2010 Wrap Up: People

Our last wrap up list. This is about 8 people I fell in love with this year.

(In order of photographs L-R), top to bottom)

Ruth (and Davy)  the whole Shultz family for that matter.

Reagan (and Piper) the only people on the list I haven't met in real life, but I feel like I have.

My sister-in-law Megan who helped raise my children and my thoughts.

Sarah Wiley-the mastermind behind the Rooftop Concert Series and my dear friend.

My brother Jesse who championed our cause and took risks for me.

Stuart Maxfield for creating music that livens my heartbeat and makes me want to make out with my husband. (Watch this video).

Troy Holmberg for giving me an opportunity to give back--all the way across the globe.

Ever Jane Kendrick.



See you next year, ok Cuties?
Thanks for being around this year. It means a lot.




Photos of Reagan and Piper, Stuart and Troy are from their personal sources. 
Photo of Ever Jane (& her daddy) by Jed Wells.



I am C. Jane Kendrick and I love people. 
contact me: cjanemail(AT)gmail.com
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2010 Wrap Up: Mistakes

Hey Cutie Cutes, we're back. You still here? You are if you are reading this! Ha, caught you!

Sometimes blogging during the holidays makes one feel as though they are talking to themselves. Which is nothing new for me. Cutes.

C. Jane you need to work on your posture, ok sounds good, you're getting humpy again in the back, ok, can I say humpy on this blog? ok sounds good...

I'd like to present 5 of the most painful blogging mistakes I made this year. I mean, there were more than 5 but I talked it over with myself and that's all my pride will allow to be published at this time.

5. Despite Azucar's warnings, "Twitter will ruin your blogging" I was persuaded to open a Twitter account. Blughh. Simply, I don't like being contained in any way, shape or form. When Twitter gets all hyper because I am threatening to use more than 140 characters to explain how much I love my Black Licorice tea from Egypt on a morning when I feel like summoning the deeply troubled pharaohs of the Nile I say, "Oh Twitter! Who needs your brevity?" And then I am forced to self-reply, "Me, probably."

I am no good at it, but I'll keep trying.

4. So I've got this Provo blog, right? Yes? Ok sounds good. And recently I posted about a viral video called Provo, Utah Girls. It's a parody about BYU co-eds who are drooling to get married and the distances they will go to hunt down a righteous man. I thought it was a great example of how often times my hometown's public profile gets swallowed up in BYU's public profile, when in fact those who take up residency here see a bigger distinction. I wanted to opine that though the university is a powerful presence, it is a sub-culture and not the culture (like I always say, the BYU experience is not the Provo experience and the Provo experience is not the BYU experience). Therefore (is this turning into a thesis? Wait...) when the lyrics say Provo Utah Girls it doesn't actually mean Provo Utah Girls. And let me add that I did my homework and talked to those Provo Utah Girls who like me were raised, live, and claim Provo as their home and all of them said the same thing, BYU had some but little to do with their lives growing up. Ok so anyway that is my point.

Now, my mistake came when in explaining all of this I neglected to explain I wasn't offended by this video and I certainly didn't take it seriously. I understand the culture, I get it. I thought there were some humorous notes, like when the girls talk about marrying a tree if it served a mission. And Mallory, the writer and singer of the sketch is just about as cute as an apple pie on the Fourth of July. But I wrote the post completely wrong and came across as crusty. And oh boy did I get a beating for that.

Oh Cuties. Why go on?

3. I worked too soon after having a baby. I don't mean writing, there is never a better time to write--when life is swirling around you and slipping into your present-ness. But I was doing interviews and going to business meetings and accepting positions on community boards two weeks after having a baby. It was too early. I paid dearly. I wish I could do a do-over.

2. As it turns out, this was the year I picked as Fabulous Under 40 for Utah Valley's BusinessQ Magazine and was featured in the number 2 spot! I know what you're thinking, just using another list to brag C. Jane? Yes. But no. Yes and no? Ok sounds good. The problem is not that I was featured (obviously) but what I wore to the photoshoot. Because what resulted was perhaps the most unflattering photograph taken of me since the Johnny Hawkins dance with Jimmy Burch when I was a senior in high school. And people I know who don't read my blog read that magazine and suddenly I was being stopped around town by a whole new crowd. And oh golly gravy chunks I am caressing a huge tub of popcorn. I can't show you. Yes I can. No I can't. Ok sounds good.



Is it okay to look now?

Is the popcorn still there?

Ahhhhyikes.
 
1. I was too serious too much of the time.



I am C. Jane Kendrick and right around the end of September of this year I went to get a massage and the miracle worker told me I had hump on my back "like an old lady". It was caused by stress. I am happy to say, it's gone now.
contact me: cjanemail(AT)gmail.com
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2010 Wrap Up: My Favorite Blogging Moments

Day two Cuties! Day two of wrapping up this year of 2010! This is such a special treat for tout le monde! Do you feel special Cuties? You should. I don't just throw French phrases when things aren't absolument special.

