A CHRISTMAS STORY

'Twas the night before Christmas:

Christmas of '97 to be exact, and my mother had forgotten to get some Christmas jammies for me and my older sister. By the time she realized this, all of the stores were closed. 

So she got the genius idea to grab one of our old blankets from the closet and sew us up some robes out of it. 

After a few hours of hard labor, she finished and wrapped them up, just in time. On her account, she was actually pretty pleased with the makeshift job she did and so she proudly presented them to us.

My sister and I excitedly unwrapped them as fast as we could. 

The second we could see them, my sister lifted a corner of hers with two fingers and said, "What is it?" Just as I got a huge and genuine smile on my face and said in the most enthusiastic way I could, "RAGS!!!" 

My mom laughed so hard that she had tears, and my dad thought she was crying because they were ugly.

(Which they were. Sorry mom. But good job, though.)

And that is literally everything you need to know about me all wrapped up in one story. 

Merry Christmas, everybody.

Sincerely,

Jess

JUST SOME STUFF ABOUT ME

I'm going to tell you about myself.

I actually hate talking about myself. I get annoyingly uncomfortable when the conversation is directed on me and my life; but, somehow, writing it is easier. Is it possible for me to just direct people to this post when they ask about my life? Maybe I could fix up some QR code that I can pass around to potential suitors. I'll see if I can work on that.

1) I love lists. Lists make me feel organized. So naturally it's just going to have to be listed.

2) I hate it when things aren't organized or clean, but don't mind a little mess. I know that it makes no sense.

3) If I could describe myself in three words it would be a sarcastically sassy sweetheart.

4) I have a thing for alliterations.

5) My favorite compliment in the whole world is a compliment on my humor. I love to make people happy, and I always feel like I've done a good job at that if I can make them laugh. In my opinion, laughter is the most beautiful thing it the world.

6) I'm getting a little specific so I guess I'll broaden it out again. My name is Jessica Erin Walker. My initials spell JEW: fun fact.

7) I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

8) I have two loving parents, a married older sister who doubles as my best friend, an incredible brother-in-law, two rambunctious little brothers, and a darling little niece. I love them more than everything in the whole world combined. Even when I hate them, I love them.

9) I use too many adjectives.

10) I'm the wonderful age of twenty.

That's all. There's obviously more about me, but that'd be a little boring if I told you everything about me, right?

So see ya.

Sincerely,
Jess

SPIRITUAL SUNDAY: ON LOVE.

I believe in love at first sight.

Why? I'm a lover.

I love people. Of all shapes and sizes. Of all personalities and backgrounds. I have yet to meet someone who I have not loved at first sight, to be honest.

But can I tell you something? There are two different kinds of love in my mind. There's love, and then there's the other kind of love. I've never experienced the other kind of love--like love love--the kind of love that gives you butterflies, and makes you want marry a person and be with them for the rest of forever.

But I want to. I hope to. I think I'm trying to love someone like that. Not a specific someone; I'm not even sure if I have met my someone yet. But I do know that I'm looking.

And this is what else I know about love love. I know that it's not just about me and my man. It's about me and my man and my Heavenly Father. No love can be real, eternal love without the companionship of the Father.

And so, in my search for that love--the deep, true love--I turn to my Heavenly Father often. As a matter of fact, I pray about it almost daily.

Today was one of those days that I prayed a lot about it. Because today I felt a little scared of love. Today I felt like I would never be able to choose someone who would fit right into my life. I basically prayed that Heavenly Father would let me skip all of the searching and just pick the man that was right for me. I sort of hoped He would send me some sort of sign saying, "Hey, this guys is the one! Date him. Marry him." Because that would be so much easier.

And He answered my prayer by nudging me to read my patriarchal blessing. My blessing is a very personal thing so I won't tell you much about it, but I will tell you that when it talks about my husband, it doesn't go into detail. However it does say that I will marry "a young man of [my] choosing". Usually this is a part that I skip over, but today I stopped on it for a moment.

A man of my choosing.

There was a point in my life that this part of my blessing sort of bothered me. I was actually a little sad that it didn't spell out who this man was: What he looked like, where he was from, where I was going to meet him, maybe even his name? But I didn't get any of that. I just got a man who I chose.

Now I realize that promise is incredibly significant. Because those simple words aren't completely about me and my relationship with my future husband. They're also about me and my relationship with my Heavenly Father. To me, it means that He trusts me. He trusts me to make one of the biggest decisions I will ever make. He knows that I will be able to come to Him with my thoughts and feelings and He will help me make the right choice for me.

That trust is so much more important to me than a sign. It is everything to me that my Heavenly Father knows me, loves me, and trusts me. He trusts that I will make the decisions that will one day allow me and my eternal companion--my companion who I chose--to live with him again.

And that is incredibly comforting.

Sincerely,
Jess

P.S. I didn't tell you a whole lot here, but if you would like to know more about what I believe follow this link to learn more.

A POEM.

I saw you today,
and the memories
came flooding back.
It was as if your voice
turned on a faucet within me.
My heart began pumping
water through my veins
until my whole body
was drowning.
Water poured from my mind,
and began to drip out of my eyes.
My soul swam and swam,
but eventually I was no more than
a drop in the ocean.
It was then that I realized
you don't need water
to drown.
-A.T.

