Compare and Contrast

I am spending my spring break with my sister's family. Which means I get to spend time with this thing. I LOVE this thing.

It also means that I get to feed my doughnuts and other assorted junk to the children of my heath-food-guru sister. Needless to say, I am feeling very loved and appreciated.

My sister and I haven't always had a lot in common. She is the oldest and, according to all photographic evidence, had a very happy childhood. The same photographic evidence suggests that my own childhood was...um....somewhat annoying.

Jenny was a popular jock social butterfly in high school. I had a much smaller circle of friends and was a yearbook editor and wrote for the newspaper.

In college, Jenny studied family history at BYU, and worked as a flirty librarian while learning calligraphy and flower arranging on the side. I studied education at a gentile university and worked as an trouble-making, puppy-kicking journalist to pay my bills.

Our paths diverged even more during the summer of 2000 when took the full-time mission route...

... and she decided to start the training process for being a senor couple missionary by finding herself an eternal companion.

But the more time I spend in her home, the more I realize how much we have in common.

We like a lot of the same music.

We both love to blog.

And we both live in the shadows of very nice mountains.

We are also completely addicted to the written word and like reading a lot of the same books. Of course, our personal libraries are not exactly the same. At the moment, I am thoroughly fascinated with Eastern philosophy and Calvin and Hobbes....

... while Jenny is studying some other topics.

One of my favorite similarities is that we both spend our days teaching. I love educating the unwashed masses at the junior high about sentence parts and literary themes...

...And Jenny loves teaching her smelly-for-different-reasons joy-schoolers about shapes and seasons and not attacking visiting aunts with the swords that the visiting aunts may or may not have brought to the home on a previous trip.

I spend a lot of time decorating my classroom to fit our various themed units of instruction.

And Jenny spends massive amounts of time decorating for the various themed parties she throws for her kids.

This morning, in honor of Saint Patricks Day, she dyed her kid's hair green, while I painted finger and toe nails a lovely shade of lime. We make a great team, don't we?

In conclusion, I would just like to state how very alike we are and how much we, as sisters, care about the each other's well-being.

Which is why Jenny is going to forgive me for getting her kids all hopped up on sugar, corn syrup, and trans fats before turning them lose with the assortment of weapons I have purchased for them. Oh, and did I mention that I am buying them necklaces with dead spiders in them? And because we are so much alike, I'm sure my dear, dear sister will be fine with that.

Right, Jen?