on how the scriptures are the COOLEST!

So we're STILL WAITING to hear from BYU, W&L, and the University of Richmond about law school.  It's been two months!  Sheesh.  On a positive note, Ave Maria (see previous post about acceptance there) tracked down one of their LDS students from Idaho to call Ricky and talk to him about the school!  How amazing is that?  I mean, it's a Catholic school, so Mormon kids from ID are probably pretty rare. :)  It definitely wouldn't be a bad choice--the school is on the Gulf Coast of FL, four hours (driving) from Key West, two hours from Miami, and they offered Ricky a half-tuition scholarship!  (Plus, you don't have to be teacher certified to get hired as a teacher in Florida...you only have to be qualified to be certified, and then you can start certification after you start teaching.  I could definitely live with that!)  But, we'll see. 

Oh yes, and about the title of the post--Ricky and began reading the Book of Mormon together a year ago this month, and (except for a few weeks of the summer when I was doing efy) we've read a chapter (half a chapter for the long ones) every day since then.  Well, we're not quite done yet, but last night we hit 3 Nephi 11, which is one of the greatest chapters in all Book of Mormondom.  Reading about Christ and his arrival always reminds me of how grateful I am to know Him, His gospel, and how much He loves me.  For a Biblical reference, I gave a spiritual thought for FHE this week about the verse "Jesus wept."  It's one of the most well-known, being the shortest, but I realized recently that I had no idea off the top of my head what story that verse comes from. 

[This is the break where you think about if you know the story.]

It's the story of Lazarus!  Let's recap--Christ is informed that Lazarus is dying, but purposefully waits a few days before going to see him.  (Jewish tradition said that the spirit of the deceased lingered for three days after death, so Christ was making sure there could be no doubt of the miracle He was about to perform.)  When he arrives, Lazarus is dead, and Mary and others are obviously distraught.  Christ knows that Lazarus will be fine, and yet here is where we see "Jesus wept."  Instead of just fixing the problem and dismissing the incident, Christ "mourn[s] with those that mourn" and "comfort[s] those who stand in need of comfort," understanding the pain that they're experiencing just as He understands the pain that we feel in our lives.  This isn't only a great reminder that Christ understands every trial we face, but also a wonderful example of how to treat those who experience sorrow or difficulty.  Sure, we may be able to fix the problem or make the situation better, but do we really sympathize?  The moral of the story is that yes, the scriptures ARE the coolest.  Even the shortest. :)

And for lack of anything else to say, here is a list of current favorites:
-toaster oven bagel melts
-framed pictures
-feather pillows
-Super Mario Wii
-Series of Unfortunate Events book series
-the original "Annie"
-SPRING!

on how march madness is best in buena vista

My favorite part of March is, like most people, March Madness.  For those of you who aren't familiar with SVU culture, March Madness has a lot less to do with basketball and a lot more to do with popping the question.  For instance, it is now March 9th, at which point there have already been four proposals (and acceptances!) since the beginning of the month...unless I'm missing someone.  In any case, there are at least four, and I am very excited.  I don't know whether it's the coming spring, or the week-long break, or the realization that the window for a summer marriage is slowly closing, but March is without question the most popular month for engagement here in this tiny town. 

I love engagements.  I love them, primarily, because they lead to marriage, which is incredible.  I also love them because they make people the happiest I've ever seen them!  I'm especially excited for my very favorite Katzenbauers (yes, I will be calling you that), who are in the Big Apple living up the first few days of engagement.

The "next step" in the relationships of my friends makes me even more grateful that I said yes to such a fantastic guy.  (Ok, so it was less of a "yes" and more of an "of course" that--according to Ricky--took about a hundred years for me to say.)  Seriously.  Heck, a complete stranger would've said yes to a boy that adorable kneeling on a beach at sunrise with a shiny ring in his hand!  (For those of you that have seen my ring, that cathedral setting was something Ricky picked out all on his own, a fact that has always impressed me.  I had never even seen the setting before, but I fell in love with it as soon as I did!  It's funny--and not surprising--that Ricky knew what I wanted before I did.) 

