Monday letters

Hello! I've come to love writing my thoughts from a week of good missionary work. Why does it have to stop now? Nope, not gonna stop. So, I've decided to keep writing my weeklies sometimes because it honestly helped me see how much God's hand was in my life that week, and how much I'm grateful for it.

 This week has been spectacular. I'm starting to get used to life as a real person again. A new me a new year a whole new world. For new years eve I got to be with my family! I got to hold a baby again for a good long while. I loved staring into her face as she peacefully slept and dreamt of Heavenly days. I loved all the snacks scattered all over the counter, with warm cookies in the oven and all sorts of creative concoctions that you can dip chips in.

 Speaking of chip dip, I love our tradition of homemade chip dip on Christmas. There's something about it that makes me go crazy! and I can't stop eating it and eating it even when my stomach is screaming stop! I love the holidays.

 I'm so grateful for a mom who's whole life revolves around caring for us. Being home from a mission is something I've never experienced before. I have all sorts of strange feelings and thoughts and emotions. It can be just plain hard. My mom doesn't exactly know how I feel but she knew she could do what mamas do best, be there for their kids. We had companion study at the kitchen table (after she made me roasted red pepper soup with toasted sourdough bread and gruyere cheese) I cried as we read the white handbook again, the words filled my soul with gratitude for my experiences I've had these past 18 months. She showed me how to be a normal person again and took me to the place on earth where life becomes fair...the temple. I felt the strength of my Heavenly Father fill every ounce of my being as I pondered and listened and learned in His house. I love picturing people there as I walk down the street, thinking how much peace and pure joy would come if they could just make it to the temple. Everyone deserves to go.

 I've been trying to keep up on studying. I love how delicious each word of the Book of Mormon feels as I now have all the time in the world to read and apply it to my life. I know that book is true with all my heart. It has been a source of comfort every time I need it, which turns out to be a lot in this crazy world of wickedness and disappointment. How could I live without the constant flow of words from my God in my life? I am humbled at how much He loves us to give us all these books to tell us plain and simply.

 I've noticed that Alaska has permanently changed my view of nature. I feel so appreciative of each detail that surrounds me as soon as I step outside. A calm, meditative feeling of peace can immediately fill me if I think to let it. My steps are a little lighter and my cares are so tiny sometimes I think they don't even exist.

 I miss the simplicity of a mission. Life really was so simple and full of joy. I want it to stay.

 I got to talk to Ronnie on the phone! I love when she calls, she is full of love and always expresses it. I love how much she can talk about her cute grandkids and what joy she finds in the simplest things, like how her grandson was smearing cake all over his face, and how it was the best day ever. Nothing so complex.

 Had you been there tonight
You might know how it feels
To be struck to the bone
In a moment of breathless delight!
 Had you been there tonight
You might also have known
How the world may be changed
In just one burst of light!
 And what was right
Seems wrong
And what was wrong
Seems right...

 I can't get that stanza out of my head, it just keeps replaying (from Les Miserables "Red and Black). It seems fitting for today for some reason.

 I miss you!
and love you,
exSister Alyssa Watson

:....quick....sand....:

Theres a small dry bit of sand left in my hand and it's sinking through my fingers at a speed that's a little too fast for my current liking. There's so many things to say, but so little time. There's so much to align, but it keeps getting jumbled. I feel like I don't have time to purposefully dip a book in a lake and read the crinkly pages, or be at the top of a mountain with my legs stinging. I liked how Kendis said: Don't put off doing something when the thought comes, just do it then, or you never will. Like buying a cushion for the bucket chairs, it's been 2 years, and still no cushions. When the thought comes, why don't we just do it? What else are we doing?

Despite all this, there's something about the thought of it that makes me giddy with excitement, an incredible excitement that I've never experienced before, and could never explain.

I saw this painting at the San Diego Museum of Art. It was so beautiful, it made my mother cry.

