honest

I'll be straight up, I think that these things are super lame. So obviously I have no problem participating.

1. post rules of the game so no one gets lost.

2. post a photo and 11 random things about yourself.

3. answer questions that were given you by tagger.

4. ask some questions for those you tag to answer

5. tag some people to do this all over again.

1. I am an avid hater of snow.
2. I read classic novels and I enjoy them.
3. I don't listen to the radio.

4. Sometimes I cry for no reason. And I'm OK with it.
5. I have a better relationship with my car than with any human being.
6. I have STRONG opinions about wearing leggings as pants.
7. The quickest way to get to my heart is through food.
8. I have no idea why I am where I am right now.
9. My scent of choice is white citrus from Bath and Body Works.
10. The next guy who wants me to open up to him is going to have to sneak his way into my heart (probably via food) because I've never been more closed.

11. I'm going to be a pretty fantastic wife and mother.

 

1. If you could have one signature dance move what would it be?

Anything to do with being able to move my hips.

 
2. If you could eat one thing without getting fat or ugly what would it be?

Any and all food from Gloria's Little Italy.

 
3. What would you tell yourself 5 years ago?

He's not worth it.

 
4. What makes you cry?

I think the better question is "what DOESN'T make me cry."

 
5. Celebrity crush?

Emma Stone. Yeah I'm serious.

 
6. If you had anyone's hair who would it be and why?

My sister Janna's. It's the greatest color of red, it's long and beautiful.

7. Dream concert?
Debussy meets Stravinsky.

8. Favorite childhood tv show?
Arthur

 
9. How do you want other people to view you?

I want them to see someone who is always kind, who is always understanding, who never takes out her anger/frustration/sadness on others, who is consistently thinking of everyone else besides herself.

 
10. What do you do when you are having a bad day to feel better?

Cry a lot. Eat crappy food. Give up on everything and waste time online, or read or watch a movie. Ideally spend a massive amount of time in strong arms. But if that's not available I crawl in bed.

11. What was your childhood dream?
To be in the MoTab.

I definitely don't feel like coming up with new questions. Too bad for you.

 

oh so that's what's been missing in my life.

The best conversation I had all weekend:
Sam: John, did you get that song learned?
John: Yeah, it's only like 3 chords.
Me: Oh is it I, IV, V, I?
John: No, actually I, ii, vi, I.
Me: Oh how interesting!
John: My favorite song goes I, IV, vii, I.
Me: Dang that would be a great progression.
Sam and Brooke: You guys are the coolest people we have ever met.

After an entire semester of being by myself constantly and having a serious social interaction deficiency, I finally decided that enough was enough, and I remedied the situation by promptly inviting myself to things and inviting others to things. Which resulted in a freaking fantastic weekend. That did not involve going to the festival of colors, but did involve having a sword fight out of angry birds posters in Barnes and Nobles, crying when I saw a newborn, and seeing The Hunger Games.

And then I remembered that we are supposed to be around people and we don't have to be alone all the time. I know right?

living for the now

Remember when I used to blog? Yeah that was fun.
I'm a firm believer that "If you don't have nothing nice to say, don't say nothing at all."
This week I felt like I had nothing nice to say. Which I realize now isn't entirely true. There were some nice things that happened this week. Such as:
Getting over a stomach bug that made me worthless last week/weekend.
Turning in my last HUGE paper of the semester.
Taking two tests. Doing great on one, doing OK on the other.
Only working two nights at the restaurant.
Working out insanely hard in my exercise classes and kicking butt (mostly my own).
Sitting outside in the sun between classes and getting a sunburn on my ankles (that's what I get for being so expository. Showing your ankles is a scandal).
The week flying by and realizing that I only have 2 1/2 weeks til the last day of classes which falls on the same day as my flight to Florida.
Aw yeah.

good bad and ugly

Last night was my first time hostessing on a weekend and it was also the first night that the restaurant was BUSY in a long time. The other hostess was late, and let's just say it was a little bit of a nightmare.

