Hellooo Mr. Groban

You know that song by Josh Groban, You Are Loved? Yeah, well he sang it to me at work today!
Well... kinda.... ok not really... but listen to at least one verse and one chorus before you continue reading.


This morning I woke up way too late for class, rushed to get ready and left without breakfast (p.s. I love my breakfasts, and missing them makes me... hungry) Then I had two classes in a row and I go straight to work from there where I work from 11:15am- 6:30pm. No lunch break in there anywhere! In my rush to get out the door this morning I did however fill up a small ziplock bag with edamame, hoping that that would hold me over while I was at work all day (who was I kidding!?)


So after my aerobics class, where we worked out like nobody's business, I went straight to work, starving and thinking about how I wouldn't get a chance to eat until 7 that night. Well here's where my Josh Groban moment comes in. Listen carefully.


Claire, my dear, dear roommate, stopped by my work to pick up her water bottle that she had lost. I went to the back to retrieve it and returned only to find a brown paper sack lunch WITH MY NAME written on it sitting on the counter. That's when everything froze and Josh Groban stepped out of the dark right beside me and started in with a gorgeous ballad of "YOU ARE LOOOOVEEEED".

"Hope I got the measurements down for the oatmeal to applesauce. I didn't even know where to start with the cottage cheese" Oh my gosh, this cracked me up!

P.S. I haven't had a PB and J in quite sometime, but I LOVED this one!

Ok, so maybe I just squealed and ran and gave her a hug, but seriously, I felt so loved that Mr. Groban might as well have been there proclaiming it for all of the Manwaring Center to hear! How lucky am I huh? She was soo thoughtful and couldn't have possibly known how hungry I was. She even left me a note on the napkin (which clearly is the best part of the whole thing)!

Thanks CLAIRE, you made my day, and made it 100 times easier to enjoy work today.  Ahh, what a gem!
Love,
Noelle

Million Dollar Secret.

1. I think that teeth are fabulous and fascinating, they are quite possibly my favorite characteristic to gawk over in a person. 

2. One time I gave a talk in which I related saying your prayers to brushing your teeth... that was over two years ago, and just the other day I was referred to as the "Toothpaste Talk Girl"... I don't know how I feel about that.. 

Shae and I brushing up before a Cabin-boy adventure!

Speaking of which, I have discovered the secret to healthy living and I am sharing it only with my faithful blog readers.  Ready for this? Good.

Healthy= Diet +Excercise riiiight? Right. Let's take it one step further shall wee?

Diet+Exercise+Clean Teeth

That's the secret.  
And here's why

Exercise: I love brushing my teeth right before I work out or go running because when your mouth feels good your whole body feels good, it's true! And you just have that clean fresh minty feeling in your mouth and it makes you feel like you can run til.... til whenever. Teeth brushing is super empowering when it comes to working out.

Diet: Here's the trick. Eat dinner at 6 or 7 and then BRUSH your teeth! That way if you get cravings or get offered some food later into the evening (which is usually JUNK food) you have the perfect excuse, "I've already brushed my teeth", and that much more will power to just say no. And there you have it folks.

Grace brushing her teeth at work! She's a believer.

P.S. Along these same lines, in devotional last semester, Brother Wahlquist informed us that brushing your teeth is a good way to get more dates and get people to like you. Teeth brushing: It's just an all around good thing.

Can't Get This Off My Mind

Why do they have every single kind of soup available in a can except the oh-so-delicious and pretty popular, Taco Soup? Have you ever seen taco soup in a can? It's unheard of right? WHY is that? I feel like taco soup is just the combination of tons of different canned items, why don't they just have them all mixed up and ready to go in a can? I'm not complaining, I probably wouldn't buy it if they had it, I'm just curious as to why it's so.

Have you ever wondered about that?

Isn't soup so good in the Fall? Yes. Yes it is. We made some sort of chowder the other day, potato cheese or something. Quite delicious.
Speaking of which, what makes chowder a chowder and soup a soup? What about stew? Or a bisque?  Hmmm.... Mmmmmm!

Love, Noelle

Peru....ok?

You guys. I. am. going. to. Peru.

Wait. What?

I AM GOING TO PERU!
Now to answer the questions that immediately came to your mind upon reading this fantastic statement:

 1.  WHAT???

NO, I do not speak Spanish, and no I'm not crazy! I took 4 years in high school, thanks for making me stick with it Senor Larsen! And then I took Spanish 101 last semester. Sooo I feel like I've learned plenty from a textbook and the only way I'll ever learn more is to get out there and submerge myself into a Spanish culture.