El Greco, The Penitent Saint Peter. 1590-95

Button That Top Button.

My mom and sister have been threatening to cut off all the top buttons on all my collared shirts for my mission. What is it about awesome that they don't understand? Theres something so great about that one little detail that completely transforms a boring ordinary collared shirt into a shabby nerd/gangster/oxfordy/librariany/beautiful piece of clothing which happens to be ***bonus*** super modest.

I guess it's the only way I can justify wearing those shirts because they never look quite right on me. I can't take myself seriously when that fabric is dangling open, it looks sloppy. I can't help that I love the way the collar looks when it's closed. There are so many different shape of collars, which make it fun. Some of them point straight down or point off into different directions, some are long and some are short, it's a surprise waiting to be discovered, and you'll never know until you do it.

I met a boy at Called to Surf who completely supports my BTTB Movement (see post title), as well as Seany, both opinions which I trust, so who's with me?

Wisdom

Handwritten 6: Little Loves

I've been noticing scribbles people write down, and I love it! Every time my mom leaves town and we have to house sit, we get the best notes of all time posted on every inch on the house, they make me laugh out loud every time I see them. Then there's Jen's little scribbles all over every piece of scrap paper in the house. I have to save them all because some day they will be as precious as Picasso's sketches. Little critters and creatures and cuddly squishy blobs with eyes and circle cheeks. I'm beginning to collect these little pieces of paper people leave around, it's a little trail of their lives and I want that part to be remembered the most because it's the real them, their real handwriting, their trail of thoughts left behind. Sorry they're all a little fuzzy...

Jen's lil man cat doodle

Found on a notepad at my mom's house.
The notes around the house before a trip , love that some of them are from 'the management' haha






The best love note from my favorite girl Karli at church. xxnarwalsxx <3

p.s. pretty song cover <>

Handwritten 5

It makes so much sense now why this was my favorite joke to tell when I was little, and why my ultimate favorite movie was Balto, and how I spent countless hours making snow igloos with snow igloo bedrooms and snow igloo kitchens, and how I never took my coat off when I got to class in elementary school, and how I recently acquired a taste for Salmon even though I've hated sea food my whole life, and how I could sit in the front living room of my apartment with Kelsey talking about narwhals for hours at a time.
At first it was shocking, but now it just makes sense.

Yes, they really do have narwhals in Alaska.

Handwritten 4

I'm going on an adventure! I don't know where yet, but in two days I'll be by the sea and the ship will sail in the right direction. Wish you could come.

Handwritten 3

Handwritten 2

Doyald Young
One time, for 6 months, I tried to draw the two letters "B&L" together in a script font. I tried hard, but something always seemed off, one tiny little curve or the shape of a swish, it just never was cohesive. So, today I am appreciating Doyald Young and his dedication and love for typography, one of the most challenging occupations, that doesn't get enough credit.

Handwritten.

<3, Sufjan.

It's a living breathing blog with blood pumping through it's heart, and feeling coming back into it's fingertips, aspiring to be better, with more inspiration, more life, more information translated into it's own perspective until it becomes tangible gibberish.

Uhhhh no.

Maybe I should go to fashion design school and make my own sister missionary mall...

More like this:

Karli Alyn Sibliss

WHY DO I HAVE THE MOST AMAZING FRIENDS IN THE WORLD?
I don't want to know. Just let me have them.

It's all about Karli.
Everytime I look at her, I get hit hard in the stomach with a flying ball of laughies.
Sometimes it makes sense
but most of the time it don't.
She don't care if my grammar ain't right.
She is a greek goddess.
She don't care if there's surprises in the John waiting for her.
There's never been a person with more sunshine in their face (except the teletubby baby sunshine)
I love when she says the word "treat!?"
I love the smell of her yellow bug.
And how we always start movies at 2am and think it's a good idea.
I love her sniffly nose,
and the way she eats a Yogurtland, like a perfectly practiced symphony.
Whenever she leaves, I want her to come back.
It's like you think you have friends, and then you do.
I'm glad we got to be in a relationship for 2 minutes on facebook.
Sorry I broke up with you, but it looked like we were really dating.
If I were a boy, I'd date her.
Nobody would treat you better.
Awkward.
I love how it takes 10 minutes to say goodnight,
and the only thing that's said over and over
is I love you, I love you I love you so much. oh I love you. I love you I do.