And it permeated my dreams all night long. I was constantly close to awake with visions of endless receipts to be settled and demanding customers coming behind my counter and asking to be seated.

All this on top of three days worth of only being able to eat crackers and ginger ale. I was feeling pretty crappy at 1 in the morning as I tossed and turned and tried to chase out my nightmare at the restaurant with visions of Disneyland.

The good news is that it is only 11:00 in the morning and my huge paper is DONE! (all except the conclusion...) This was the biggest paper of my human development class and now I just have three more baby papers total for all of my classes. Plus something like 7 tests...

Dang.

Please bless that I won't have to run to the bathroom every hour at work tonight.

expecto patronum

Have I ever mentioned how much I strongly dislike my humanities class? Don't worry about it.

This week I have gotten to miss out on it twice (!!). Which is awesome.

Today when I found out that it was cancelled, I decided to dedicate my afternoon to work on my social competency paper, since I didn't have to go to work!

So obviously it took me an hour to get home and I felt the need to "unwind" with some Friends.

I did work on it for a little bit. But not really.

I have a problem people. I've been whining for a month about how I don't have time to do my homework and now that I do, I realize that really I'm lacking the motivation.

Here's the thing. I go to bed at 10pm every night. Without fail. But I'm always SO tired. It's 5:00 in the afternoon and I feel like I could just fall asleep for the night right now. What?

When I renewed my temple recommend on Sunday, my Bishop asked me if I am making time to have fun. The answer to that is a resounding no. Fun seems like too much effort right now.

Maybe this is why I've been gripped with the desperate need to go to Disneyland ASAP.

That would be fun.

Or Harry Potter World. Which is happening in less than a month. Oh snap.

After having a tiny emotional breakdown at work on Friday and doing some serious questioning about why I was working two jobs, I talked to my boss at Gloria's and asked her to drastically reduce my hours. This means no more 18 hour days! And more time to write papers and study for tests. Or watch Friends. Which is what happened today.

I'm feeling really great about that.

Also, season finale of the Bachelor is FINALLY on! Let's see Ben choose Courtney!

i am not a squatter

I completely live for the weekends right now. Not so I can go to crazy parties and stay up til all hours of the night. So that I can go home and sleep and have one day to just chill.

My social experience has been completely non-existent since I left Rexburg. Completely.

My work situation has started to get out of control. I might have had a slight breakdown last night. Which was mitigated by two large pieces of chocolate cake and the 10th anniversary concert edition of Les Miserables with two of my favorite girls, Megan and Marissa. Thanks for letting me cry a little and getting me ibuprofen for my headache.

Today I went to the temple, tried to start a social competency paper, pooped out and am fully planning on vegging with my sick sister until I go to work. 

Living the dream.

it's not thanksgiving, but why should that matter?

What's the difference between simple joys, tender mercies, little blessings?

Not a dang thing.

Here are a few of mine for this Wednesday afternoon:

The General Conference app on my phone. I listen to talks about the temple while I'm at work.
My jobs. Both of them. It is unbelievably hard to work two jobs and go to school full time, but it is so worth it when those paychecks come.
Budgeting. I'm learning how to control my money instead of letting my money control me and it is such a liberating feeling.
The motivation to get out of my bed every morning. It surely doesn't come from me.
The Book of Mormon. The only good part about waking up is when I get back into bed after washing my face to spend some time in the scriptures. It's great.
Prayer. Did you know that there's a God in Heaven who loves you and wants to communicate with you? It's as easy as kneeling down.
Harriett. My adorable car. She is such great transportation and she is always there for me. Even when I lose her in the parking lot.
Water. I lost my water bottle last week and I'm really feeling a difference. I need to get a new one. I'll consult my budget.
The temple. What an amazing blessing to be able to make sacred covenants with a loving Heavenly Father to get strength to deal with this crazy world. I live a minute and a half away from the Mt. Timpanogos temple and I work two blocks away from the future Provo Tabernacle Temple. It's awesome.
That my co-worker texted me and asked me to open the restaurant today so instead of having to wait for 2 hours to come to work, and then stay late, I got to come straight from class and I'll have time to take a shower tonight. Which is something that needs to happen.
My healthy body. I don't have any insane illnesses, and as long as I maintain good nutrition and exercise habits I feel pretty good most of the time.
My family and friends. I have a wonderful support system. I'm going through this "independent" phase, my mom could tell you all about it, but I'm feeling this need to be independent, be my own entity and in the process I sometimes have days where I don't want to let anyone into my life. But then I get over myself and my support system is always there for me.
Garlic bread from Gloria's. Which actually might be a curse.