I don't mean "fantastic" as in, "he's really smart," or "he's really ambitious," or "he drives a BMW," even though Ricky may or may not be all of those things anyway.  I say "fantastic" because Ricky plays Snakes and Ladders with me and doesn't just let me win, and because he buys me books instead of flowers, and because he watches my old Sailor Moon VHS tapes with me purely because he wants to see what I loved so much as a kid.  There are a thousand other pieces to the puzzle, of course, but when I see the whole picture it's hard to just describe one piece.  The point is, no one should ever settle for less than their best friend...and not the mature kind, either.  The face-making, soap suds-flinging, board game-playing, make-you-laugh-till-it-hurts kind of best friend.  One of my efy girls asked me once how I knew I was in love, and the first thought that jumped out of my mouth was this: "If I only had the option of spending eternity with Ricky under the restriction that we were never allowed to make physical contact, I would still do it, and I would still be happy." 

Anyway, I'm sorry for oozing marriedness all over my blog--I'll keep it to a minimum in the future--but most of you know Ricky and how much he praise he deserves for the guy he is, and for the guy he wants to be.  Even if he didn't propose in March. ;)

on the progression of the Jensen living room

We bought a couch!

Ok, it's really a loveseat, but we don't have room (nor do we need) a full-fledged couch, so this one is perfect.  Maybe someday I'll have the energy to take a picture of it and put it here, but for the meantime, you'll just have to take my word for it.  It's a dark blue velvety fabric (I'd say halfway between crushed and non-crushed, to be specific), and the cushions are incredible squishy, and overall it's quite pleasant.  We were going to buy a red and black futon, which overall would've made our living room a lot more coordinated, but the metal arms were a big turn-off for Ricky:

"I'm a leaner," he explained. "Can you lean on those metal arms?  No.  Well, you could, but it would be really uncomfortable." 

In other words, he wants leaning AND comfort, and luckily craigslist provided both these things in our $35 loveseat.  $35!  The thing doesn't have a scratch or stain on it, and it's as plump as a bag of marshmallows, and the only reason the owners were getting rid of it was because they rearranged the room and didn't have room for it anymore.  And somehow, our living room finally feels like a room for living with this cozy little couch here.  After this astounding purchase, I did a gleeful inventory of our slow-growing living room collection, and was delighted to find out that all of our furniture put together--a couch, an entertainment center, a television, two bookcases, a small shelf for our board games, a mounted coat rack, and combination DVD/VHS player--totals about $90!  This is, of course, excluding our 7-foot lovesac, and our various Nintendo systems, but I figure those don't count because they were pre-marital.  The point is, since we've been married, we've only spent $90 on our living room, and the only thing we're still looking for is a desk.  Those who know how much I love not spending a lot of money on things--which should be all of you, because I make this a well-known fact--will know how pleased I am with this state of affairs.  I'll do a little tweaking when we move, because I want the coat rack and one bookshelf painted black to match the entertainment center, but overall it's definitely shaping up.  If anyone has a desk they'd like to get rid of...

Oh yeah, and speaking of moving, Ricky's been accepted to three law schools!  Ave Maria (Naples, FL--on the Gulf Coast!), Appalachian State (Grundy, VA--pretty much like BV), and the University of Detroit (Michigan, obviously).  He has scholarships at the first two, and we're still waiting to hear from U of D, but the chances are good.  We're still waiting on a good handful of letters from other schools, but they should start rolling in shortly!  We'll see where fate (and by "fate," I mean "Divine Guidance and/or Intervention") takes us.  Ricky and I still can't believe we're going to be moving and going to graduate school (the plan is for me to start in the spring, depending on my employment status) and being real-life post-graduate newly-marrieds.  I don't know if I'm ready for three hypenated descriptive terms at once!

In other news, Ricky and I watched "The Brave Little Toaster" on our new VHS player.  It was glorious.