2.When

I'm leaving in January and I'll be back in March or early April. This is during my off-track at school, so it works out perfect. It's so weird to think that I'll be missing a Winter in Rexburg. Winter is always my favorite semester and I have loved spending in them in Rexburg, buuuut I'll be skipping the winter season altogether seeing as it'll be Spring/Summer in Peru.

Kind of sad that I'll be missing out on prime-time sledding season...

3. Where

  We have a few options as to where in Peru we're going. An official decision hasn't been made yet, but I'm leaning towards the jungle/mountainous area :)

4. Who

Abigail Tucker introduced me to this program just about a week ago. She is also off-track in the Winter, so we're doing this together. Thank goodness! I think we'll make a fabulous team, and I'm sooo happy that I'll a bit of home there with me. Not to mention an American who speaks English! YES!

5. Why

  Ahhh where to even begin with this the whys. I feel like there are so many reasons why I am doing this, and reason's that I'm not even sure of yet. But here's a few of the basics: I've finally figured out what I want to do with my life, my career. I've bounced around between a few things here and there, but none of them have ever truly appealed to me. Here's what appeals to me: Humanitarian Work. I've known I've always wanted to work for the church, but I thought that it might be in their Public Relation department, or their Human Resource department. Both would be great, but... eh, great for someone else maybe. I want to work in their Humanitarian Aid department. Too bad BYU-I doesn't offer that as a major :)..so Communications is going to have to get me there, and I think it will.

Cool huh?
Love, Noelle

Hymn. Him. Hmmmmm?

This post will consist of three segments. Hymn. Him. and Hmmm? Hopefully one of them will tickle your fancy :)

HYMN 

Pretty much, every semester I pick my favorite hymn at the time and completely delve into it and study the guts out of it. And somehow they have completely applied to that time in my life and have been a huge source of comfort and guidance. They've kept me sane.

Last Winter, easily one of my favorite semesters, my hymn was "More Holiness Give Me".

Winter 2010: Homestead. Oh yes.

Genius of a song really. It was so perfect for what was going on in my life and so perfect for what I wanted to accomplish that semester. I took it apart phrase by phrase, and worked on and studied one phrase a week. Oooo, even just thinking about it gives me the chills. Such a good experience.

Last Spring, easily one of my weirdest semesters, (which doesn't really mean much because it was still an INCREDIBLE semester) was just a super interesting time in my life where I really didn't know what I wanted to do with my life and I just needed some direction.

Clearly In Need of Some Direction :)

And fittingly enough, the song that I couldn't get out of my head ALLL semester was, "Lead Kindly Light". Ohhh I love that hymn. So beautiful. So comforting. So perfect.

Fall 2011- Off to a very good start

I'll give you a hint as to what this semester's hymn is. Open up the most recent General Conference Ensign to a random page and you have like a 75% chance of opening up to a talk that deals with this topic. One talk is even titled the name of this hymn. Got it? Yup, it's "Have I Done Any Good".  So this is the one I'm focusing and studying now, and I love it already. The lyrics are packed with "Duh!-no-brainers" that we could all do to hear more often. So I'm pretty excited about this.

HIM.

 So people are always asking about the men in my life. So I figured I'd sort it all out for you right here... ha if you thought I was seriously going to spill my guts about boys right here, you are sorely mistaken, sorry folks :) If you're really that curious, come to me and I'll tell you everything you want to know.
Moving on...

Hmmmmm?

Here's also what I'm pretty excited about. PERU. Yeah. Peru. Can't get that off my mind either... so maybe it's supposed to be there. More on that later, but until then... PERU PERU PERU!!! If that doesn't make you say Hmmm.. I don't know what will!

That's all for now folks (is it obvious that I ran out of time and had to rush the ending of this? Yes? Whoops!)

Goood night all, I'm a happy, happy girl!

Love, Noelle

Enjoy These Exotic Edibles

Remember when I was so excited about eggs? Or when I absolutely raved about steel cut oats?

Well, I'm still a believer of both, don't you worry, but I have added two new loves to the list. Check this out:

1. Edamame

They come frozen in packages like these. I get mine at Walmart.  $1.88 for a 14 oz pkg.

When you peel them open they look like this.

I discovered this Japanese gem about three weeks ago when my pops brought home a bag of these from the store. They come frozen, you just have to thaw them out a bit and then you're ready to munch. I'm on campus everyday from 8am til 6pm so I bring a little baggie of these to tide me over while I'm at school/work. I simply love them! What are they you ask? Pretty much they're just partially boiled soy beans. Yuck right? Wrong! They are oh so tasty and packed full of protein, fiber and several vitamins and minerals. Give them a try!

2. Quinoa

This has sufficed for my dinner for the past week. It's simply quinoa, bell peppers and onions. Can't get enough of it!

