The Living Christ

I love The Living Christ document. Part of this comes from my mother's example, while it was a teenager she memorized it which testified to me how much she valued the beautiful testimony of our prophets and apostles,  this was also taught to me through the Special Witness of Christ video she had wand we would occasional watch on a Sunday afternoon. I am so grateful that my parents taught me the love of our Savior, Jesus Christ and I look to continue that tradition in the Tracy home. I've been wanting a picture of Christ to display but I wanted it to be something that had special meaning and would remind me daily of His love and sacrifice. I wanted it to be a prominent so that I would notice it and hopefully remember to keep the spirit of Christ in my home. I then decided I wanted to also hang The Living Christ and as I pondered how I would hang both of them I came to the conclusion that I wanted them in the same frame. Then came the task to figure out how to do that since the document is 11x17 which was going to require a custom mat because it's a crazy size and the opening or the picture and for the document would have to be different sizes. It would also have to be a mat with a thick border so that I could find a frame I liked and could afford (seeing as I just bought a new, pretty [penny] sewing machine). I didn't want the thickness of the mat diminish the size and message of it's contents but rather strengthen the message of Christ and making sure it was aesthetically pleasing. I was thinking about what went along with the topic and for me the hymns of Christ have provided a special witness, so I thought I would use a hymn as a border, but I couldn't decide what hymn  I would use because I have so many favorites and I wanted the viewer to be able to tell what the song(s) were, and so I decided to tear apart the well used mini hymn book a got when I was in primary. With a little bit of modge podge I was on my way.

At this point I liked it but I didn't feel like it was finished so I started brainstorming again. I didn't want it to be to crafty and take away from the sacred nature from the art and so I took an idea from lds distribution and decided some gold edging would look nice, and I LOVE the way it turned out.

And just because it makes me happy here's the sewing machine I bought and my first class is the 2nd.

Bee-do

James has been working at BYU distance running camps and this week his group of kids decided their group would be minions (James and I have a slight obsession with minions, they are just SO cute). So for their ending track meet on Thursday they wanted to make minion t-shirts and James asked if I could make him one with the firealarm minion on it.



I don't know what James was expecting but he bought a really cheap t-shirt thinking he would never wear the shirt again after tomorrow but now he's disappointed he didn't get a better shirt. Pretty much I'm really good at copying things and that's about as far as my artistic bone goes and I'm impressed how well I did and it only took me half of the time I was watching Batman Begins.

In addition to his shirt, James wanted to surprise his group with the minion cupcakes we were just waiting for an occasion to make. For the cupcake part I used this Easy Homemade Funfetti Cupcake Recipe I can't vouch for the taste of the actual cupcake but the batter was yummy and they smelled amazing while they were baking. The only problem was they did overflow when I used all of the batter in 12 cupcake liners like it suggests. I decided to add to the normal minions and make a fire alarm minion cupcake using 3 red dots and a toothpick through the minion to hold up the side dots. I also may have found myself at hobby lobby where they had sprinkle eyes so instead of using smarties like a lot of people do I just used the already made eyes.

 It was fun and I got to use my new apron my darling mother made me for my birthday. It's really cute and has ruffles at the bottom. My mom's amazing!

**Also I was able to do all of this on a Wednesday because in Utah Pioneer Day is a state holiday so I had the day off. I still think it's kind of crazy but I won't complain about getting a break in the middle of my week and now James will be THE COOLEST group leader!

Sayonara Summer

Yep. It's pretty much over. James started classes today and I've been working, although I do get Labor Day off. 

It also means that I have a new ward. Although I didn't change wards, i kind of did. I switch Relief Society and only 4 of the 85 girls in my ward stayed...95% turnover. Well Sunday was Super Cute Sunday where everyone dresses up nice to scout out prospects for dating, well I dressed up super cute like always but I'm already dating the best looking guy in the ward. 

We also had ward dessert night and everyone went. James and I made cookies for his roommates to take so they could get the girls...and it worked pretty much because we're amazing and so were the cookies. Although the pictures not because it's from my phone.

