These Are The Moments

2012-01-21T21:07:00.000-08:00

It's strange...in the four years that I have spent here in Provo we have never had a winter this dry. Seriously, we have had absolutely NO snow. It snowed maybe like a quarter of an inch the Wednesday before Christmas but that for the most part has been it this year. Usually by this point, We got a little bit of snow today, but it wasn't much and if we keep having such unseasonably warm weather it's likely that it will be completely melted by Wednesday. All of this meteorological funkiness has been having some adverse consequences for me I think. I think because it has been so warm, it's been feeling more like the end of the semester rather than the beginning of it. That being said, this semester I have been experience some major apathy towards my classes. For example in my class on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Mental Disorders: 4th Edition (DSM-IV TR) I am already nearly 160pgs behind in my reading. Problem? I think so. It really is time for me to whip my butt into shape and start buckling down to my school work, I mean after all that is what I am here for.

In other news, this year in Relief Society we're learning about the teachings of President George Albert Smith. One of the things that we have talked a lot about since the start of the year has been Personal Creeds. Basically President Smith developed his "personal creeds" which were basically his maxims for life, the standards he lived by, etc. Since we've been talking about them so extensively I decided that it wouldn't hurt me to develop a few personal creeds of my own. I now I have a list of 19 of my own personal creeds hanging on the bulletin board over my bed. Don't worry though. I'm still pretty much wretched at keeping all of them. Something that I am working on extensively, especially the eating healthy idea. Hopefully though I'll get them sorted eventually.

So basically, that's life here in Provizzle. One extremely exhausted, lazy, and apathetic 23 year old Social Work student who is trying desperately to find a way to focus on the tasks at hand and at the same time become the best person she can, all while trying handle a full time job and 15 credits of grad school.

Oh, almost forgot! Internship placements were yesterday, I will be interning this spring at summer at the LDS Family Services offices in SLC Sugarhouse and next fall and winter I will be an intern at the VA Hospital in SLC. These are both exactly what I wanted so I couldn't be happier as far as that is concerned. : D

2012-01-15T00:43:00.000-08:00

According to Dictionary.com the word exhaustion is defined as: "to drain of strength or energy, wear out, or fatigue greatly, as a person: I have exhausted myself working."

I would have to say without a shadow of a doubt that there if I had to pick one word that best describes my life at this point in time, it would be that one. Lately I've been feeling as though I'm living in a perpetual state of exhaustion! Between work and school and trying to squeeze in some semblance of a social life I've only been able to acquire 7 hours of sleep in the last 48. This, however is significantly better than finals week when I was trying to finish up writing papers and taking exams. That week I possibly got about 5 hours of sleep out of 168 in that entire time. So as you can see, I have cause to be somewhat tired. :)

I feel like this is actually a pretty accurate descriptor of my life...

2012-01-13T05:19:00.000-08:00

Last semester one of the required classes that I took was a class on Social Welfare Policy. My professor's name was Dr. Seipel, he was obviously very liberal in a lot of his beliefs and there was many a day that I spent in his class where I found myself silently disagreeing with his expressed opinion in the back of the classroom. However, there was this one day in that class where he decided to talk to the class about ways that citizen's could get involved in the decision making process. His example included, social protest, symbolic acts, petitions, letter writing, etc. Despite my various disagreements with Dr. Seipel's opinions I actually found this section of the class rather interesting.

Also, last semester I took a class on Models of Psychotherapy, basically a class discussing all the different type of therapeutic interventions we might be able to some day employ as Social Workers. During that class my professor, Dr. Cox, had a guest speaker, Dr. Michael Cheney, come address the class on the subject of Persogenics. Persogenics, is in many ways like the Color test, or the Meyer's-Brigs. It's a type of personality classification, but unlike the others Persogenics specifically addresses how you communicate with others. How you see yourself, how others see you, and how you are seen at work. The four communication styles are amiable (those who are always trying to help and don't really like to say "no"), analytical (those who are more focused on a step by step process, lists, etc.), dominants (who are very to the point, direct, and live very much in the present), and expressives (who are pretty much that chatty kathy that was constantly talking that you either were yourself, you loved, or you hated). Each of us was asked to take persogenics before Dr. Cheney visited the class to find out which communication/personality styles we scored highest on for example, when I took it I scored as most characteristic of an amiable/analytical. Dr. Cheney visited our class and talked about how the basis of Persogenics is to help people to learn to communicate better based on their dominant communication style. He applied it to social work because he said that it has proven to be extremely valuable in helping social workers to build strong, trusting therapeutic relationships with their clients. He also told us that next semester (this current one) be would be offering an entire class on Persogenics run through the School of Technology that we were welcome to sign up for and use as one of our electives in the program. I was definitely interested so I registered for the course.