Quinoa is a complete protein. Let me repeat that for you. Quinoa is a COMPLETE PROTEIN! Ok so I don't know exactly what that means, but I do know that it has a balanced set of all nine essential amino acids which is pretty unusual for a plant food. Although it kind of appears to be a grain, it's actually a relative of leafy green vegetables like spinach and Swiss chard. Not bad eh?

Quinoa is extremely new to me and to be honest, I have no idea if I even cooked it right or if it tastes like it's supposed to, but either way... I love it and love the health benefits that come with. This, like steel cut oats, can be bought from those nifty WinCo canisters in the back :) I'm sure they're available elsewhere also.

So those are my two new loves. Edamame and Quinoa. Kind of exotic sounding eh? Have you tried them? How do you cook them? Haha anyone else have problems pronouncing them when you read them? 

Enjoy!

Love, Noelle

Autumn: Take Three

This will be my 3rd Fall semester. Can I just say that have adored my Fall semesters thus far. Seriously they both were top notch. TOP NOTCH. And I'm pretty certain that this one will be as well.

• Daniel. Travis. Noelle. Natalie: ALLL in Rexburg attending school this semester. How cool is that? Very cool. I'm loving it. I saw each and everyone of them today!
• Love. Love. LOVE my new job. Seriously. Ok I've only worked two days so far, but it's perfect for me. More on that later.
• I volunteered to be a devotional usher this semester. I dropped most of my volunteer competitive sports positions due to my busy schedule, but I still want to give back to the school that has given me SO much, in any way that I can possibly fit into my schedule. So I usher in students and faculty for devotional. Super easy, get to see tons of friends and meet lots of new students with lots of questions. I enjoyed myself thoroughly.
• Love my new roommates. There's an atmosphere in our apartment that I've never really had before. I can't really explain it, but it's nice!
• My classes are incredible. I know I should drop one more to keep the workload under control, but I can't bring myself to pick one! Ahh I just love them all!
• Speaking of classes, guess what! I started and kept this blog up as a class assignment last semester, and I just found out that for my Family Relations class this semester we will be required to keep up a blog as well. Woooo!!! Been there, done that, this will be a piece of cake. So look forward to various blog posts concerning how to better our family relations :) Should be good.
• Today somebody said, "Hey I added you on Facebook last week, but you never accepted" It reminded me that a week or so ago I decided to give up facebook for a few days so that I could focus on getting ready for school and lo and behold I had almost forgotten I even had a facebook page. Needless to say I don't really miss it that much and can't really bring myself to go check it now anyways, no time!
• Last but not least, I maimed myself the other day while at the sandbar with about a million people that I love. It was so fun. However, I jumped off a dam when I really shouldn't have jumped and took a huge chunk out of my knee... literally. I couldn't walk on it for a few days, and it was terribly swollen and painful and wouldn't stop bleeding. Yuck!

Because of my fabulous job, I have to dress up for school everyday. Lucky for me James and Talmage have been helping me pick out and document first week of school outfits.

This will most definitely be my busiest semester to date, with 17 credits, a job (which I am addicted to, gosh I love it!), as well as a calling and my various volunteer committees, but I wouldn't have it any other way! Have an awesome day!
Love, Noelle

Katniss Potter

Hunger Games+Harry Potter 7+War Chapters in Alma+ The Diary of Anne Frank= 

 My dream last night

I played the Main Character. So feel free to refer to me as Katniss Potter or TeAnneFrankCum. Either one.

So if I've ever had a full conversation with you, you were probably in this dream... and you probably didn't make it out alive. I was in charge of keeping everybody alive yet everyone was dying off like crazy. The bad guys were really only interested in capturing me but apparently they had to take out everyone I know to get there. I remember constantly thinking, " Ahhh, all these people are dying because of me!"

Can you tell that I had just finished reading the Hunger Games Series? Which were a little too gruesome and violent for my taste. Needless to say, there was no blood or graphic killings going on in my dream, ha I would have never been able to handle that. Just a realization of the fact that when the bad guys came and grabbed somebody, they were goners.

And just like any good story, there was indeed a tragic love story intermingled throughout the dream, but I woke up before I found out how that ended.. Darn. Perhaps I'll find out tonight.

I wouldn't count it as a nightmare, just a super intense dream. It was kind of fun to tell you the truth!

Love, Noelle

Remember September

September 2nd has recently been dubbed as one of my favorite days ever.

Facebook has this new thing where it tells you what your status was on this exact day in 2010, 2009 etc.

Here's what my status' were:

September 2, 2009

Noelle Rust:  :)

September 2, 2010

Noelle Rust: All 12 Rusts. Together. IN CALIFORNIA! 

And if I were to have had a status on September 2, 2011 it would probably be along the lines of 

Noelle Rust: 11 Rusts. Together. In the Las Vegas, Nevada temple!!

