Qualified by God

Elder Holland's Talk (click on the link to read it) started me thinking about the apostles Christ left behind. These are some of the greatest men that ever lived on the earth and will help Christ during Judgment. Yet, during a lot of the stories in the New Testament they just don’t get it. They marvel when Jesus performs a miracle and wonder how he does it, and mourn when he dies and can’t believe it when he is resurrected. As Elder Holland relates in his talk, they even go back to their normal lives after he returns to heaven. To us this seems totally ridiculous and we can’t figure out what was wrong with them. But we know these men become spiritual giants. So I started to think about it. Christ chose these men.  He could have chosen scribes or Pharisees that knew the laws and prophecies and where seen as very religious people. But he didn't  he chose his simple, humble disciples. They weren't educated, they were simple fishermen.

Even this was not the first time the Lord chose under-educated  under-qualified people to lead. There’s Samuel the boy prophet who has to be wiser than Eli the priest. David is a simple shepherd boy who must be braver and stronger than his older brothers, King Saul, and Goliath. Daniel and his friends must stand up to King Nebuchadnezzar multiple times, and following kings. Esther was just a woman, but she saved her people. Of course in our time, Joseph Smith had a very limited education but he was able to translate the Book of Mormon by the power of God. Anyone could have been chosen for that task, many great, educated people were alive that knew a lot about Egyptian languages, but Joseph Smith was the one.

So when I think about this, I have to remember how God works. We know that the Lord looks on the heart, not on the outside. When I feel like I don't know how to do my calling and someone else would be so much better, I have to remember that Heavenly Father chose me. When I feel bad for the poor woman from Ukraine that can barely speak English and has to teach our Gospel Doctrine class, I should remember that Heavenly Father wants her to do that. I may not see why, but there’s a reason he put her there, a reason he gave her that calling. Who am I to judge a person if God says they’re right for the calling, even myself? So there's a little thought for the day. 

Halloween! and Murder Mystery Party!

Whew, I haven't posted in a while again. Let's catch up!

Our ward party was on the 27th, Jake and I went back to the Roaring 20s. I was a flapper, and he was a gangster. We were pretty cute, but the pictures we got weren't so great. We'll have to wait for the ones from the ward to get back, but in the mean time, here are these: Don't ask what I'm doing in mine, I have no idea. Jake looks pretty good though right? We didn't really have to do too much for our costumes and so it was a pretty simple year. That was good for me since I had a bazillion other things to do for school and for our party later. The party was pretty good, we did some dancing and watched an episode of the twilight zone. Then we went back to our friends' house and watched a movie about trolls eating children unless a guy stopped being stupid and the old woman from Holes helped him.... I don't remember the title, but the moral of the story is, Eat Lactose Slimeball!

The actual night of Halloween we didn't really do much...
We had a few trick-or-treaters and Harley was loving the kids in costume I guess. She sat in the window all night and watched them. I think she was jealous she didn't get to dress up; I couldn't find her costume anywhere! We watched Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein, a favorite from Jake's childhood, and Hocus Pocus, which is about the scariest movie I can handle. We also carved some pumpkins. I did an owl and Jake did a scary face and Mickey Mouse.


Then last night was the real fun!
I've been working for a long time on this year's Harry Potter party, and this year we did a murder Mystery! So we did some fun invitations. We included tickets for the knight bus, and their character assignments.

The "Save the Date"

Knight Bus Tickets, 11 Sickles. They are really purple, but the flash turned them red.

All the letters together

How they looked when we delivered them!

A close up of an envelope

Jake and I had a lot of fun printing up the envelopes and then delivering them, but of course we did it on the windiest night we'd had for a long time, so the feathers probably blew away before they even saw them!








A while back I found these great Harry Potter inspired travel posters online and they were really quite fabulous, so I just had to run with the idea. I just love the vintage look and the feel of it really. And I found out I can print color up to 12x18 at school for $0.80 so it was just perfect for the party! I took my old poster frames from when I was a kid and they fit two to a frame, and voila! Instant party decor!

These three I found online. They are so great!

I love the idea of Harry Potter travel posters.

Wouldn't you love to go to that?

someone mocked up this fun ad. Love it!

This one I made myself from an old Canada Air poster and witch drawing I redrew over.

 I coerced my sister into doing the clues so I wouldn't know who the murder was, and it was so much fun! I got the house all decorated and only had to delay for an hour or so. Don't you wish I could get extra credit in one of my classes for all the awesome work I put into some of this?

Our Door looks extra spooky!

The Hog's Head Inn, the perfect place to stage a Murder!

Tonks, Krum, Gilderoy, Bellatrix, Luna and Hagrid

some photos of Aberforth's favorite things

Just some of my favorite bobs and ends that we've collected. 

Our posters hung up in the house.

Our platform 9 and 3/4 wall reused as a backdrop for our Hog's Head.

Our table setting. Pretty cool right?

 Once the place was set up, the suspects began to arrive....

Gilderoy Lockheart and Bellatrix Lestrange

Viktor Krum and Nymphadora Tonks

Rubeus Hagrid and Luna Lovegood

Everyone was so great in their characters, I had to try so hard not to laugh so many times!

Hagrid never did cut a rug... but maybe that's because he was being chased by phantom dinosaurs.

If I look a little crazy in this picture, we'll pretend it's because I was being in character, not because I didn't know what I was doing. :)

He signed autographs for everyone. It was hilarious!

Despite what this looks like, I promise she did have fun, well until she died anyway.

Tonks was fun-loving and so sneaky we never suspected her!

Viktor was training for his next quidditch match by sneaking performance enhancing drugs! Gasp!

In the end I think we had a pretty good night, and everyone was so great in their costumes. I'm really glad we did it! 

We felt bad we cut off it's head, so we kissed it better.