The first day of class was last Thursday and I immediately knew that I made the right choice in which elective to take. Just from that first class I felt as if I learned so much from Dr. Cheney. Of course it also helped that he mentioned our tests for the class would be based on class participation, that pretty much the only thing we would be doing as far as assignments went was writing a 20-25 pg paper based on the interactions between a couple we interviewed, and that our final was going to consist of Dr. Cheney taking us all out to dinner. Not bad if I do say so myself. Especially since it was a class I enjoyed and felt like I was going to learn a lot from. The only problem was that only 6 of us signed up for the class and BYU has a strict 15 student minimum requirement in order to carry a class. We asked Dr. Cheney about it last week and he infomed us that we shouldn't worry about the possibility of the class being dropped because he had a good amount of support from the School of Technology who pretty much believed it was an important and useful class for anyone to take. Well, one of the girls registered for the class flaked and dropped it and that sent things into a tailspin. Today, as my peers and I sat in class eagerly awaiting it's commencement Dr. Cheney walked in and told us that it looked in fact like they were going to drop the course due to lack of enrollment. I'm just outraged! Anyway, I feel like at this point in my life I did Dr. Seipel proud. I went home after class today and wrote an email to the Director of the School of Technology as well as the Dean to the College of Engineering and Technology about how important this class was to us and how helpful it would be to our careers, etc. I gave them the whole sob story. Then I emailed all my classmates (all 4 of them) and asked them to do the same. Three of them agreed. I won't give up on this. I'm not losing this class without a fight! In the meantime, I've added another class, Marriage and Family Practice, which will still be interesting and I was planning on auditing anyway, but I really hope that somehow Persogenics can be saved. Regardless, I got involved in the decision making process, I made my voice heard, and now all that's left to do is sit and wait for the outcome, which I'm not expecting there to be much of one. But, I think somewhere out there Dr. Seipel is shedding a single tear if only for the fact that he actually influenced one of his students from last semester, especially me, which I'm sure he never thought would happen.

2012-01-11T22:11:00.000-08:00

Today was a riveting full day of class for the first years of the MSW program!

Each of my classes is 2.5 hrs, but that's okay because I find them infinitely more interesting than the classes that I had to sit through last semester. One of my classes is on psychopathology. So basically the weird disorders and crap that people exhibit. Pretty fascinating stuff. Last semester when I was taking Social Work Direct Practice I would think to myself "Is class over yet?" then I would look up at the clock and it would only be like 9:45am and the class didn't end until 11:30. This semester though with psychopathology that thought didn't even cross my mind and when I did look up at the clock it was like 11:15. I'm a pretty happy camper with the way my classes are shaping up this semester.

Today, in my Stats class we were talking about Type I and Type II errors. A Type I error occurs when researchers reject the null hypothesis and claim that a variable has an effect when in fact it does not. A Type II error occurs when researchers accept the null hypothesis and claim that a variable does not have an effect when in fact it does. We were learning about how Type I is the more dangerous of the two errors to make because you could actually inflict harm on people where as making a Type II error you are just erring on the side of caution. For example, in the case of electroshock therapy, making a Type I error you would say that electroshock had an effect when in fact it didn't and you would end up unnecessarily electrocuting thousands of people, whereas with a Type II error you would say that electroshock didn't have an effect when it did so people wouldn't be getting a potentially effective treatment, but at the same time no one would really know any different. Anyway, the example my teacher was trying to use in class was in terms of sexual contact and viral infection (aids). Right as the words sexual contact came out of my professor's mouth this couple who didn't belong in the class came stumbling into the room. They quickly realized they were in the wrong place and left, and right after they did my professor broke down laughing so hard he was crying and exclaiming "Oh my gosh that was so awkward!" then he started joking and was like "That girl's probably like 'I'm from the honor code office and this is a surprise inspection!' and I can say 'Hey, I may have been talking about sexual contact but at least I remembered to shave this morning!'" Bahaha Ok, so maybe it was one of those had to be there moments but if you were it was super funny.

