, but the day to day trials can seem so frustrating when we're in them.

I remember packing to go to Disneyland with the Robisons in March, and I couldn't find something small that I needed, like a shirt or something, and at the time it made me so angry. I was yelling to nobody about how unfair it was. "Really?! After everything I've been through!! I can't just find my stupid shirt without tearing this room apart?!?!" It all seems very silly now, but it was a big deal to me when it was happening. And even now, sometimes I catch myself (or more likely, my loved ones catch me) being grouchy or rude, and ask me what's up, and I can't even give an answer. I sit there and think about it and realize I'm being a jerk without even feeling any kind of malice toward anyone or anything. I'm just annoyed because I want to change the channel, but the remote is next to the television.

My favorite joke these days, especially when I'm getting particularly worked up over something, is to say "This is the WORST THING that's ever happened to me." It makes people give me funny looks, and it makes me remember that spilling juice on my shirt is far from tragic.

I would like to be the kind of person who can meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh. To have that spirit that not only says that I can do hard things, but I can deal with annoying things, and I can do it with a smile on my face.

Everything doesn't not happen for a reason

So the other night I had a bit of a meltdown. *She says in the most casual way she knows how.*

This wonderful family that we knew in Maryland came to visit. They are lovely and it was lovely and I am really glad they came. Their cute mama is from the Philippines, and talking to her was so fun for me. I tried to remember everything I had learned about the Philippines and relate to her the things I remembered that Josh liked and he had shown me. He always had and I'm sure still has an enormous love for Filipinos, and I have grown to love them too.

She shared experiences with me that gave me immense hope that Logan will feel his dad with him his whole life.

She also brought with her some jackfruit, which comes from the Philippines. I had never heard of it, and never tried it. And I didn't know if Josh had ever tried it, or if he had, whether or not he liked it. And that infuriated me. Not because I didn't know, but because I couldn't know. It's such a simple thing, but I will never, in this lifetime, be able to ask him if he likes jackfruit. I will just never know. I would guess that he has tried it. But I don't know how he felt about it, and I just won't know for certain.

In this modern age of technology with the smart phones and the Facebooks, I can contact pretty much anyone I want from around the globe. It is increasingly frustrating to me that Angelbook is not a thing. I do believe that I will always feel his influence in some way or another in my life, and so will Logan, and many people point that out, and I appreciate the thought, I really do, but IT IS NOT THE SAME.

It's not really about the fruit in the end. That was just the tipping point. In reality, it's about the every day things I wonder about that are bigger than that. Does he feel like I'm being a good mom to our son? When he gets older, will he approve of the way I try to raise him. I was always looking forward to his input as a parent, and now I'm terrified I'm going to mess it up on my own.

SO here's another thing. See how I just smoothly switched topics all sneaky-like?

I have been very lucky in that nobody has ever told me "Everything happens for a reason." At least nobody that I remember. Maybe I just blocked it out. Because it's not an incredibly helpful thing to say. It doesn't make you go, "Oh okay, in that case everything's fine LA DEE DAAAAA." And then you merrily skip away, obviously. No, no it doesn't do that. For the most part it just makes you angry. Because what is it? What is the reason? If you can't tell me that, then don't even start.

HOWEVER. Many people in my life have vehemently held by the opposite opinion that things don't really happen for a reason. And I don't really get that either. I wish I could say I even understood what it means, although at times I have felt a little better about it than its alternative. But it doesn't actually make sense to me, and it's not really something that I accept.

Despite the fact that I don't ever want anybody to point it out to me, I have to believe that everything does happen for a reason. Maybe not everything. Maybe not the tiny little things, and I mean, we have agency on this earth, so we can choose to do things and it doesn't mean there is a grand, eternal reason behind them ...

Moving on.

The BIG things happen for a reason. That's what I believe is true. That's what I have to believe.

If there isn't a reason for Josh dying, then he didn't need to die. And yes, I also have to believe that he needed to die. I believe that if I can't sit around with him and ask him whether he has tried jackfruit, or what to do when Logan lies to me, it's because he had something important to do. (Not more important. Just important.) Otherwise, what's even the point? Why would a healthy, 24-year-old who literally just became a father, be needed so badly on the other side? I don't know. I will never know. But in order for me to make any sense of it, I have to know that he was needed. I have to know in my heart that there was a reason, or the earth is just a colossal waste of time.

And it's not a colossal waste of time.

Thank you for listening, have a picture of my son playing with bath bubbles.

