My Second Stitch Fix Experience

The V in Jessica V must stand for "Voldemort," because she's definitely a wizard.

In case you missed this post, Jessica V is my Stitch Fix stylist. When I signed up for my second Fix, I requested her to be my stylist again. I also decided to test her ability to find me clothing for a special event. So I scheduled my Fix right before a high school reunion and, in my stylist note, asked for a bright dress or fun top to wear to said reunion.

Then, of course, I did my part by pinning lots of dresses that I liked on my Pinterest board.

When my Fix arrived, I once again received a cheerful note.

Hi Awkward Mormon Girl! Thanks for requesting me for your next Fix, I am glad that you loved your last one! For your upcoming reunion I wanted to send some fun options. I love the Analia Tab Roll Blouse paired with the Francesca Pencil Skirt that you can easily dress up with a pair of heels and a statement necklace. The other two options are the Maeby Geo Print Dress which would go great with the Caroline Crystal Link Bracelet and a waist belt for a more fitted look. Or the Fran Scallop Edge Dress paired with a basic cardigan or fitted blazer. I hope you have a great time at your reunion! Xo Jessica V

I still don't get the Xo thing. Probably the only person that I consistently hug and kiss is Baby Brother. Jessica would have to find me some pretty spectacular clothes before I would be willing to hug and/or kiss her.

But the matter of Jessica's overly familiar sign-off diminished in the face of the fun of trying on clothes.

Here's what my box of clothes looked like from the side:



Immediately, I noticed how beautiful the colors were. Please note that I have pins like this:

And this: 

that specifically talk about colors I like. Well, Jessica V nailed it, color wise.

Everly Fran Scallop Edge Dress: As I pulled this dress out of the box, I literally said out loud, "Yes. Yes. Oh my goodness, yes." I loved this orchid color; I actually had my mom make me a dress in the same color once. I tried this dress on and saw that it was long enough for my garments. Good job, Jessica V! I had a few reservations about the fit of the dress on my figure and whether the style worked with the cardigans I already have. However, my mom came over to look at it and advised me to keep it. Getting a second opinion settled the matter. Verdict: Keep.

Market & Spruce Maeby Geo Print Dress: I probably would never have tried this dress on in a store. When I was in Italy, I romped around in a long flowered skirt and a t-shirt that said, "True Love" on it, which worked in Italy, but after I came home I felt like I couldn't wear the outfit around Hometown. This Geo Print dress gave me a similar sort of feeling, like it just wasn't everyday me. However, when I tried it on with my trusty brown belt, I found I really loved the look. Verdict: Keep.

Bay to Baubles Caroline Crystal Link Bracelet: The stones are very pretty, but honestly what I liked most about this bracelet was how good it looked with the Geo Print dress. Verdict: Keep.

41Hawthorn Analia Tab Roll Blouse: By the time I tried on this blouse and the pencil skirt, I was wondering if I might have a 5/5 Fix on my hands. At first look, I didn't like the blouse as much as the other items, but if I ended up buying the pencil skirt it would be cheaper to get all five items. I tried the blouse on to make sure my first look wasn't wrong. It wasn't. The blouse was made of a weird plasticky material, like a tarp. And it kept sliding off my shoulders, like I was Esmerelda. Verdict: Send back.

Margaret M Francesca Pencil Skirt: The tag on this skirt said it was "cobalt." I love cobalt blue with all my heart. It's one of the more perfect shades of blue. Upon further examination, though, the skirt did not have a zipper. I had to slide it on over my legs and let it sort of meld with my body. Well, this melding was not successful. The skirt was markedly too big for me. Verdict: Send back.

Overall thoughts about my second fix? I was rather impressed. I wore the Geo Print dress and the bracelet to the reunion and then to a wedding reception after. I got lots of compliments, and I felt really pretty.

If you're intrigued and want to try Stitch Fix for yourself, here's my referral link.

Midnight Thoughts

I have been to approximately 10,000,043 wedding receptions this month. And every wedding reception I've been to has been super cute.

Let me tell you a secret: your wedding reception isn't really for you, it's for your family and friends. But even though the reception is not for you, it is a showcase of your good taste and therefore it must be cute or some aesthetically pleasing variation thereof.

I'm not really into flowers, or vintage decorations, or outdoor receptions, or gray suits with small pinstripes, or dresses made entirely of lace. Those things have been considered the epitome of good taste over the last few years, which is problematic. I don't want a reception that people consider tacky, but I don't want it to be just like everybody else's, either. But I didn't catch the bouquet at Rosebud's reception last night, so I guess I don't have to worry about that for a while.