Now that I've started I can't seem to stop thinking of wonderful blessings in my life. So I'll stop blogging about them, but you can bet that I'll keep realizing and wondering about the many things God has blessed me with.

Happy Wednesday!

comfy

I'm loving giant sweatshirts right now.

Also I way want to go back to New York.

spiritually saturated

February was a bit of a tough month for me. I started working two jobs and tried to figure out how to juggle those plus full time school as well as keeping myself spiritually uplifted. This past weekend was exactly what I needed. I got to go to my YSA stake women's conference and guess who was the keynote speaker. Sister Julie B. Beck, General Relief Society President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. What a great experience! Do you remember when I served her bread and water back in January? I still feel really cool about that.

Hearing Sister Beck speak was seriously an unbelievable experience. She is so funny and genuine and kind and she really portrayed the love that she, and the Presidency of the Church have for us. She took 6 questions from the congregation and built her talk around those questions. I have never been to a meeting that was so directed by the spirit. It was amazing. She taught such important truths about our purpose as women on this earth, she taught about the temple and about recognizing the spirit in our lives.

As I've mentioned, February was kind of a hard month and I came into this conference with a lot of unspoken questions in my heart and a lot of things kind of weighing on me. By the end of the hour that Sister Beck spoke to us, I had answers to all of my questions and a feeling of peace and love from above.

Isn't God great?

And that was just in the hour between 9 and 10:00 on Saturday morning! The rest of the morning was filled with break out classes and a wonderful musical program that had me bawling. Women of this church are just amazing.

Since the conference was held at the Stake Center right across from the Mt. Timpanogos Temple, I decided to mosey across the parking lot and do some baptisms. What an amazing blessing the temple is. I eagerly look forward to the time when I can get more than a limited use recommend and make more covenants with my Heavenly Father.

And if this great day wasn't enough, the next day was fast Sunday which is always a day that has a special spirit associated with it. My church meetings were hard core incredible. I haven't talked much about my YSA ward since I've been in it these last couple of months. Goodness. It is one of the best wards I've been in since graduating from high school. There is always a great spirit there and I think it was magnified by fasting yesterday.

But the spiritual experiences weren't even over yet. Last night I got to watch a broadcast of a CES fireside with Elder Quinton L. Cook speaking from BYU-Idaho! You should have seen my reaction when I realized that the choir that was singing was MY choir with my friends and old teachers! I kept nudging the guy next to me and saying "That was my old FHE brother!" "He was my mentor!" "I taught her in basic musicianship!", on and on. What a good sport. :) Elder Cook's talk was really good too, he spoke about avoiding wearing "masks" and how detrimental they can be. The night culminated in ice cream. Win.

Basically I had a fantastic weekend. I am so grateful for a Father in Heaven who is always there to bless us and show us His love for us. He surely poured out His love and spirit on me this weekend!

simple joys

Fridays
Naps between classes
Oatmeal
Getting my homework done
Two jobs
Harriett
Harry Potter
Getting my name tag for Gloria's
20% off at Gloria's if you come when I'm working :)
The Office
Kids meals
Tips
Getting off at 9:18
Showers
Going to bed at 10:30 on a Friday
Stake women's conference tomorrow featuring Sister Julie B. Beck

My comfy bed.

:)