Anyway here are 10 things that were the sugar and spice on my blogging cupcake this year:

10. Chup left his intense corporate job to be at home with the little people. Of course, to Chup everyone is little people. Anyway, he's had a variety of careers in his life, but none so successful at what he's doing now. Now he's doing everything: acting, voice-over work (Jesus), photography, writing, cooking, cleaning, repairs, waste management, laundry room attendant, product reviewer, Minecraft architect, husband, father and the only person who can get me to say, "Sorry I can't, I don't have time right now."

9. I did an interview with Jane Flott of Interface Voices a nationally-syndicated radio show that airs on the NPR affiliate in Washington D.C. We talked about how religion influences my blogging. By-the-way, I am a Mormon. I know, you're all, "HOT POTATO! WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO TELL ME NEXT? IS NIE NIE A MORMON TOO?"

8. I met Nancy Hanson doing another radio interview called Everything Creative for the Mormon Channel. Since I was but a college-going, boy kissing dreamer have I loved Nancy Hanson's singing and song-writing. As I went to shake hands with her, my force was equal to a blizzard in Nepal. I froze her out for a second with my fanship of fury. Sorry about that Nance! (now we're friends, partially BFFs--if you ask me--and I can call her by the nickname I created for her (Nance)).

7. After a deluge of emails asking me about how I fought the devastating battle of divorce and won, I wrote about my experience in a post called, A Story of Repentance. This had some interesting effects, I was interviewed by Brooke Walker for Studio 5's Find Strength in Hard Times series and from the station of my inbox, I read heart-breaking emails from women in painful marriages. But for me, that post was significant because it helped me walk through the entire motive for that marriage and divorce. For the first time I felt secure enough to accept the choices I made and the consequences it had on my life.

6. We helped promote a little band of missionaries and musicians who I like to call the Lower Lights. And glory be! In the process we met some life-long friends who have blessed our lives with their golden light of love. Happy times. Happy times.

5. My sister Stephanie (the transcendent one you call Nie Nie, the Mormon) and I spoke at a local Women's Health Conference for IHC together. My aunt Judy was in the audience as well as my friend Brenda who goes by B. (because she's so stellar she only needs one letter). Stephanie had everyone crying and then I got up and had everyone wishing for more Stephanie. But still, it was worth the swag. Everything is worth the swag.

4. Speaking on the blogger's panel at the Mormon Media Symposium.

3. I spoke at/sang at the CBC conference for people who are casual bloggers but who are really sassy women with gorgeous hair and babies at home. Almost my entire family was there, on the front row, watching me. Ric Farmer Beesley gave me a pre-determined nod when it was time to quit. That was probably thirty minutes before the rest of the audience wanted it to be time for me to quit. But what can you do?

2. My beloved Rooftop Concert Series.

1. The whole purpose for this thing called the internet is for the exchange of information and ideas. It is not for the exchange of unkindness, stupidity or jealously, but many times that's exactly what gets moved about. The best moment of blogging for me this year was when my friend Marilyn Lott, the Passionista, had been reading about all of our concert series and fun we were having and decided to explode. "Instead of feeling sorry for myself about living in an area where nothing exciting happens, I decided to bring the excitement here myself," she wrote me in an email. Marilyn shed her pouting and went to work, risking her own funds to create a concert series. Her first concert (with Mindy Gledhill), was a total success and this January she'll be hosting Sarah Sample (you need to go if you are in the area, watching Sarah Sample live is like viewing sunlit honey drip from heaven-blessed angel's tongues and if you've seen that you know what I mean. Details here.)

Our purpose in blogging is pretty simple, we want to help spread the ease of happiness. As the pioneer hymn says, to cheer up the sad, make others feel glad.

If not, we have failed indeed.


Salut Cuties!

I am C. Jane Kendrick and stay tuned for tomorrow...My Least Favorite Blogging Moments. Dun dun dun...
contact me: cjanemail(AT)gmail.com
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2010 Wrap Up: Pictures of . . . ME!!!

Okay darlings, here's the deal (not the dealio mind you) a couple years ago, in the late stages of December, I put up a thorough collage with a theme, Pictures of C. Jane. It was meant in fun--a half-witted nod to my perpetual narcissism. Alas, only a few hours after posting this year-end calendar of sorts, my modesty got the better of me and it was plucked off the blog.

But you know, my looks have transformed so wildly this year I thought to heck with prudery, let's lay it out.

For your voyeurism ...you're welcome.
From January to December:














Egads, that is a lot of photos of the Me. Well, now there is ample proof I existed--and that I wasn't afraid to use bleach on my hair--and that having a baby sure takes the zoozle out of you.

But it's ohhhh so worth it.



I am C. Jane Kendrick and now you know. 
contact me: cjanemail(AT)gmail.com
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We're Happy Tonight

Hey, Merry Christmas.


(Blue Lily style.)


I love you.

I mean it.

I am C. Jane Kendrick and I'll see you on the 27th when we start our 2010 list making.
contact me: cjanemail(AT)gmail.com
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