After school I went to the gym with my roommate Liz, it was good to get some exercise in and also get to spend some time with her and get to know her better. Following that my roommates and I all went grocery shopping which I definitely needed seeing as how I hadn't been shopping for groceries since before I went to Desi's and Mike's. : / My old roommate Jenny also came by for a visit tonight. All in all, I would say today was a pretty 'aight day. The picture above is Jenny and I just goofing off on my bed. She's kind of a crackhead sometimes :) and gets a little camera happy. haha Good memories.

2012-01-10T23:28:00.000-08:00

Okay, I figure I owe it to myself to keep a better record of my day to day comings and goings this year. Hopefully, that will lead to this thing being updated a whole heck of a lot more.

I made it through last semester (my first in the MSW program at BYU) relatively unscathed. As part of the program we are not allowed to get more than two Cs. If you hit three you're automatically terminated from the program. I made it through with I think three B-'s, one B, and one B+, so no C's which is more than can be said for some of the people in my program, but I still didn't do as well as I would have liked. But then, I have to figure in too, that none of the other students were working a full time job in addition to taking 16 credit hours in grad school. So, the fact that I made it out of this last semester (which was pretty much the most stressful one of my life) without any C's was cause for celebration! I'm really excited about this semester, it's shaping up to be a little easier and more fun because we get to take electives now, having some say over what we're learning about whereas last semester there wasn't. I'm taking this one class on personality development and the final includes the instructor taking the entire class out for Chinese. I can...handle that. I'm a little concerned though, I contracted bronchitis over the Christmas Break and because of that I missed my first three classes of the semester. I made sure to email my professor's about it before hand though so I'm hoping the reprecussions won't be too severe,

This morning I woke myself up at 5:30 am and got ready for work. I was on the Children's Unit today. It was a long and stressful day for reasons that I can't really go into detail on. Let's just say that it ended with me getting kicked in the face...literally.

After work I headed out to run some errands. I had some checks that my roommates gave me for utilities a few months back that I never deposited so I did that, dropped some stuff off at DI, and a few other little things.

Early yesterday afternoon I got a text message from my old friend Cody Winters. He and I are both Glenwood alum and I guess you could say that we ran in sort of the same circles (he dated my old roommate and he at one time was Dave's roommate, in fact Cody still fondly regards Dave as the favorite roommate he's ever had.) Anyway, Cody was wanting to know how I was doing, what was going on in my life, etc. We chatted for a bit (or should I say texted) and it ended with him suggesting that we should hang out sometime soon. I of course, didn't see that message until this afternoon at which point I texted him and agreed. He then promptly responded and asked if he could drop by this afternoon. I said yes and we spent the afternoon talking about evolution and how and if it can fit into the framework of the gospel. We also spent some time discussing how you know if someone is the right person for you to be with for eternity and how sometimes you just have to decide that that person is the one that you're going to love for eternity. That you're going to devote yourself to them mind, body, and soul and never look back. It was a very interesting conversation. As he was leaving today though Cody looked at me and said "next time we should try not to talk about such heavy topics, it'll be more fun." haha

After Cody left my roommates and I hit the gym for a little bit. Can I just digress here for a little bit and mention how annoyed I get when the gym is overcrowded. Drives me insane. But at the same time it was good, I got some much needed exercise, because sad to say, I let myself go this last semester and I put on something like 5-10 lbs.

Back in August I got a text message from my friend whom I affectionately refer to as Craiggles asking me if I would be willing to help out with a surprise birthday party he was planning to throw for our friend Rulon Bailey. I agreed but it really couldn't have come at a worse time because it ended up with Craiggles dropping off 20+ bottles of Martinelli's Sparkling Cider, various boxes of crackers, and a giant ice cooler the size of my head at my old apartment at Glenwood three days before I was set to move into my new apartment at Chathamtowne. I eventually got it all sorted though and made the move to my new apartment along with all of the stuff for Rulon's party, which was held the day after I moved in. However, the only hitch was that the night of the party I somehow forgot to return the cooler to Craiggles. I have kept forgetting to do it ever since, even though I've seen them both a few times since then. Today though, in an effort to finally officially move into my apartment and declutter my half of my bedroom, I made a plate of cookies, stuck it inside Craiggles' cooler and knock-knock ditched it at his front door. I can thus officially say that I am completely moved into my new apartment. Good thing that it only took me a little over four months. :)