So now an explanation for each. 
Nine. Two. 2009 marked the day when I was finally released from the hospital after having spent over a week there hearing plenty but only listening to the parts when the Dr's told me that there was no way that I'd be attending my first semester at BYU-ID.  Guess what? I most definitely attended that first semester at school, and every semester since then.  I don't remember my hospital stay very well, but I do remember that day when I decided that I was getting out of there and going to school whether my doctors liked it or not. I remember my mom helping me out of bed and my dad wheeling me out in a wheel chair. I remember coming home and being so surprised at what I found. I found that even though I had been out for so long, life had indeed gone on with out me. School for the kids had started. Tennis matches had been played. Dinners were eaten. Messes were made. It was nice to kind of just fall right back into things like I had never left. 

So on days like today, I can't help but look back with so much gratitude. Gratitude for miracles, for faith, prayers and fasting. Gratitude for those who brought in meals and drove my siblings where they needed to go while my parents were taking care of me. Gratitude for my siblings for letting me hog my parents so much that week and so much gratitude for my parents who stayed by me the entire time because I was scared to death to be alone. Gratitude for the fragrant flowers, sweet gifts and heartfelt cards and notes. Gratitude for my doctors and nurses.... kind of.. Just kidding :) They were wonderful. Gratitude for my dear Emily who came to help me pack and get ready for school as soon as I was released. Yes indeed, my heart is so full of  gratitude for these and much more.  September 2, 2009 Such a good day.

Me and my new roommates on my very first day of college. Sept 2009

The next two years kind of go hand in hand.  

They both deal with being with my whole family at two of my favorite places. The beach :) and the temple. In 2010 I thought I was going to die of happiness as we were all gathered together as family enjoying the beautiful California beaches. Ohhhh it was so fun! We camped, we pranked, we swam, we ate, we got fried. We loved it.

However, last night topped it for sure as we all (except for dear, dear Brandon, who is stuck in Provo for the moment) dressed in white as we attended the Las Vegas Nevada temple. Mom stayed in the foyer with little Molly while Brittney, Myself, Natalie, Holly, Hannah, Derrick, Daniel, Travis and Pops went down to the baptistery to perform baptisms and confirmations for the dead.  And then Me, Natalie, Holly and Hannah took Molly outside and sang Hymns and Primary songs on the grass while the older adults went and did sealings.

I've done baptisms and confirmations literally hundreds of times. I've been in the Las Vegas temple dozens of times. I've been with my family all weekend. The combination of the three was something remarkable.

Story: We were all at home getting dressed and ready to drive into the Vegas and I could not find my recommend anywhere. I thought I had brought it home in case I'd have the opportunity to attend the temple, but despite my desperate and thorough searching, I could not find it anywhere. We then tried with no avail to get ahold of Bishop Leavitt or a member of my Overton ward bishopric. As I sat in the bedroom digging through my wallet for the tenth time, I felt such a wave of sadness come over me.

In that moment I had given up on finding my recommend and began to think about the consequences of not being able to enter the temple. My family, those that I love more than anything would be in there with out me performing the ordinances that were near and dear to my heart. I'd be sitting in the foyer trying to focus on reading the ensign or my scriptures, but I know my mind would be wandering to the things that were going on in the baptistery with out me. I'm sure my family would have been sad that I wasn't able to attend with them, but they'd be busy and focused on the ordinances that they were performing and I'd be pushed to the back of their minds, as it should be.

If only I had been more prepared. As I sat there in the bedroom, recommendless, I thought of a million different things I could have done to prevent this outcome. I could have been more careful, more thoughtful, prepared earlier. The list goes on and on. But now it was too late.

Oh it was heartbreaking to think about! Now, I know this may sound a bit dramatic, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I never ever wanted to be in a situation like that again. I would do whatever it takes to make sure that I was prepared to be where I needed to be, when I needed to be there. Both in smaller things as well as in the eternal perspective of it. I do NOT want to be left behind.

Lucky for me, there is a happy ending to this story. I called up Bishop Taylor, my bishop up at school and he was able to inform the temple that I was a current recommend holder and voila! I was able to go in with my family. What a blessing!

It was such a wonderful experience. To be confirmed by my dad and Travis and baptized by Daniel (when I walked into the font he said, "You'll be the first girl I've ever baptized". Let's just say that he didn't realize that lots of force was unnecessary when baptizing a girl.) I loved being able to sit on the bench with my little sisters and my wonderful sister-in-law. Oh I just loved it all. Such  a good, peaceful feeling.

Yes indeed, September 2nds have been very, very good to me. Can't wait to see what  9-2-12 has in store for me!

Love, Noelle