Bizarro Quick Sand

I'm sitting here staring at this empty page trying to figure out what to say. And by that of course I mean that I'm sitting here looking at funny pictures on the internet while simultaneously imagining that I'm staring at the empty page trying to figure out what to say.

I always feel guilty when people send me funny pictures because I guarantee you that I've seen it already, so I just don't know how to react. I try to fake a jolly guffaw, but it just never comes out right. Maybe guffaw isn't what I should be going for. That being said, anybody who ever wants to send me a funny picture should still do it! It's like my favorite gesture of all. "Hey, I just saw this really hilarious thing that made me blow air out of my nose harder than usual, and it made me think of you, and now I'm sharing it with you BECAUSE I CARE." Funny pictures are like the flowers of the internet. Funny pictures are the funny pictures of the internet. That makes a lot more sense in my head.

Internet pictures are also informative, by the way. Basically all of my knowledge about Orlando Bloom throwing a punch at Justin Bieber came in picture form. Also, this was pointed out to me:

And I appreciate whoever thought of it.

I have no idea why I have been talking about this so long. I guess I'm just a little sick of writing about sad things on here and bringing everybody down. But I want to talk about sad things, so I'm easing you into it maybe.

It's been a crappy week. Many of you already know that it was my anniversary on Monday, which was actually a surprisingly not so bad day. I went to the temple, and got my nails done, and went to dinner and a movie with my friends. We saw the Fault in Our Stars, because I apparently I just wanted to see approximately how many tears my body could physically handle. It's a lot. But it still felt good to just get it all out.

So I had people around me all day, and that was great, and I focused on the positive. But at the end of the night I was still alone on my anniversary without my husband. And the next day I was alone. And I'm still alone. And you may be surprised to learn that it still really sucks.

This is one of those times when I find it's the most important to just keep going, even if it is the smallest, tiniest bit. For a couple days there I got stuck, and I started shutting down again. I sat around and wallowed. And nothing makes things worse than wallowing. I don't think it will be a huge shock to discover that I have struggled a bit with depression after Josh died. Things have already gotten so much better, but it's just inevitable to feel that suffering after losing someone you love.

I see my depression as something like quick sand, but also kind of the opposite of quick sand. But I don't want to call it slow sand because that doesn't really make much sense either. It's like the Bizarro world Superman but for quick sand. Bizarro Quick Sand. I call dibs on copyrights if that ends up being a comic book villain some day. I feel as though there is this thing in the pit of my heart that is my sadness. And it's never going to go away, and there will always be times when I feel it. And that's okay. But if you sit in the sand for too long and dwell on it and relent and stress over it and think and think and think about it, trying to bring reason to it or figure out what you could have done differently, then before you know it your head is in the ground and you can't breathe. And I've heard that breathing is pretty good for your health. Sometimes it's healthy for me to think about what happened to Josh. I like to remember our last moments together. But in the past, all I did was blame myself for everything that happened. I felt like every single bad moment, and every single trial, were brought about because I either didn't act or acted wrong.

I don't think that anymore. I still struggle with it, but I tell myself all the time that if there was anything that could have been done to save Josh, he would have been saved. It's not my fault. It's not anybody's fault.

So instead of sitting in a pit of sand and letting it suffocate me, the only thing I can do is get up and brush it off. I just have to keep going. Sometimes I don't feel like I have anywhere to go, but I have to go anyway. It's okay for me to take a break. It's not bad to rest. It is bad to fall asleep. In the metaphor, I mean. Sleep is okay for realsies.

I don't want anyone to think that I'm trying to explain how depression is for everyone, and I definitely don't want anyone to think I'm trying to tell people who suffer with it that this is how to get over it. This is my situation. This is how I deal with what I have to deal with. The only person I want to explain is myself, and the only person I have authority over is me.

I want to thank everyone who has reached out to me ever over the last seven and a half months. Every single word has been heard and appreciated.

And for reading all of that, I give you wise words from Ron Swanson. Don't try to read into any correlations between what I just talked about and what he's saying. It's just funny is all.

Double bonus! A picture of Logan and me! Full disclosure, my whole face was showing in this picture, but I wasn't feeling it.

Once upon a time there was a magical land where it never rained

The End!

Basically today is really horrible and bad and hard and stupid and sad and dumb and blergh.

So here are a bunch of dad jokes because they make me laugh so hard, so you should laugh so hard too. I can not guarantee that everything you might read will be 100% appropriate.