Same Old

You should know by now that Little Sister and I never have a normal conversation, through technology or otherwise.

In Which I Have Sole

In my further adventures of cooking seafood, I decided to learn to cook sole.

In this endeavor, I relied on a cookbook that my mom's best friend gave me for my college graduation. This cookbook is written by Ann Romney.

You may disagree with the Romneys' politics, but notwithstanding Ann Romney's cookbook is an impressive cookbook. She really appreciates food. I especially like her scallop recipe because it's fast and easy but extremely delicious.

When I first saw the sole recipe, I was all, "I have never even seen this fish in my life and therefore this recipe has no value to me." But recently, my local grocery has suddenly started selling sole fillets.

Obviously, this was a sign that I should buy some and learn to cook them. So I did both of those things. Well, I bought them, but the cooking part had mixed results.

So Ann Romney warned me to only cook the sole for 1 to 2 minutes a side or else it would over-cook.

And I was like, "Whatever, Ann Romney. That's what you said about the scallops. And I ended up cooking those like 3 minutes a side before they reached perfection."

So I didn't immediately scoop up some of the sole fillets when they'd cooked for one minute and thirty seconds. I had a good excuse, which was that I'd touched the spatula to a piece of raw fish and needed to find a clean spatula to scoop the cooked fish. But nature doesn't care about good excuses, and by the time I found a replacement spatula the sole had started smoking.

Now, our fire alarm likes to go off willy-nilly. It goes off when there's steam. It goes off when I open up the oven to get something out. It even goes off when I open up the empty, preheated oven to put something in. And then it doesn't shut off unless we wave a dish towel in front of it. And sometimes it goes off multiple times during the preparation of one meal. And then our landlady comes to our apartment to make sure everything's all right. And then we're like, "Yup! Just cooking stuff! Heh-heh."

However, when the sole started smoking, the fire alarm did not go off at all.

And I was all, "Really? Are you actually ever going to be of use if there's an actual fire?"

And the fire alarm obstinately said nothing.

In any case, the edges of the sole were a bit black and crispy, but overall it was quite good. I ate it with sliced lemons on top, steamed asparagus on the side, and a delicious baked potato. Ann Romney couldn't do better.

RIP Tabitha

With a great deal of difficulty, I managed to keep Tabitha alive until the beginning of July. I tried everything to save her little pansy life. We had a few weeks of weather that was consistently 90 degrees Fahrenheit or so. To protect Tabitha, I brought her inside to live on the windowsill, but that arrangement didn’t work out so well. Tabitha was a terrible roommate. She never did any chores or helped me with dinner or anything. She just sat there like a lazy lump on a log and dropped leaves and petals everywhere and waited for me to water her.

Plus, even when she was living in an air-conditioned apartment, her health still declined. The flowers she produced were smaller and smaller with every batch, and her stems grew all brown and crispy and droopy. So I decided that if she was going to die one way or the other, it would be better for her to die out in nature, where she belonged.

She passed away around the Fourth of July. Every time I come home, I see this at the bottom of the stairs:

I miss her.

Five Weddings

I. The First
Although Etch-a-Sketch is not the friend I have been closes with the longest, she is the friend I met first. We went to preschool together and reunited in high school. She is also the first of my friends to get married.

I was terribly excited for Etch-Sketch's wedding. We went wedding dress shopping. I gave suggestions for decorations and helped glue the centerpieces together. The day of the wedding, I spent the morning at the reception venue, helping to get things ready. Then it was off to the temple to see Etch-a-Sketch and her new husband emerge, beaming. I beamed back at them. Then it was another mad dash--this time to prepare and serve the luncheon. I friend corn chips to put on the Cafe Rio-style salads like I had been born into the world for that purpose. After the luncheon, a short break. Then we set up for the reception. I made and served miniature cheesecakes and ran to the store for more chocolate syrup. I didn't leave until after Etch-a-Sketch and Mr. Etch-a-Sketch had driven off to start their life together as husband and wife.

II. How Are You?
I met Shutterbug in high school band class, and I thought I knew her from somewhere. Her name and her face and her amazing red hair all seemed familiar to me.

We would talk occasionally. Then we became band trip roommates, and soon were friends.