2011-08-14T15:00:00.000-07:00

Okay...so I realize that my "30 Days of Blogging" that I instituted in an effort to get me to post more regulary was an Epic Fail!!!! But what can you do? Life and time just got away from me and while I could just continue on with the blogging schedule assigned in the 30 days and pretend like it hasn't been an obscene amount of time since my last post, we're just going to be realistic here and continue on with a normal boring old post. Perhaps someday I will finish up with the 30 days of blogging schedule and you will get the scoop on all those little tidbits of information about myself that I know you're so excited to hear about that you can't even contain yourself, but that day I'm sorry to inform you is not today.

Instead, you shall be getting this update! I totally, absotively, posolutely, 100% completely.....LOVE my life! :D You see...I think it started with George. For those of you who don't know, my last semester in my undergrad (wow, that's weird to say!) I took this class on Adult Development and Aging. One of the requirements for the class was what my professor termed a "service learning experience" where basically he wanted us to volunteer at an assisted living facility or nursing home, y'know spend time with the patient/residents, and then write a paper applying some of the concepts that we talked about in class to what we actually saw in the facility that we volunteered at. I picked Courtyard at Jamestown which is an assisted living community in north Provo, I had two prior roommates who worked there and they always talked about how awesome it was so I thought it would be as good as any to volunteer at. During my time volunteering there I met some wonderful people including George. He is an 80 something year old man who lives alone with his little dog Charlie at Courtyard and would visit with me about some of his life experiences. Well, I finished up the my last semester at BYU and the class ended and I stopped volunteering at Courtyard, I intended to keep volunteering but at the start of the winter semester my life just got crazy busy with my job at the hospital and a couple of other projects I was trying to tackle. Fast forward two or three months, in March Grandpa got put into the hospital for some bladder problems he was having. Thankfully I lived close enough that I was able to go visit him while he was sick, but it got me thinking, if I hadn't lived close enough to go visit grandpa when he was sick or lonely and he didn't have any other family around, I would hope and want for someone to visit him. That being said I resumed my volunteering at Courtyard and George once again came into contact with my life. I started visiting him weekly again and we became pretty good chums. Well, Easter Sunday rolled around and I was feeling pretty down in the dumps because of some stuff that I was trying to work through/make sense of but that day when I went to go visit George we ended up talking about the Savior and he ended up sharing with me an experience that he had when he was serving a mission with his wife in which he had a dream where he saw the Savior and got to sit and walk and talk with him. It was really special and when I got up to leave that day George gave me a big hug and told me how much he appreciated and loved me (he does that every time I visit him now...which is just so adorable that I can't even stand it!) It was so amazing! Anyway, George has changed my life, he really has helped me to realize a lot about my relationship with the Lord. It just makes my day when I get to go see him. I think the love that I have for George is the most Christ-like love I have ever experienced and it has bled into all other aspects of my life. As you all know I'm pretty good at making snap-judgments but lately I've been trying really hard not to do that and just assume I know people's motives. I've been praying that I will be able to love other the way that the Lord does and that I will see in them the wonderful qualities that the Lord does. I've really just been trying to help others and be as supportive as I can of the decisions that they make despite my opinion on the matter. Anyway, life since then has just been getting progressively happier and happier. The funny thing is that I didn't even notice it really, I mean I still have my ups and downs but then there was this one day two or three weeks ago where my perspective completely shifted.
It was about a month ago on a Sunday and I was visiting George as per usual when he mentioned that he had a doctor's appointment that week that he didn't have a way to get to. I quickly offered to give him a ride. It was that Thursday and I was pretty tired that day because I'd worked a double shift at work the day before (16 hrs straight!) : O I got up and went running and then I went and got dressed and had lunch with Jim and then I went and took George to the doctor. While George was in with the doctor I took the liberty to call Nena and just chat with her on how life was. Then when George was done I dropped him off and promised I'd be back on Sunday for a visit. Immediately after that I went and saw Ariel and we went "running" which when her and I get together it's really a lot more like power walking. haha Following that I went and met Jonathan for Ice Cream at Baskin Robbin's (Which, by the way, is my new obsession! For anyone who hasn't, you definitely need to try the rock and pop swirl and the gold rush flavors!). On my way back from Jonathan's I stopped off at the store where I just so happened to run into Drew who was cooking for our dinner group that night. I helped him collect the ingredients for pigs in a blanket and then we went back to his apartment and I assisted him in making dinner. Following dinner my friends and I moved an extra table into Lacey's apartment and we proceeded to have a saloon themed poker night. Everyone dressed up in their best plaid/western attire and we got some Henry Weinhard's Root Beer (Yum!) and other snacks and proceeded to play Texas Hold 'Em from 8:30 -11:30pm when one person was finally the last man standing. It was so much fun! Anyway, it occurred to me on that extremely hectic day as I knelt down to say my prayers before bed that night that my life may not be what I imagined it would be at this point and it may not be exactly what I want it to be in all aspects, but it is still really fulfilling! More so than I would have ever believed it could be at the outset of this summer! I really do have so much to be thankful for! :) I have a great family who loves and cares about me, who have taught me the truths of the gospel, who have taught me how to care for others, who tease me and allow me to tease them back. I have amazing friends who have stuck by through thick and thin these past two or three years, who put up with my temper and other foibles, who make me laugh and bring a smile to my face and hopefully allow me to do the same to theirs, and who have given me the awesome opportunity to be a part of their lives. I have been blessed to attend a fine university where I received my Bachelor's degree and where I will be continuing on for my Master's. I have an awesome job that I love so much; I get to go help people every day, make a difference in life, and occasionally get paid to do thing like play with Legos, color, play poker, and take visit's to the botanical gardens up in Salt Lake! I get and incredible amount of job satisfaction from my work. Seriously, back in April I was on the elliptical at the gym one day when Beat It by Michael Jackson came on and it made me think of this one day when I still in New Employee Orientation (NEO) when the unit I was observing on started playing that for the patients and the patients just got up and started dancing, I couldn't help but think at that moment that I hope when my friends who are still working on their degrees get out into the workforce that they are blessed to find jobs that they love as much as I love mine.
But as awesome as all of that stuff is and as blessed as I am...the biggest blessing that I have in my life this Gospel. It's the knowledge that if gives me that my Heavenly Father knows who I and loves me, that I am his daughter and that some day, because the Savior was willing to pay the price for my mistakes, I can be forgiven and live with my Heavenly Father again in the Celestial kingdom. I think those truths more than anything can account for my extreme happiness over these last few months. I know that they can bring happiness to anyone if you'll just let the Holy Ghost into your heart and let it sink.
Anyway, now that I feel that my ramble is sufficiently long I will depart and simply say love to you all! :D Until I get enough time to write again, which sad to say may be awhile.

