project #21: necklace adjustment

A few weekends ago my mom went out to St. George with her three sisters for a sister's weekend. While there my mom and her oldest sister Taunya fell in love with this necklace. They decided to buy it together: my mom would get it first, then after six months she would send it out to her sister to keep for six months, etc. However, they both decided that it was a little too short for their tastes, but bought it any way in hopes that I could alter it for them. Well aren't they lucky that they were right!

Here the necklace is unaltered. You can see that the biggest hanging bead hits me right on my collar bone. It doesn't look bad with the line of my shirt, but the moms were looking for something that was less choker-esque.

We measured and decided that we needed to add about 6 inches, or 3 inches on each side. I found some small black beads and larger black and white beads that would compliment those already on the necklace and added them to the back when I restrung it. Ta-da! Done. When I showed my mom she said, "I love 31 Projects!"

...in my life i've loved them all

I came to the realization today that people are leaving. I've mostly been focused on the people I will be leaving, like Jen and Megan, Aleisha and Claire, or my aunt Taunya, people that will be left behind here in Utah, at least for a short while, while I go off to start my post-college life...wherever. But today while I was at church, wondering if there was teacher prep today, I looked around for Louis to ask him. And he wasn't there. He is in Chile on an internship and I will most likely not see him again for a very long time. Then there's Sydney who's going to Nepal on Tuesday, Chaela who will be doing EFY all summer, and Stephanie who is in Nevada working on a farm. Brad is leaving Tuesday to go to Florida to work at Disney World (or is it Disney Land? I always get those two confused...). These are people that I really care about who have become an integral part of my life in the past year and even longer. And pretty soon they won't be.

I'm not the kind of person who cries at good byes. I'm the kind of person who looks at people crying and thinks, "Really? Suck it up." But then about a week later when it sinks in that I won't be seeing those people every day or even once a month I will cry alone in my bed as I fall asleep. I'm happy to say that the crying hasn't started yet, and I predict it won't until I'm in the Poconos in Pennsylvania in a cabin full of 10-year-old girls lying exhausted and feeling alone. And that's when I will miss them most.

an artistic rendition of actual events

Once upon a time there was a girl who had a beautiful dress. It was black and green and white and she loved it. When she wore it she was the happiest girl in the whole valley. 

One day the girl noticed that the dress was shorter than she remembered it. When she was standing it was fine but when she sat down she had to tug on it to make it reach her knees. So the girl would tug and tug but the dress just seemed to get shorter and shorter. And this made her sad.

One day the girl's fairy god-aunt saw her tugging and tugging on her dress, twisting in her chair so that the dress wouldn't seem so short and she said, "What's that dress made out of? I bet we could just unstitch that bottom seam and pull that doubled over fabric out to make that hem longer. That should add about two to three inches." So that's exactly what she did and the girl was amazed at the magic her fairy god-aunt knew! She put on the dress and sat down. She stood up. She jumped. She twirled. She even did a cartwheel! (Well, maybe only in her soul.) She hugged her fairy god-aunt and told her that she was the best fairy god-aunt in the whole world! Thanks to her magic the girl was once again the happiest girl in happy valley. And the one with the cutest dress.

easter

Easter Sunday was a great day! I spent it in Sandy with my aunt and uncle, their kids, and their kids' kids. It was a lot of fun. One of the things I noticed while hanging out with my aunt Taunya and cousins Ade and Rayne is that we all laugh the same. Someone would say something funny and we would all laugh in the same way but different tones. It was one of those family connections, you know? It reminded me of when my parents came down to visit for Christmas and came to my house Christmas party. I introduced my mom to my friend Bryce and as she and I were talking he looked back and forth between the two of us and got this kind of scared look in his eyes. I asked him if he was ok and he said, "It's like Cassi in surround sound." Haha. My mom and I are the same person.

My cousins-once-removed (aka my cousin's kids) are pretty adorable. For Easter my cousin Rayne (their aunt) gave all three of them these adorable skirts from the Gap, for which she works. The littlest Martin, Rylie, had a yellow skirt and she looked like a baby chick, or possibly, because of her stripped leggings, more like Big Bird. All three of the girls were colorful and pretty much the cutest kids on the block.

We went to Jenny and Ryan's new ward for church and there were lots of old people. Stephanie would have loved it. We felt a little bad all visiting today because they were all so excited to see new young people in the ward and we were not really there to stay. One woman, Claudia, was very excited to see us and super friendly. She introduced herself to my cousin-in-law Jenny and then when Jenny introduced her to someone else a minute later Claudia looked at her surprised and said, "How do you know my name?" It was hilarious. She is my favorite.

When we got home from church Ade, Rayne, Taunya and I had our own Easter egg hunt in the house. It was Ade's idea, of course, and it was actually a lot of fun. Sadly there wasn't any candy in the eggs because we just hid some that Taunya had on the table for decoration. Speaking of candy, I need to go buy some candy eggs because now they will all be on sale and they are my favorite candy in the whole world...