Since James is now in class and I have a job where I only work at work. There are hours of studying where I have nothing to do, so I've decided I need a project. I think I might make a t-shirt quilt with all of the BYU t-shirts I've gotten over the three years. And just ask James there's quite a few of them. So if my quilting aunts have any suggestions on how they would make a great t-shirt quilt I would be more than willing to hear their ideas. I think I like the idea of this one http://www.quilt.com/BulletinBoard/bb/uploaded_images/T-shirt-Quilt-002-751720.jpg, where it's not just the shirts and maybe have a quilted Y with a blue and white theme.  I'll probably have a good 10 hours a week to spend on it, assuming James needs to study 2 hours a school day while I'm home, but that's just an estimate.

So is my life, that I love. 

All Things Bright and Beautiful

Can I just tell you how great life is. Well its PRETTY AWESOME. On Friday I took a neuroscience test and totally beasted it, if you want to know how a particular neurotransmitter is made or the generals on how the nervous system is created starting from conception, I can tell you. I then went to a volleyball game and sat with friends(James was one of these friends, I gave my number to him the day before, and later on after we started dating I learned he was hoping that after the game we could go on a date, however he didn't tell me this; he was hoping it would just happen. However, I had already planned on going to the game and sitting with a different guy because I thought James was just another friend...awkward, but obviously it worked out) and we ate the last of my nutella stuffed sugar cookies (I made them for my neuro study group on Thurs which went from 5-10:30) and what isn't great about that, especially since BYU Men's Volleyball DOMINATED. On Saturday morning my team had a flag football game, and my TA for my neuroscience class was on the other team. We lost, but it was a fun game and I'm just going to view it as making a case to be put in the lower division. I met my old roommate Chelsea at the Rugby game and we watched her husband Rob play, while we basked in the beautiful weather, because I don't really understand rugby AT ALL. Then later that night we had a girls night and made easter eggs out of embroidery thread. Sometime Saturday afternoon I shot hoops with my crazy cool neighbors (I wasn't about to post this then because I was afraid of the potential of a relationship but that crazy cool neighbor was my now wonderful husband James edit 02/28/2013), lets just say I stink at horse, although I did beat one of them (not James because he wins at every competition I have with him) with a free throw shot sitting down (but I also got bruises on my back from doing sit ups on the hard wood floor as I was practicing the shot). On Sunday it was again a BEAUTIFUL day, I had amazing church meetings, and I went to Eagle Mountain for dinner to visit family. I always love hanging out with them and I hadn't seen them since Thanksgiving, so it was nice to see them, even if every time I visit they ask me why I don't bring a boy with me ;).
That brings us to Monday. I'll admit the daylight savings transition wasn't great but all things considered I had a wonderful Monday. Brain Awareness week is this week as is the start of March Madness (BYU plays tomorrow at 7:30). To top that off we discussed the blood brain barrier and cerebral spinal fluid in Advanced Neuroscience today. After the cerebellum, if I have personal expertise in anything it is the blood brain barrier, because Astrocytes (as in the glial cells that composed my tumor) play a very important role in it and I know my cerebral spinal fluid. We talked about the composition of CSF (I knew it had a sweet salty flavor) and the flow of CSF. The last slide of lecture showed a scan with a brain that had severely enlarged ventricles because the flow through the fourth ventricle had been cut off by a cerebellar tumor. The person in front of me made a snide remark that the brain  in the picture didn't look like the person would be living much longer(it was very distorted). To this I replied that I can personally guarantee that the person whose brain was shown didn't want to live much longer, because they were in so much pain they would rather be dead. To make a good day great, I took a nap outside, in shorts and flip flops, between classes. The great got even better as we went to Bishopric FHE and they fed us dinner.
Life is great, and I decided that even if I had failed my Neuro test, spent the whole weekend alone, it was snowing and I was suffocating in school work, at least I still have the ability to think and learn, I only average 3-5 headaches a week, I have a earthly family that loves me as well as a Heavenly Family that loves me, my body is still functioning (which how anyone's does is a miracle in itself) and nature never ceases to be spectacular(I was admiring how pretty and detailed individual snowflakes just a few weeks ago).