plant girl

dear love,

i like plants. i love the way they look inside or outside, tall or big, flowers or no flowers. plants just bring life to a place. one time i even planted a tree in thailand.

because of my love for plants, i am officially the "plant girl" at work. i fill up our little pitcher and walk around the office watering the plants. it takes me about 5 pitchers full before i finish. we have a wide range of plant life in the office. keeps us healthy. keeps us happy.

on to a more important note: i was walking to work this morning and i realized something major. i saw the landscape crew right by the SWKT working their little buns off. these guys (and girls!) are for reals. they wear their grunge jeans and their i-dont-care-what-i-look-like shirts and they just work hard all day. i always see them on campus and think nothing of it. today was different though. i realized today how much i secretly want to be one of those people. i want to wear gloves and break my back bending over and use a shovel once in a while.

ok seriously

dear love,

i was walking home from work the other day and i realized i REALLY had to go pee. like, there was not going to be a way to make it home. so i stopped in the JSB on my way back and ran to the bathroom. on my way, i saw this:

i did a double take and didn't give it the attention it deserved because i had to pee so bad. but when i got out of the bathroom i snapped the pic and i just want to say a few things about to this girl, whoever she may be.

first i would say, "hi. how are you? are things going okay in your life?" then after a little small talk i would dig deeper, you know, get to the core of who she is. "so when you were studying that day, what exactly was going through your mind? did you just get new undies and you wanted to show them off to the world? or maybe you thought boys would totally dig the posish (pronounced 'puh-zish', emphasis on the 'zish') you were laying down in? or maybe it was just comfy and you had no idea how suggestive it looked." after we became best friends, i would kindly tell her that she should probably not do that anymore. the end.

another confession

dear love,

i used to be a little obsessed with watching oprah...there, i said it! i don't really know why and how the obsession started, but it began some time during high school. when my parents got tivo, i would come home from practice and chill on the couch and check out what oprah had going on for the day. i have to admit, i think she helped me become a better person. here are some things i've learned from oprah winfrey: (let me just say that i'm kinda joking and kinda not here)

• there are lots of sexual predators. don't trust just anyone with your children.
• people look a lot better on her show than when the cameras surprise them at their houses. makeovers? mmhmm.
• she did shows about eating disorders and all kinds of other issues specific to the teenage years. i was really scared from the pictures and interviews with anorexic and bulimic people.
• i think i kinda learned to love myself more. appreciate who i am. (i don't know?!)

anyway, the list goes on. my point is, i went through a little time period where oprah was a dear friend of mine. we hung out after school and sometimes even on weekend nights (nerd!). my freshman year of college, i actually kind of attempted to schedule my classes to not be a 4:00 so that i could chill a little by the tv and see what oprah had to say that day. the past few years i have grown less and less attached. it's all apart of a healthy evolving relationship.

today, however, i find myself at work during the time that oprah is on. i'm finding myself wanting to be home so that i can watch oprah...out of nowhere! what the?

guess what?

dear LOVE,

so i haven't written on my blog in for-e-ver (said like the classic sandlot boys) because i've only had one thing on my mind lately and it's been a little bit of a secret. but now it's not a secret anymore and i'm going to shout it on the roof tops, i tell ya!

I AM GOING TO BE MRS. PAIGE SMATHERS. that's right, i'm engaged! it happened officially last tuesday night and it was perfect. he proposed where we met last august on one knee and everything. the sun was setting behind mount nebo and the rest of the scenery was this beautiful shade of deep green from all the rain we've been getting. he said this cute little speech and we both just soaked the moment in. it was perfect!

spelunking

dear love,

a few days ago, i went spelunking. that's right, spelunking. it was such a thrill and super scary but i was a little bit proud of myself that i did it!

spe·lunk·er (sp -l ng k r, sp l ng -). n. One who explores caves chiefly as a hobby; a caver. i.e. paige henry.

this wasn't some cave you pay money to go in and walk around with pretty lights and see the cool things caves had to offer. oh no, this cave was in the side of a mountain where it was obvious only a few people had ever really seen before. the cave was suuuuper narrow. we had to squeeze through a couple of extremely tight spots. we're talking one more pound on me and i wouldn't have made it through. for a while all we could do was have our buns on one wall and our feet on the other and just shimmy our way completely vertical for about 25 feet. and then we finally reached a place where you couldn't go any further and we knew we had conquered the cave!

happy future mother's day!

your heart

dear love,

sometimes you give someone a piece of your heart on a pretty silver platter. it's the scariest thing because that person could do anything they want with something that is so intimately yours and yours only. you hand it over apprehensively, with one hand halfway covering your eyes so you can still see a little out of the cracks your fingers make. you sit and wait once it's handed over, you search the person's face for any indication of what is going to happen to that part of you that you just offered them. will it be squashed or used or cheated on or taken advantage of? or will it be listened to, loved, nurtured, and comforted?

sometimes people exceed your expectations. sometimes they take the piece of your heart you gave them and wrap their arms around you and tell you that everything is going to be okay.