Day 14- A Picture of Myself and My Family

2011-05-03T01:10:00.000-07:00

And there you have it...
This is the most recent family photo, however it is missing two editions...soon to be four haha.
In other news....life in Provo remains pretty much the same! haha
Last night for whatever reason I couldn't sleep. Normally this would have been a mere inconvenience that I would have compensated for by sleeping into the late morning. However, this morning I had to be to work at 7am which means that I had to be out of bed by 6am. So I woke up and went to work, worked from 7am-3pm went home and went to the gym, came back played some James Bond on the Wii, went outside and played some Volleyball with some friends for a good 1.5-2hrs, showered, went to FHE, and then went to the magical land of WinCo with Tyrell, Jim, and Drew to do some much needed grocery shopping. T, Drew, and myself all had pretty lengthy grocery lists so it took us some time. We finished up and headed back to the Hood around 9:45 so that I could take Ryan to work and so that I could make it back for my graveyard shift tonight (which is where I am now.) I don't get off work until 7am and I'm taking my friend Ashley to the airport at 9:30am and then I have a build with Habitat for Humanity from 1-5pm. Adding all this up means that Felicia is going to be one very tired kid tomorrow. haha

Day 13- My 5 Favorite Books and Why.

2011-04-28T00:42:00.000-07:00

Um....okay, so I really don't know what has happened to me. When I was younger I used to love reading. I use to read all the time, whenever and wherever I could. I hate to admit this....but even sometimes in church. Anyway, that being said this post is going to be really difficult. I feel that I have read a substantial amount of books and there are even more on my list that I want to read. But, we'll see how this goes.
First of all I would like to say that...

