January 15

January 15 is the birthday of my youngest nephew, "Baby" (Nathaniel), and it is also the day I start the Valentine's Day season (although this has not always been the case).

2012. It was a Sunday, and I was at home. I think it was the first time I'd been on Facebook for eleven days. I remember working on my blog on the computer downstairs when Allie came down and told me that my mom was making a dessert; she was making it Valentine-themed so I could eat it. I think she asked whether I wanted cake or cookies. It ended up being sugar cookies. I made a cynical Valentine image for the background for my blog. The blog post that night was a memory post, Remember Every Detail, Volume 6: Valentine's Day. After I posted it Jesse told me he liked my background. Then on Facebook he shared a version of Vince Guaraldi's "Peppermint Patty," one of the best songs ever.


2011. I remember that the night before I stayed up late and when it was midnight I added my Valentine music to my playlist. I know I drove home that morning, but I can't remember specific details about the day.

2010. It was a Friday. I was just about to go into my Music 101 class when my mom texted me, saying that my new nephew was coming early. I was quite surprised--he was very early--and a little sad, because I wanted him to be born in February. (That way, David's family would have birthdays in October, November, December, January, and February.) Then I drove home that afternoon. I think we had pizza and I was doing my math homework that was due by midnight. Susanne mentioned to me that I could call my cousin April for help. I noticed that David had updated his blog with pictures of the new baby. Of course, I don't think newborns are that cute (Baby is adorable now, but he wasn't then), so I preferred to watch an old video of Preston.

My mom heard it and correctly guessed it was one when he was in the bath. My parents went to bed, but I wanted to stay up. Previously my sister had mentioned that even though her bed was in the family room, she didn't mind if I did stuff in the room, but now I realize she probably didn't mean I could stay in there when she wanted to go to bed. So when she wanted to go to bed, I was on the elliptical watching an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies. She told me that Allie had been really funny recently. When Susanne was getting her engagement ring, Allie confused karat and carrot and said she wanted her ring to be a six-inch carrot.

2009. We went and visited Allie Vetch in the morning. That afternoon we helped a pseudo-investigator named David chop wood. I'm not coordinated, so he kept worrying about my form in chopping the wood and worried I was going to chop myself. Then we had a lesson with Cassandra Johnson. We asked her if she had prayed about baptism. She said it was something she felt she should do. Then we went home to make preparations for the baptism, and someone threw something at our window and sarcastically said something like, "I worship the devil!" This is my journal entry for the day:
"Even though Elder Wilson was sick today, we had a good day. This morning we had a lesson with Allie Vetch. Later we helped David. That was awkward; my ineptitude became ultra apparent. He is extremely ADD. Then we had a lesson with Hailey, which went all right. Lastly we put Cassandra on date. I was somewhat questioning it, but the rightness of the act was confirmed when some obnoxious person threw a rock or something at our window and yelled something sarcastic."

2008. We were going on an exchange with Elder Spahr and Elder Johnson that night. Elder Chun asked me to call them. He said that we were probably distracting them during a lesson, so I left a message saying, "This is the devil." Then we got to their house. Elder Spahr told me not to wet the bed.

2007. This was Martin Luther King Day, and there are two possibilities I can think of for this day. One is that my dad asked me to help him move the new elliptical machine from the Suburban. We had to wear gloves, since it was cold and it had been sitting in the car. The other possibility is that my mom's friend Jackie was over and Allie was sitting on one of the feet of the elliptical. I moved it to give her a ride, but she fell off. She got mad at me for going too fast, but Jackie said that maybe she wasn't holding on tight enough.

2006. I think this might have been the time I asked Allie if she wanted to watch Bewitched, since I had gotten the second season on DVD just two days before and wanted to watch the St. Patrick's Day episode. She said she did, but then when we were watching it she lost interest. But maybe it was a different Sunday.

2000. I invited my friend David Christensen over to play. He seemed incredulous that I had put up Valentine's Day decorations the night before. We went outside--it was kind of a warm day--and I wanted to improvise a song about spring. I wanted him to do background vocals, like saying "ooh buds" when I sang lyrics about buds on the trees. We played charades in the front yard. I was pretending to be a ballerina right when Austin Anderson drove by, and I wondered what he thought if he had seen me.

1999. I came home from school--early out--and set to putting up Valentine's Day decorations, including putting the wire heart garland on the stair railing.