Dates, Delicacies and Delight

An update of my mission prep:  Yesterday I got up, ran on the treadmill while watching four episodes of Cake Boss, updated stuff on my laptop and went on my last date.  A guy I used to date, but now am friends with, we love hanging out.  No it's not friends with benefits.  It is a friendship centered on admiration, trust and the ability to laugh and have fun together.  We went to a Sushi house, my first time ever.  The food itself was gorgeous and tasted even better than it looked.  Stuffed to the brim with Sushi, we went back to his house and chatted about our lives.  It was a bittersweet date.  It would be our last for a year and a half.  This guy came into my life three weeks after I told the first boy I had ever loved, and who had been my best friend for years, to get out of my life and never return.  So I was a wreck.  But he came in, helped me realize that I deserved respect and love, and we made some summer romance memories that challenged Nicholas Sparks literary scenes.  I'll miss him so much.  And I'll never forget what I learned from him. 

Today, I hung out with another one of my bff's.  Shopping for mission stuff, we chatted about her current engagement and her wedding plans in December.  We laughed and reminisced of the good ol days when we were in High School.  This friend has taught me so much about life and how to handle the trials it brings.  After a hangout, family came over and with talking, laughing, arguing and Christmas music filling the background, we pumped out over 100 pizzelli cookies.  Never heard of them?  They're an Italian delicacy.  Shaped like a small doily, they are baked like waffles.  You mix the addictive batter and pour it into a pizzelli maker that bakes the batter into a flat and intricately designed cookie.  I grew up on these cookies.  One of my proudest moments was when mom let me actually measure out the vanilla by myself; granted I was 4 at the time but because it could spill so easily, it was an honor when I got to do it myself.  It was long, exhausting and a huge mess.  But one I will never forget. 

Pizzelli Cookies

My farewell is TOMORROW!  I can hardly believe I'm actually giving my mission farewell talk tomorrow.  As a kid, I thought the day would never come.  Preparing for my mission, I was seriously convinced that it would never come.  Now, tomorrow I will wake up, put on tons of makeup and hair product and spend hours eating and chatting with tons of family, friends and ex boyfriends.  I'm excited, nervous, stressed, and slightly disconnected from reality.  Everything seems to be happening so fast, beyond any control.  In only four days I will enter the MTC ready to begin the best chapter of my life.