When I saw Shutterbug at lunch and between classes, she would often say, "How are you?"

One day, I retorted by pointing out that we not only saw each other almost every day, we often saw each other multiple times a day, and "How are you?" is something people should only say to each other when they don't see each other often and sincerely don't know how the other is doing, and so therefore could we please greet each other in some other manner?

From then on, we made a point of never saying, "How are you?" to each other. If one of us slipped, they received a severe chastisement.

Then one year, Shutterbug went on a date on my birthday. Things became Facebook official while I was in Italy, and they married the day before Thanksgiving. Shutterbug and her husband made their home in a city not too far from Hometown, but not too close either.

Now, when Shutterbug and I see each other, we say, "How are you?"

III. Saying Yes
One day, the bishop called me into his office and told me that we were getting a new Relief Society president, and that she felt prompted to ask me to be her first counselor. Would I accept this calling?

"Yes," I said. Yes to the calling, yes to serving Heavenly Father, and yes to loving and helping and being the right-hand woman of this new president, whomever she was.

I went to the temple that week. A girl that I'd known in junior high and who had recently joined our ward was there.

She came and sat by me. I let her. I'd always thought she was nice and, besides, I knew that being in the Relief Society presidency would require being extra friendly and conscientious of the women in my ward.

We did baptisms for the dead. Afterward, the girl from junior high school cornered me and began to spill out her soul.

"I've just been having such a hard time," she said breathlessly, then launched into a long explanation.

I listened politely, but I was a little taken aback. I didn't remember her being so...randomly-share-personal-stuff with-almost-strangers-ish.

"-and then this calling-" she continued.

"Oh." Comprehension had dawned. "You must be the new Relief Society president!"

We returned to that temple often, Madam President and I. And we visited and served and talked and laughed and loved together. We visited and talked and laughed and loved a year away. And at the end of that year, I went to that temple once again to witness Madam President be married and sealed for time and eternity, for she had said yes to a calling even more demanding and rewarding than Relief Society president.

IV. Meant to Be
It appears that Heavenly Father very much wanted La Petite and I to be friends, on account of He gave us so many opportunities to do it.

First, we attended the same junior high, although we never did meet.

Then we ended up in the same ward, although we never did talk.

Then I applied to work at the fast food restaurant where, unbeknownst to me, La Petite was employed. We talked occasionally, and after a year starting becoming truly friendly and then friends.

Then we both served with Madam President. La Petite was the Relief Society secretary, the person who kept us organized. The three of us served endless hours together, as a presidency, as sisters in Zion, as friends.

When La Petite begged told me that she would force me if I didn't asked me to move in with her and the Seamstress, I accepted, because after spending so much time with her in so many different capacities, I knew we were definitely compatible as roommates.

I moved in. Three weeks later, she was engaged. She wanted to stay with us and get married, but as those things aren't compatible, she married and moved out.

At the reception, someone said to me, "Oh, so you're her roommate?"

This was strange to me, that when La Petite and I were students together, in the same ward, coworkers, friends, and also in the Relief Society presidency together, I should be addressed by the title of "roommate," when that title had been acquired but lately and been fleeting indeed.

V. The Last
My BFF Viola and I met at a pivotal time of life. We quickly became best friends, meaning, of course, that I would clearly someday attend her wedding.

After many years of friendship, the day that was once only hypothetical became a reality. Viola's wedding day came upon us.

Nobody formally "gave" Viola "away" at the wedding. But informally, a wedding is always a giving away. Especially for dear friends who give the care and keeping of somebody they love away to someone that they hope loves her as much as or more than they do. They give her away to a new life, knowing their place will be different in it. That's as it should be; that's as marriage should be. But even when it should be, different is still different.

I cried at the ceremony. I smiled at the reception. I just didn't know what to do with myself. So I took up a pen and gave myself over to that ambitious human pastime: trying to explain exactly what you are feeling.

The Runaway

What ho, you landlubbers! I doth have the pleasure of informing you that I have reached 250 blog posts.

You may ask, "How do you do it, Awkward Mormon Girl? How do you write two and a half hundred blog posts in less than two and a half years? How is it that you haven't run out of things to write about yet? Especially considering that this blog is mostly about your everyday life?"

To which I say, "Heaven only knows. One of these days I will run out of these to write about, and this blog will have to close down its doors. Metaphorically speaking, of course. There are no doors here."