I don't know who A.T. is. But I like him/her. Because this poem speaks to me. Just thought I'd let you know.

Sincerely,
Jess

ACCIDENTS HAPPEN

Can I tell you something embarassing?

I got into a car accident a couple of weeks ago. 

Can I tell you something else? 

It's actually kind of a funny story, if you take away the part that I caused about $35,000 in damage... that's not a fun part of the story. 

As a matter of fact, there's a reallllly small portion of the story that's actually fun. But a lot of it is funny! And laughing at myself is one of my favorite past times. 

So here: This is the story of my very first car accident. 

I guess I'll start out with the moment I woke up that day. I'm just going to tell you right now: I am NOT a morning person. The only words I could use to describe myself in the morning would be one big mess. But this morning I was particularly disheveled and slightly incoherent. And just to add to the mess, we had to wake up especially early that morning to get ready for a performance that we had right after practice that day. I remember thinking 3 times: "I should probably grab my poms." Naturally, I didn't, and when I showed up to practice, they told me that I should go back to my apartment to get them. And do it quick. 

So I left. I ran to my car, jumped in, and sped off, secretly trying to race some other teammates who also forgot their poms (everything's a competition for me... it's a blessing and a curse) 

I stopped at the stop sign on my way out of the parking lot, about to turn onto a main road. I remember thinking at least 30 things at once (as usual). To name a few: 

"I should have grabbed my poms in the first place. I knew I was going to need them." 

"I was going to get coach a birthday card.... but her birthday is today. Should I quickly grab one on my way back? Is it too late if I get her one tomorrow?" 

"Okay, but I'm pretty lucky I got to get out of practice for the next couple of minutes." 

"Why am I going this way? I never go this way."

"I hate *leapfrog." 

*Leapfrog: A particularly sucky pyramid that we do in said performance.

"Is this even the fastest way? Do you think it'd be faster if I went left or right? or left?"

"Yeah, I'm going left."

And then I ran right into a big green FJ. (just P.S. before the incident, FJs have been one of my least favorite cars. This experience just cemented that.) 

The following is a picture of his car (found on his Facebook by a mutual friend) I was a little too flustered to think of actually taking a picture of my own car. 

But I did get to take home a little souvenir. This what used to be my license plate: 

As you can see, I ran into him hard. I actually hit the side of the car that you can't see, but I hit it so hard that I sort of tipped it. 

I obviously freaked out. Actually, for the first couple of minutes (I think that's how long it was; I think I was in shock so it may have been longer...) I just stared into my rear view mirror at the car behind me that was just hanging out on its side. Then my senses kicked in and I realized that I should probably A) see if he was okay, and B) call 911. I think that's what they told me to do in driver's ed. So I grabbed my phone and hopped out of my car. 

Reasons why I'm the luckiest person ever:

1. I was so close to crying my eyes out. SO close. But I was determined to be brave about it. And I know that if I had to talk to 911 and/or my parents at that moment, I would have broken down. So the first thing that I was blessed with in the situation was a lot of friendly people who had already pulled over, checked on the other driver (he was completely fine) and called 911 for me. They said that they were on their way and to hold tight in my car while I waited for them. I'm very thankful for those people who took control of the situation when I couldn't. 

2. My mom didn't answer her phone at that moment. See reason number one for the explanation on why that was a blessing. 

3. My airbags didn't go off. I've been told by multiple people that I most likely would have gotten hurt if they would have. 

4. Neither one of us got hurt. 

Reasons why I'm the unluckiest person ever:

1. I totaled both cars.... I think that's reason enough. 

So anyway, onto the funny part. We got all of that car crash stuff figured out, and I ran off to do my performance. We did great. My mom finally answered. I cried. My dad called. I cried. Both were surprisingly okay with it. They we're just "happy no one got hurt". I think they mostly just wanted me to stop crying. 

Anyway. About a week later, I got a call from the boy who I ran into (who, by the way, is still named "Alex the boy you ran into" in my phone) He called to make sure that I was still doing okay. Which is way nice of him. I obviously felt way bad for running into him because that's not a nice thing to do, so I said, "I'm SO sorry. If there's anything I can do for you, let me know!" and he said, "Actually there is something that you could do for me. I wanna go out to dinner this week, and I want you to come with me." 

Oh. So apparently sometimes when you crash into people they ask you out on dates. I'm a newbie to this whole 'accident' thing so I wouldn't know. 

And that's how the story of Jessica's very first accident went.

Having experienced all of this, here's my advice for you concerning cars: Don't crash into other people. I promise that it's not fun. 

Sincerely,

Jess

SOCK GAME

Today, I made plans to have no plans just so I could sit in my room and do absolutely nothing but clean, watch movies, and Pinterest ALL day.

So naturally, I haven't changed out of my PJ's since I woke up.

Which means that my sock game is killlling it right now. See? --->

Those came straight from Alaska. So that's about as cool as my day gets.

Which is what makes these lazy Saturdays so great.

Sincerely,
Jess

P.S. Don't mind the fact that I look orange... The lighting in my room likes to do that to me.

FIRST POST

Remember that one time I started a blog back in 2009? And then another one in 2010? And then another in 2012? I guess it's about time that I started over again... let's just hope it's the last time I try that.

So here. New blog. New look. Same author, but a new attitude on life. Which makes all the difference.

Sincerely,
Jess