Photo Card

I ordered my graduation announcements! I'm so excited!

Contempo Grad Graduation

Personalized graduation announcements at Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Valentines Day!

I made Tyler a nice dinner and dessert for V Day this year :)
Pork pot roast in the slow cooker





I also made mashed potatoes


And we drank "fine", fake wine ;)


I made a yummy dessert, started with a box of brownies


Baked them


Mixed together some chocolate, whipping cream, raspberry jelly, and cream cheese frosting


And put it on top of the brownies and refrigerated it for a while so it could set


And drizzled some melted chocolate chips mixed with some more whipping cream (and also ate some, of course)


So we had a yummy dessert to eat!
Tyler liked everything a lot, he said the pot roast is better than having a turkey at thanksgiving and enthusiastically said that the dessert is a "do over". That is Tyler language for "really liked it, please please please make it again!" :)
Today has just been a great day with my Valentine. A lot of other people were really great to me too.
I got a surprise bouquet of flowers in a pretty vase from Mom and Mike.



Cute cards from Mom andDad Noble and Mom and Dad McClellan.


And in orchestra today, allthe violists gave each other "buckets" of valentines



Aren't they the cutest?!?!


I also got Ty some new shirts






And he got me those roses last week, a squishy heart pillow, a box of chocolates, and Kung Fu Panda 2 from Redbox





Mmmmm, happy day :)


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Yay!

Spanish test grade :)


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Free Stuff

Have I ever mentioned how much I like getting free stuff? I really like getting free stuff. I get so excited and happy and feel so cool that I was able to get something for free, cause nothing in life is free, right? ;) Well, I have recently discovered the vistaprint.com website. You can hover over the Home and Family or the Business tabs on the left hand side of the page and see that in each of those sections they have a whole category of stuff that is free. I go crazy over this website, and yes, the stuff really is free, you just have to pay to get it to you (shipping, like $5-7, depending on how much stuff you scored ;) lol). It is seriously the best thing since sliced bread. They have all sorts of free deals, I just ordered a wall photo calendar, a desk photo calendar, personalized recital invitations, magnetic calendars and I could go on and on about all the free stuff I've ordered. I did pay for some business cards just in case you all are wondering ;) Basically, vistaprint is super cool and has lots of free deals and great prices on their items that aren't free. AND, after my first purchase they gave me a $10 off coupon to use towards any $10 purchase. Pretty awesome if I do say so myself :)

I've been noticing that lately I really can't rely on people, my friends mainly. And that's ok, maybe I have too high of expectations for people. I really just want people to do what they say they will. I don't feel like that's asking too much but apparently I'm wrong. I have the attitude that if you can't or don't really want to do it then you shouldn't say that you are going to, just say no and it's not a big deal. I don't want to sound negative, because I'm not upset or mad about anything in particular, its more just a realization than anything. I'm just going to go on with life and not be too worried if someone doesn't do what they say they will. I guess if I expect nothing then I will be pleasantly surprised when a person does do what they said they would. However, I will continue trying to be the type of person that does what I say I will, despite the fact that I can't expect that of others.

Grateful

This week has been awesome for both Tyler and I. Tyler got a call for a phone interview for a job that looks like would be a pretty good one. The only thing that I don't like about it is that the job would be in Utah. I really don't want to live in Utah. His interview is on Wednesday. At least he's starting to get some calls for things he has applied for.
I had two tests on Monday this week. They both went really well. One was for my Spanish class and the other was for my Music History III class; I was really stressed about the second one. The music history class that I'm taking has the reputation of being one of the hardest classes in the music department. The first test is always the hardest since you don't really know what you're up against. I said a prayer and asked that if I studied hard for the test that I would be blessed to remember the things I had studied and I would be able to get a low A or high B on the test. Then I studied hard, harder than I think I've ever studied for a test in my entire college career. I was able to remember things that I had studied and was able to do well on my test. I would have been happy with an 88% on my test. But the Lord increased my memory and helped me to get a perfect 116/116 on the test. I don't know how or why, I just know that I was given a blessing beyond what I had asked for because I had faith, worked hard to do my part so the Lord could do his, and tried to do the small and simple things that I knew would help bring me closer to the Lord (prayers/scripture reading). It was truly amazing, I know for sure that I couldn't have done it on my own. My other test went well too and I thinking probably got an A but I won't get it back until tomorrow. Also, since the time of the test I have been blessed with an increased memory, I'm remembering assignments and things I normally would have forgotten and I'm sure it's because I am doing all I can to do well and the Lord is helping me where I struggle: in remembering things. It's been amazing, I've literally noticed a difference in the last week.
The other huge blessing that I've received this week is a viola student. I have a student. Crazy. I didn't even put up an ad or anything. Mr Purdy makes a list of BSU students who teach lessons and gives it to the orchestra directors in the valley to give referrals. I have put my name on this list every year and have never gotten a call for a student from it until now. So crazy! I'm being blessed left and right and I didn't even ask for it! It's amazing how the Lord knows the unspoken desires of your heart and blesses you with them when you least expect it :)