Read her blog http://blissfullyaesthetic.blogspot.com/

Can I be like...

I wish I did that?

Welcome to Fontevraud from Francis Cutter & Vincent Nguyen on Vimeo.

I'm Only a Woman, of Flesh and Bones.

Dear wife-beater-wearing-no-good-dirty-rotton-hole-digger-sweet-pea-sugar-lips,

I've never had so many 12-year old boys moments in my life than this past month. That may have to do with hanging out with sophistically immature people evry livin day and talking like I'm from the dirty south for a week straight. I've had a permanent southern bell accent ever since a midnight run to the hospital, which resulted in a 2-hour conversation on foot corns fried up real nice in ambiotic fluids along with dutch oven regurgitated 2nd breakfasts. I reckon my humor has hit the hogs, but I ain't ashamed no more. No I ain't, I reckon ever girl goes through a time in her life where ever thing she ever knew feels sliperier than a snot covered doorknob. My mama wanted to whop me upside the head, but I ain't gonna let no mama give me a lickin. Anyhow, I reckon I'll never grow up ter be a well-mannered lady, things just keep on getting way too funny for me to turn down a good ol' knee-slappin' belly-achin' laugh. Don't ever be what they want you to be, or you gonna let the good things in life pass you by. I'm an educated woman, I don't dig no holes.

p.s. in case you were wonderin', and I know you were, type this ~@~ into good ol' gmail chat and get a good laugh for me.

Much Obliged.

Ms. Watson.

No I durn can't get enough of this song neither.

Random great things from today

Symmetry from Everynone on Vimeo.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. Iti sour light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presense automatically liberates others.
- Marianne Williamson

Simply Put.

I've been realizing the best things are always so simple. Like friends, who love you for who you are and teach you how to baby talk.

Untitled from alyssa watson on Vimeo.

When it's simple, I want time to stand still.
It's laying on the floor with your heads together saying whatever comes to mind first. It's clipping the ends off of flowers and putting them in fresh water. It's that excited/retarded little jump you always want to do when you randomly see someone you just want to spend all your time with. It's sitting on a dock with crispy fresh french fried potatoes dreaming of the future ahead, but not caring, cause your young. It's the crunch of your steps on a gritty gravel path. Its that sweet-spot of discovered chords played on the piano, over and over.
It's the final touch on a homemade card.
It's always just ashley's baby talk that makes me giggle uncontrollably.

Why English is Hard.

We have the best discussions in class...

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is "UP"

It's easy to understand: UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP and why are th eofficers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?

We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP and appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is ordinary, but to be dressed UP is special.

And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can have UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of th emany ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. But when the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it messes things UP. When it doesn't rain for a while, things dry UP.

Can you think of more?

The best movie is UP.
You break UP when things don't work out.
The top of your booty's jigglin out those jeans, baby pull your pants UP
Wrap it UP and shut UP
It's time to set UP shop and keep UP to speed.
Sit UP straight and stay UP late
I'll be UP UP and away UP UP and away
My time is UP.

Just Between Us.

Sometimes I wish...

sunday nights would never end
time was slower
everyone had a moustache like mario's
laughter would never die down
I was JB's fav girl
everything didn't have to make sense
your socks didn't have to match
you never had to choose a last word.

jaymay

she keeps coming back.

click

November 4

it's a lovely thing to think about, but is it a distort, a kaleidoscope that hopes for color, for dreams and inspiration, of course it is true, but the perfect tint makes everything look good.