No Tartar Sauce

Okay people, I am home for Christmas, and I just cooked myself up some delicious fish. I wanted to enjoy it with some tartar sauce--something I thought would be standard fare in any refrigerator. I always love coming home because of the amount of food constantly available at the house. But,

Turns out at my house we have
* more than five bottles of fresh salsa bottles written entirely in Spanish,
* a couple bottles of Italian sauces written exclusively in Italian,
* a jar of capers (which admittedly I snacked on during my hunt),
* a couple jars of green olives,
* three bottles of horseradish sauce,
* a couple containers of lime and lemon juice, among other "normal" condiments.

No Tartar sauce.

What is this, the end of days?

Selling Furniture/Moving Outta This Place!

I will accept the best offer for these items. I also have a floral print couch and a green papasan chair, both of which are not photographed, for free. Let me know!



7' Vintage couch with chair: $35 (comes with the large, matching chair below)



Large, comfortable matching chair (comes with set)




Tweed Chair $15



Dresser Drawers--Pottery Barn Style SOLD



Wood Desk (comes with a matching, cushioned chair not pictured) SOLD



Buffet $10



Book shelf: SOLD




Coffee Table SOLD

My Ex-s Have The Best Ex-s

Okay so I'm not going into details because it's too long and I don't have time. But what's been on my mind recently are all the girls I've met recently who have dated my ex-boyfriends. Can I just tell you...I count myself lucky to have been attractive to the same guys who get to date these wonderful ladies.

Too often I think women get really catty and jealous when confronted with their arch enemies. As one of my ex's can attest (as he signed onto my Facebook account and stalked my chat conversations long after we broke up), my favorite people in the world are not naturally inclined to be the females that used to date my favorite boys. But why not?

I mean, seriously. We at least have one thing in common--that we broke up with the guy. On top of that, the guy was attracted to something in us that probably made us similar. In each instance, I've bumped into my ex-boyfriend's ex's and have LOVED them. Seriously, they are the most remarkable women.

One of them remembered my name, what I was studying, and my future goals from meeting me a year ago when she dated my ex. Another one of them invited me to her wedding group on Facebook. Another one called me her friend and suggested that we are so much alike. In every single case where I've actually gotten to know them, I am blown away.

Who are my heroes? My ex-boyfriends' ex-girlfriends. Hands down.

PURE LOVE

For the purposes of an update, I'm now a band manager. I officially manage 5 different Provo bands from 3 different genres. And I go to law school. And I am a recruiter for BYU. And I work for the state's largest (and really only)entertainment law firm. And I seriously, seriously love my life. Like seriously. And just when I thought it could not get any better, I opened my email and found this:

href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPLMwI1wabE&feature=player_embedded">

Outta Control

Another deep post. Here goes...

In high school was the first time I learned that I had offended someone close to me. Our coach noticed that another Mormon girl didn't attend early morning seminary, so she was always able to make practice on time. He asked me about it and said, "Aren't all good Mormons supposed to go to seminary?" I answered, "No. The only thing is probably that you have a little harder time getting into BYU if you don't."

Somehow my coach thought it would be funny to go up to this other Mormon girl (who was in my ward and my Laurel's class with me) and say, "Sara said you're not a good Mormon because you don't attend seminary."

You can see how 1) this was completely not what I said, and 2) how that would be completely offensive to the person to whom it was directed. After the damage was done, I tried to repair it by explaining to my coach that that wasn't a funny joke and that he needed to apologize to this girl and let her know that I actually did not say that.

Too late. You know those moments when you just get wedged into your head one idea and hardly anything will change your mind on it? Yeah, I think this is what happened to this girl. She never talked to me again. Ok I take that back. I think I saw her at the temple once right before my mission and she was there for a wedding. I think I got a "Hello."


So this event had a huge, huge impact on my life. See, for weeks, months, and arguably YEARS later, I tried to repair this damage that I felt like I didn't really cause. I saw the hurt, and I saw how valid she was in thinking that it emanated from me. I seriously tried everything: service, cute notes, going through mutual friends, treats, everything. For the first time in my life, I felt like a total utter failure.

But I learned one thing about relationships: SOME THINGS ARE OUT OF YOUR CONTROL. And when you come across one of those situations, there's really a two-step process: 1) You do everything in your power at the time to remedy the situation, and 2) You let it go and respect their agency.

I have been repeatedly reminded of this principle over and over again the last three month with many different people. Perhaps that shows my weakness--that I cannot solve my own problems effectively. But you know what? It is what it is. I am me, and I am trying my best and sometimes my best isn't good enough for people.

So for all you whom I have offended, again and again for the rest of my life and forever, I am deeply sorry and would gladly do anything else to try to repair it if I actually knew what more would help. And the fact that I have stopped trying is a sign that I feel there's nothing more I can do and I am on to step 2: I just have to let it go.

I'll wait forever for the other person to use their agency to forgive, forget, and let go of their feelings and be cool with me. But I think I should give them their space and allow them to do that at their own pace and not try to force them to be cool with it.

Seriously, this has been one of the hardest things to learn. I really do love people--I love all people. I guess I just haven't mastered perfectly how to show my love individually. Any ideas or insight is always welcome.

Love, Sara

When To Hold and When To Fold

How much worth is it to invest everything in a friendship, at the expense of other relationships, money, sleep, and principles?

Doesn't Jesus say that it's the second great commandment--to love our neighbors as ourselves? So how can I best fulfill this commandment? Any answers? Hypothetically speaking of course.