We all wanted Bellatrix dead

Michael guessed who the murder was and had the best costume, so he got a trophy to go with his 5  Witch Weekly Best Smile Awards

Here's the pictures of our last "first day of school" so crazy right? I just applied for graduation! gah!

Wish that silly boy would actually smile once in a while!

you can't tell but I'm wearing my new snake ring, gotta show that slytherin pride even if I'm not at hogwarts!

check "picture with cosmo" off the BYU bucket list!

A bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils...

Well everyone, today is my very last first day of school. Wow! I can't believe it! (except if I go to grad school I suppose, but that is so far from my plans right now, so I'm not even going to consider it.)

Jake and I took our pictures this morning, I'll post those soon. And as per tradition, I'm going to make chocolate chip cookies tonight, since my mom always made me cookies the first day of school.

Starting my new BYU bucket list, which is things I want to do before I graduate.
1. Get a picture taken with Cosmo!
2. Ask a question on the 100 hour Board. Check! It wasn't a very exciting one, but it counts! Question #68631
(I haven't thought of anything else yet, but I'll add to this as I go!)

I've loved my classes so far this morning and it has really validated my career choice. (btw, for a great representation of "validation" watch this video: Youtube validation video) I can't wait to get out there and start editing! The other fun thing I'm going to do this semester is to volunteer with a student journal. I've picked Schwa, which is the English Language journal. I thought that would be up my alley and they usually don't get a whole lot of volunteers so I should get a lot of experience. It should be a great way to boost my resume.

Other than that Jake and I are keeping our current jobs, spoiling our cat, and working at our new callings: I'm the assistant RS secretary and Jake just got called as the moving coordinator.

I've also started chronicling my weight loss journey which hopefully will end happily. You can follow along at Capricious, which is my other blog. I started on Friday August 3, any posts before that were just my regular blog. I'm not doing a crazy diet or starting some new marathon training or anything, just keeping track of myself and hoping to stay motivated. I feel a little anxious about putting something I've always kept so private out in the open like that, but maybe the more open I am, the less ashamed I will be. I'm certainly not perfect, and I've got a long way to go, but if you want to join me or cheer me along, I'd love you have you involved.

Well, I'll try to be better about posting on here, that way I can send the links to this blog to my great-grandchildren as family history some day right? lol.

Valentines is coming, cupid's helpers are having fun!

So one of my new year's resolutions of sorts is to blog some more to keep track of what is going on in our crazy lives! So in theory this should be a weekly thing, and that should be fun right?

Okay let's see what has been going on lately with the Webb family:

Last night we went to the stake Valentines dance. We were just so cute! They took pictures at the dance, but we haven't gotten those yet. I convinced Jake to take me to a photo booth at the movie theater, so we did! (That's what these photos are from) Other things we have been doing for fun... We moved all the furniture around in our house, so I've got a new computer station in the kitchen, and the book shelf is out in the living room now. It seems like such an ingenious idea, I can't imagine why we didn't do it before! We've also been doing a co-op type thing call Bountiful Baskets. It's been so exciting to get new food I usually wouldn't buy. We've only done it two times but we've gotten pineapple both times, and some other things. I've finally tried brussel sprouts and asparagus due to our basket yieldings, and I have to say that they really aren't that bad. They both almost taste like broccoli. We also got radishes this last time, so I'll have to look through pinterest for some new ideas.

 Update on Jake's Life: Jake had an exciting turn of events this semester, he changed majors! (again! but he's going to stick with this one, he promises!) He's now majoring in Human Development, so he can graduate in April 2013 with me and we can move on with our lives! So he can get away from doing things he doesn't like (theoretical physics) and into things he does like! (pretty much anything else). He's learning all new sorts of things in his classes and he's already psychoanalyzed me with his new information. I can't think of a day that goes by that he doesn't have something new to tell me about his classes. So if that's any indication, it must be going better for him. Nothing new really going on with him for work, he's still delivering food around campus. The worst part has been that he works the 5:00 AM shift so he has to be up at 4:30. You know me, the lack of sleep starts to make us not the brightest, happiest people.

 Update on my life: School is getting kinda crazy for me. This semester I'm taking a critical theory class and it's just killing me. It's my first 400 level class and pretty much half of the students in my class are graduate students. I'm feeling way out of my league with all the Plato and literary critics. The reading alone is a killer, so that's tough. On the upside, I'm taking two grammar classes this semester for my minor and it's fun to finally know the reasons behind all those corrections I have to make. Speaking of editing, Jake's brother has started going to BYU here, so we've had him over a couple of times. I've been correcting his papers and it's been a lot of fun. I just hope I haven't been too hard on him!
Work is starting to get crazy, Women's Conference is almost here! We've had meetings with the presenters and started dolling out supplies to our service project leaders. We also got our assignments for the summer. I'm in charge of Young Musicians Summerfestival with is our 6 day music camp for band and orchestra kids mostly. Last year we had about 270 kids, so it should be a pretty exciting week. Thankfully I worked on it last year so I hope I'll know what I'm doing.
It's been a hard month or so for me. With Jake's work schedule being so early and my work load starting to pick up, I'm feeling so exhausted all the time. I'm partially hoping it has something to do with my possible PCOS, and I'm excited to meet with the specialist at the end of March. It's a long time away, but at least I know he must be a good doctor if his schedule is so backed up!

Other than that we're just hanging out in Provo.. Harley is getting cuter and cuter, fluffier and fluffier, and also fatter and fatter. :) We've almost had her for a year now, and the time has just flown! We've started to let her sleep on our bed, and it's been fun to have her curled up by our toes, as long as she doesn't chew on them. Her obsession with paper bags continues, but she's gotten so big the take-out olive garden bag is really the only one she fits in.