In other news, I've run away. I'm in a Marriott hotel in a small city multiple hundreds of miles away from Hometown. Older Sister came here for a good reason, and I tagged along for no good reason except to clear my head, to write, to meditate, and to think.

I have very few actual plans of what to do while here. I think this is the first actual vacation I've ever been on.

So far, so good. Our dad in an elite member of the Marriott rewards thingamajig, so when we stayed in New York the staff at the hotel were simply falling all over themselves to please us. It looks like it will be much the same here. Generally, I have no need for people to fall over themselves in my presence, but every now and again, it makes for an interesting change.

High Societea

The Seamstress isn't normally a terrifying person. She likes waltzing, and fairy tales, and baking brownies and muffins and bread.

But then occasionally, she says something terrifying.

THE SEAMSTRESS: Twenty people are coming to our apartment on Saturday for games and fondue!

And they did. And the Seamstress made three kinds of fondue, including one made of special apple cheese and apple cider. We dipped apples in it. Obviously.

At the time, I thought that fondue-game-night-for-twenty-people was the most ambitious thing that the Seamstress could cook up. But oh, how wrong I was.

It started innocently enough, with this innocuous announcement:

THE SEAMSTRESS: I've invited some people over next Sunday for a luncheon so that I have an excuse to use my china.

Over the following week, small details were mentioned.

THE SEAMSTRESS: We're going to have cucumber sandwiches because that sounds fancy.

THE SEAMSTRESS: We're going to drink water with fruit in it, so hopefully it tastes good.

THE SEAMSTRESS: I think we'll have mini cheesecakes for dessert.

Then, one day, the Seamstress said, “I’m going to make roses out of tomatoes for the luncheon. I found a YouTube tutorial.”

And I was all, “This sounds like it could get dangerous.” But then I was all, “But how dangerous can it be really? It’s just a YouTube tutorial. She’ll be fine.”

Little did I know that tomato roses are the gateway drug to fanciness! Because the Seamstress made the tomato roses, as promised. But when Pepper and I came home on Saturday night after a fine evening with the improv troupe, we discovered that not only tomato roses but also lace tablecloth! And sliced cucumbers that had been raked with a fork! And real roses, fancy pink and white ones, in a beautiful vase! And the table was already being set for an event that was still a good sixteen hours away! 

 
And the Seamstress, who is usually cheerful but pragmatic, was scarily euphoric. “Just don’t run into my china,” she said happily to me as I did my daily exercises. She didn’t whistle as she laid out the china, but she was probably whistling inside.

In addition to the china, she pulled out some glass goblets. “I only have enough teacups for six people,” she said, “but I lost track and I think I invited twelve.”

It was quickly becoming clear that the Seamstress was, indeed, in a terrifying and ambitious and fancy mood.

The next morning, when I got up to get ready for church, she was already joyfully slicing the fruit for the water. And when I came home from church, she was slicing bread and pulling out flavored cream cheese that she had apparently prepared the night before because it’s not like she was busy making tomato roses and slicing cucumbers and setting tables or anything.

And Pepper and I were all, “Can we help make the cucumber sandwiches?”

And the Seamstress was all, “Yes, we are making three different kinds of cucumber sandwiches because I found three recipes and I wanted to try them all!”

Naturally. 

“And we are also going to turn the tomato roses into sandwiches!”

Naturally. What’s a Sunday-luncheon-turned-tealess-tea-party without four kinds of sandwiches? A disgrace, obviously. 

 
“And also prepare the mini cheesecakes, which shall be topped with raspberries!”

Not that she said “shall.” But in my mind she did. Also, in my mind, there was a manic glint in her eye.

We quickly got done to business at slicing, chopping, spreading, and sprinkling lemon pepper and mint and dill liberally on everything except actually only on sandwiches. All three of us stayed in our church skirts, because of course you must wear a pretty skirt to such a fancy party. 

We finished and arranged everything just as our guests arrived. Our guests were also wearing mostly skirts. They were delighted by everything that the Seamstress had thought up and then put into action with her own two hands, including the tasty cucumber sandwiches. 

 
We had a rousing discussion about said cucumber sandwiches (“The bread is mostly air, and the cucumbers are mostly water,” said the Seamstress, “which is why they could only be an aristocratic food,”) and about our favorite colors and about passages of scripture we enjoyed. Everyone went back for seconds. I kept my pinky extended the entire time.   