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Tyler brought me home these roses today as an early Valentines Day gift. They're so beautiful! I seriously have THE greatest husband EVER!







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Rylee Hummel

I had to play in one of my classes last week, this is the video from my performance with the lovely Peggy Purdy on piano. It's definitely not perfect, but not too bad. This is the last movement of the Sonata in E-Flat for viola and piano by J.N. Hummel that I will be playing for my senior recital in April.

Brahms Quintet in F minor, Op. 34

One more reason I do what I do. Hmmm, I see a Brahms theme here ;)

Deactivate.

I have made a decision to deactivate my facebook account for a while. So far this is just a trial period, if I like it then I won't reactivate it. If I don't like it then I can reactivate it and have everything back to the way it was. There are a few reasons why I decided to deactivate my fb account.

The main reason that I decided to deactivate my account was because of a realization that I had due to an experience that I had Friday at school. Friday was my viola professors birthday. A couple of other viola players planned all these things for us all to do for her for her birthday. A lot of us decorated her door and then there was a party planned for her during our studio class with cake and sparkling cider and a rendition of Happy Birthday in the Viennese Classical style. Super awesome. I was really excited about it and wanted to be a part of it. I show up to studio class almost 5 min early where they were going to play Happy Birthday with all the violists at BSU and find out that they decided not to wait for everyone. They were halfway through Happy Birthday when another violist and I walked in. Class hadn't even started yet. We were early. One of the girls that planned it all is a really good friend of mine and I didn't expect her to leave me out. I have had a hard time fitting into this group of people all four years that I have been at BSU and the very people that are supposed to be my friends continue to leave me out. They made an effort to include me with the decorating and stuff but I couldn't make it and they had given me the music to the Happy Birthday arrangement but when it came down to it they didn't include everyone. I'm sure that it was an innocent mistake and that they didn't mean anything by it but I can't help but wonder if these people are really people that care about me. I'm not upset about what happened anymore. I was upset when it was happening (understandably so) but they probably didn't mean to leave anyone out. It was a little hurtful though. I wouldn't do that to any of my friends. But anyway, back to the real reason I am talking about this. This experience made me realize that casual friends really aren't all that important. It's good to have friends but the ones that matter are the ones that will keep in touch with you whether or not you are on facebook or going to school with them or whatever. They will make the effort to keep talking to you and keep in touch despite how infrequently they see you because they care about you more deeply because they have taken the time to develop that sort of relationship with you. A lot of the friends that I have made at BSU are ones that, after I graduate, will move on with their lives and probably not think about me much. And that's ok. I have my family, my best friends in the world and the people that will be my friends forever. And I have friends that I have made that I have become close with throughout the years that I will always to be close to. My best best friends. I can count them on one hand. I have lots of "friends" but I only have a handful of friends that are the type that I will talk to and stay friends with forever and that care about me deeply and I care about them deeply. Not that if any of my casual friends came back into my life 1o years later I wouldn't be their friend anymore, because I would. But only a select few people have actually taken the time to get to know me and develop a relationship and keep it up. I am happy with my close friends and I will continue to be friends with the people that aren't my close friends but are still good people and fun to associate with. I just made the realization that the people that I keep up with on Facebook are of the type (mostly) that don't even know me all that well and wouldn't be in my life were it not for Facebook. I don't need the extra noise in my life when I am happy with my family and my friends that I have offline.

The other reason that I decided to get rid of Fb is that it is pretty much a waste of time. I have too much to do as it is and I need to simplify my life. And that's one thing that I have control of that I can to do to make my life a little more simple.

So, for those of you that are reading this and were my friends on Fb, I can be found here, or through phone. No more fb for me for a while. I think I like it this way :)