Click here for so much funny!


My dad's personal favorites: pirate jokes

Where does a pirate go to the doctor?
The CARRRdiologist
Why did the pirate go to the movie?

Because it was rated AAARRRR

What is a pirate's favorite letter?
You might guess it is AAR, but his first love be the C.

MY favorite right now:

Why doesn't Magneto wear purple anymore?
Because the days of fuchsia passed.

Troika Linda

I have serious and important things to write, but I'm in Flowell and don't have my computer. So I tried to write in on my phone and I want to use so many (at least four) pictures so that was a joke. Luckily there are computers in this house, who woulda thunk?

I know this girl

pretty well. I mean she's only been my sister my entire life, and she gave me my favorite stuffed animal (a big ol', cuddly mouse) for Christmas when I was two. So you could say we're familiar.


















When I was little, I didn't think there was a better goal in life than being just like her. I always tried my very hardest to spend all the time with her and her friends learning how to be the most awesome, and was promptly kicked out of the room. But it's okay, she liked me eventually. Coming to college and having her to hang out with and make me feel like I already had at least one friend, the coolest friend, helped me believe that I could handle what life had to throw at me.

Even now it's hard for me to not see her as the foremost authority on everything as far as how awesome it is. I remember having a conversation with my sweet sister-in-law Kimberly who had to tell me that very thing. Because obviously we were arguing about whether Taylor Swift was good, and obviously my best argument was that "Tracy likes her." (Tracy, do you even still like her?) And Kimbop was all, "Tracy isn't always right about everything" or something like that and I just laughed it off, but my mind had this reaction.



And I pretty much still just think that if Tracy likes something, it's probably the best version of whatever thing it is she likes. That sentence made sense.

She has the MOST style of anyone I've met. Even on days when she's thinks she's so lazy and looks like a hobo, she looks more put together than I am on my best day. It's pretty frustrating actually. Oh, and have you heard of her modeling career? It mostly takes place on social media, but it's pretty amazing just the same.

She's doing laundry in this one. How is that even fair??

But the most important thing is that she is a good sister who is kind and loving and wonderful. When Josh died, she hurt so much right along with me. She is still all the time telling me how much she misses him and is there  for me when I need her. She lets me be sad and cry at her and welcomes it. The first time after it happened that I laughed so hard I cried and felt comforted was with her watching The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. He had that Benjamin Buttons thing. It was the first moment that I felt like things had the potential to get better. I just love her is all.

I'm telling you all this for a reason. That reason is this:

My sister is getting married to this man and his beard. After everything I've said about how good her taste is and how awesome she is, do you think she was settle for any less than the best? He is so good for her. I can see how he loves her. I can see how she loves him. If he reads this, he is probably just gagging at all the cheesiness in what I'm writing. I don't even care, Destin! Thank you for loving my sister.Thank you for being the best person in the world for her. Thank you for writing your love in the sand, but using an anatomically correct heart.

The Catching Hunger Fire Games

I finally watched Catching Fire, and halfway through I remembered seeing the first Hunger Games movie.

I went to the midnight showing with my lovely friend Emily Zimmerman. It was the Thursday night/Friday morning after Josh and I started dating. He couldn't go because I had gotten the tickets before then and I had no idea that I would have somebody to take when the time came. As I have mentioned before, Josh told me he loved me that Friday when we went to his family's house. I had completely forgotten until about two hours ago that I had been up so late at a movie the night before.

We went to the movie, and it was great, and I was telling Emily all about this boy I was dating and somehow I had managed to smuggle a giant takeaway box (I like to say takeaway because of that one time I lived in England for six weeks) of Beto's rolled tacos into the theater. There was lettuce and guac everywhere.

On the way home, we were texting. I honestly can't remember if I texted him first, not expecting an answer, or if he texted me to see if I was okay. I do remember thinking how incredibly sweet he was to still be awake waiting up for me to make sure I got home safe. I was still telling Emily about him after the movie, and with him texting me, I looked over at my friend and said, "Emily... I think this kid loves me." And then she was like, "you've been dating for like four days." And I knew that, but it just felt like it was coming, and then we all know that it did.

So that's crazy.

For the next two minutes, it is five months ago today that Josh died.

People always say how strong I am and how amazing I've been through all of this blah blah blah.

I still believe all the things I've said before. I still know that I will see Josh again.

It's not helping at the moment.

It doesn't take away the pain.

I miss him very much.

And I am so, so sad.