Flirting with admissions...Texas style

So apparently I got busy last week (go figure) and wasn't able to finish--or even continue--my series on past boyfriends. For another day and time, folks. Until then, I'll tell you that I've been thinking a lot lately about when I applied for college. I just got a job as a high school recruiter for BYU, and I'm remembering all I went through to apply and select a school.

One thing I was particularly proud of was my admission essay. I remembered advice given to me by my senior English teacher, Ms. Brown, when she told us to make our essays creative and memorable. I took that advice very seriously. So for my 200-word essay on how I prepared to come to BYU, this is what I wrote:

Here in Texas, everything is big; molehills are mountains, drizzles are floods. If something must happen, it happens in extremes. And so it happened that this southern belle prepared herself extremely for the demands of higher education.

Mere participation in fine arts escalated into a mountain when I made competitive region orchestra and region drama. I also received the highest honors in speech and violin for various tournaments.

Serving as laurel president and leader in stake youth council, I elevated my Y-Mount into Mount Everest. I composed music for beehives to play in church. I went with missionaries to help activate youth in a ward. Writing the stake's New Beginnings program added snow to my summit. Remembering I must build others' mountains as well, I devoted last summer to tutoring children in math and reading.

My academics were no Carolina creek, either. I drenched the embankments of a high school education with participation in AP classes and National Honor Society. This, combined with my leadership roles in school and service organizations kept my Rio Grande flowing.

I have filled my Texas taco with the meat of the gospel and the flavorings of arts and rigorous academics. Doesn't it look tasty?

What do you think? I'm still so proud of it, although it's extremely juvenile. Looking back, it seems risky that I would write something so flippant. But I got in, so...

Dating Lesson Number 1

You know when they say that before you die, you see your life flash before your eyes? Lately my mind has been flooded by the lessons learned from past relationships. You could say it’s flashing before my eyes. Hopefully that’s a sign that my single life is soon to be over.

But in honor of my recent flashbacks, and due to the fact that I found out some friends need their frequent rule19 fix, I’m going to start blogging more diligently again. I will be blogging about the lessons learned from past relationships. I feel like I've changed and become better with each one. Hopefully that's true.

Now as I speak about past relationships, I don’t want anyone to feel defamed. So some names have been changed where appropriate. When it’s not appropriate (such as the guy will never read this blog, I kind of want to use actual names; you know…to keep it real.) I also want to make it entertaining so I'm going to diligently reflect on each relationship and compare my relationship with a character in popular culture, mostly from TV or movies.

So here we go with installment one: first boyfriend, Sam.

With Sam, I was April from Parks and Recreation.



Why April? Because she likes to create drama. She dates a boy who is sometimes gay, who also has a boyfriend who's always gay. If things weren't so weird, she probably wouldn't be involved in this relationship.

So Dating Lesson Number One: Relationships are more fun when you can have them without drama.

I met Sam in my high school video tech class. He was the class clown. He was also extremely smart. So right when I first started dating, I knew generally what I was attracted to (funny genius boys). But what I loved most about Sam was that he was Jewish. I thought it would create a stir. I was the stereotypical "Mormon girl" in my school and I thought it would create a buzz if we started dating. We started dating around Christmas time (or Hanukkah I guess) when school was almost out so we didn't have time for people to see that we were dating. When we came back from break, I tried to spread it around in a very controversial way--spread my own salacious rumor about my own relationship.

Unfortunately for Sam it didn't work. People kind of thought it was weird but when they'd ask, "Isn't that against your religion?" I didn't want people to get false doctrine so I used the opportunity to talk about temple marriage but also tell me it's fine to date whomever. No drama.

So then I tried to create drama using my power position in the school. For 90-minutes every other day, I was an administrative assistant in the principal's office. Frequently I would use the pink hall passes (I was able to get people out of class with them to come to the principal's office) to get Sam out of class. We'd find an empty room and just chill for the period. After once getting caught from my speech teacher (who held in his hand the power to revoke me from the traveling team), I decided the drama wasn't worth it. Little Sammy and I only lasted a month.

He's now got himself a hot Jewish girlfriend, a bachelor's from University of Texas and a stable job at Microsoft in Seattle.

Stay tuned tomorrow when we examine Brandon, who filled my desire to date a jock...and subsequently helped me learn why I hate that.

Oh Danny Boy

Most people have bad things to say about their ex-boyfriends/girlfriends. For Daniel, I tried and tried and tried to think of something bad. I got nothing.



Daniel's a first-year law student at the top of his class at Arizona State. We met when I was a first-year law student at BYU and he was applying to schools. Same ward. His minor was my undergrad major. His political ideals matched my dads. We're both Texans. We're both outspoken. He's close to--or one of my--or I hope he doesn't read this blog and think I'm sappy or lame for saying this because I'm supposed to be unemotional --maybe my best guy friend. Just super chill. A great influence. All around great guy.

This is Daniel seducing a goat, the day after my birthday (2008); the day before we got together...officially?



He's in town this week for spring break. If this were Facebook, I would "like" this.

Anal Girl?

Call me crazy, but is it weird for me to find a text on my boyfriend's phone to another girl telling her that he loves her?

Sure, yeah. Maybe he loves her platonically.

But is it weird if he hasn't ever told me that he loves me? And he's known both of us just as long?

You know, I guess he's right when he tells me girls just like to create lots of drama.