It was delightful. It was the fanciest thing I’ve ever helped host. And after the afternoon came off as a success, the terrifyingness of the Seamstress’s obsession with the perfect tea party faded down into a glimmer of satisfaction. She was back to normal.

Until next time. Something like this is bound to happen again. So in the meantime, I am going to try to convince her to love sushi so that the next time she whips into a frightful frenzy, it’s over making homemade sushi and hand-carved chopsticks. And then she’ll probably sew us all kimonos. And take us to Japan. 

 
P.S. If for some reason you should need any sliced cucumbers, we have approximately 30,000,000.

Blessed

Life is hard right now.

Life is usually hard, but right now it's more forcefully hard than usual.

But I can tell you that every time something hard has happened to me, I have received blessings greater than my hardships.

My junior year of high school, I sank into a deep clinical depression. I felt very sad, and very lonely. The quality of everything I did took a nose dive. And when I say everything, I mean my schoolwork, too.

I would not be able to go to college without a scholarship; my parents couldn't afford to help me. Every day, every night, whenever I had a moment where I could feel something other than apathy of depression, I was anxious about my future. I wanted to go to college. Would I be able to go?

But blessings were given to me. More than blessings--miracles. Provisions had been and continued to be made for me in a most wondrous way.

A few months before I became depressed, I took the PSAT, or NMSQT, test. I scored in the 98th percentile, which qualified me as a contender to be a National Merit Scholar. And although my individual grades were slipping, my overall GPA remained healthy enough and my portfolio of activities was impressive enough that in spite of the Cs, I was chosen a year later. And because schools with National Merit Scholars receive extra funding, suddenly all these colleges basically offered me a degree for free. At Nameless Utah College, I paid for my books and fees, but I didn't pay a red cent of the actual tuition. My education was assured without me having to do much of anything.

That was one amazing blessing. Another one was that one day, for no reason in particular, I felt promoted to seek out Best Friend Boy. But at the time, he was only Friend Boy. We weren't super close. I liked him, and Etch-a-Sketch, and Shutterbug a lot, but I was sort of a free agent at school. I didn't really have a "group." I felt like I had enough close friends outside of school and I didn't need any more.

However, I decided to confide in Best Friend Boy some of the difficulties of my depression. I can only attribute this weird decision to divine intervention, and I have been grateful for said divine intervention every day since. There is no doubt in my mind that the love of Best Friend Boy, Etch-a-Sketch, and Shutterbug changed my life. Without that depression, though, I never would have been humble enough to accept that love and friendship.

Life was difficult, but what I needed was provided to me...even when I didn't know that I needed it.

A year and a half ago, some other issues of great personal import which I cannot share here arose. And on top of that, I was in my last semester of college, and the pressure was mounting to do all the necessary things that must be done in the last year of college, like find a real job that was in my field which I could support myself with. And on top of that, the interim job that I had decided to take was in a city an hour away. And on top of that, I was in the Relief Society presidency, devoting much of my free time to serving Heavenly Father. We would go visit women in our ward at least one day a week, among other duties. And I couldn't just show up for these visits; to be effective, I had to really be present. And on top of that, I became very sick for seven weeks. I was always sick to my stomach and had no appetite, and what I did eat did not stay put. I went to doctors and specialists, but they had no idea what was wrong. And on top of that, I became an insomniac, lying awake at night and wondering how I could possibly get through all of this.

The obvious blessing here is that I did get through it. I scarcely remember doing homework, but somehow it got done. And things got better. I received a blessing of healing from my father, and my illness went away. I graduated successfully and found a job in my field, which I wasn't expecting. Creative writers don't get creative writing jobs. They either get rich writing novels or are forced to work in another field or starve to death while trying to live on freelance work and particularly vivid descriptions of food. My insomnia ceased. And best of all, after everything cleared up, I was able to go to the temple to be endowed. This has been the greatest blessing of all.

I said in a previous post that I hadn't yet received many blessings out of my current trials. But what I guess I really meant was that I haven't received the type of blessings that would mean my current trials are coming to an end. Because I have been so blessed. I have a family that I love so much. I have the knowledge of the true gospel in the end of days. I have good friends, supportive roommates, a good job that gives me what I need and more, a healthy body, wonderful church callings, yellow shoes, all three seasons of Avatar the Last Airbender, and so much more. At the moment, I don't have everything that I hope for, but I have so much to thank God for every day. I know that He loves me, and I know that in time, the deepest desires of my heart will surely come my way.