The Scriptures

I know that this picture is of The Book of Mormon but The Bible is included in that as well. The scriptures are my rock. Those and prayer are the things that I turn to when I need to get through a hard time. There are so many insights into my life that I gain from the scriptures. They make me want to improve and bet a better person, the kind of person I know that Christ and Heavenly Father want me to be.

However, I have a feeling that this post is meant to be about more secular books so here it goes....

Pride and Prejudice

The first time I read Pride and Prejudice I was 16 and from then on it has definitely been my fav! As cliche as it sounds I think a large part of it stems from the fact that I can identify with the character of Elizabeth Bennett. Not necessarily on the whole getting married thing but just on how she interacts with people. I mean you see right off from the beginning she judges Mr. Darcy and he does the same to her. But then after they get to know each other they realize that the other isn't as bad as they initially thought. That has definitely been my experience in life. I am very quick to make snap judgments about people sometimes but then after I get to know someone my opinions change and I realize that the person isn't as bad as I thought and that it can develop into a relationship that is extremely enjoyable.

To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic book and one that I enjoyed immensely. I think part of it is because of the character of Atticus Finch. I love that in this book he defends the case of the poor black family against the hillbilly white family...which at the time that the book was set would have been totally unacceptable. I love that he's a character with character, that is willing to stand up for what is right and serve someone and help those that really need it. I know I'm going to get a lot of flak for sounding like some "bleeding heart liberal" but in my opinion it is up to each and every one of us to help those that we can when we can...no matter what. We need to help each other out for the betterment of society. Harper Lee put that message into this book and it's messages like that that have led me to want to become a Social Worker.

The Work and the Glory

Okay, So I know that this isn't exactly one book....more like nine. But I think I can get away with it. I bucked reading these books a lot when I was younger, probably because Mom tried to force feed them to us when I was like six or seven, but I gave them a shot when I was 14 or 15 and was presently surprised by what I found. I loved these books and all that it taught me about the early days of the church. From it I get a greater sense of what those early saints went through for their faith and a greater appreciation that they did so that I can have the gospel in my life today. And the fact that it was written in terms of a fictional family that you grow to know and love as you read the books doesn't hurt either. : )

Harry Potter

Ok, really, I ask you, what kind of twenty-something would I be if I didn't list Harry Potter as one of my favorite books. I read The Sorcerer's Stone when I was 11 and ever since I read that first installment I have greatly enjoyed the series. At 11 there was something cool and fun and lighthearted about believing that maybe there was another world out there where magic actually existed. I knew it really didn't but Harry Potter helped me to use my imagination to it's full extent, it allowed me to dream. And it did and will for many people. Harry Potter is something that changed children's literature. It has become iconic...especially for my generation because we were that age group that Rowling was writing for. Just Sunday I was sitting in Sunday School and we were talking about Jews vs. Samaritans and what the difference was and some kid pipes up and says "To the Jews the Samaritans were like...mudbloods." and everyone started to laugh at the reference and we all immediately knew what he was talking about. Or today I was sunbathing with Lacey and the wind kept kicking up and we decided that we needed a deluminator...except for wind. Or amongst my group of friends we'll sometimes starts "duels" using spells from the books. Or last year when Ariel and Lacey were feeling too lazy to get something for themselves they would say "Accio (fill in the blank)" and the other would get up and get it for them and when Jenny tried to do it and no one got anything for her we teased her about being a "squib" and she would get so angry. And it will endure for generations to come. Years from now when my children read those books I will be able to look at them and say "I remember when those books came out. I remember waiting for the next installment, the midnight parties for the books and premieres for the movies... I remember that." And...that was a rant. haha

Jesus the Christ

I read this book about a year ago. And it is so good! I loved getting to read about the life of the Savior! It was so enlightening to get a bit of historical background on what was going on at the time of Christ's birth, ministry, and crucifixion! It helped me to gain a greater appreciation for our Savior and what he went through to perform the atonement in our behalf.

Day 12- Write a Poem to Someone You Love

2011-04-27T23:25:00.000-07:00

Seriously? I'm really not the poetic type.

You lift me when I fall
And you really don't mind at all.
You cheer me up when I'm down
You create a smile from a frown.
You make me laugh when I don't want to breathe
You calm me down when I want to seethe.
You make me want to reach for more
That is why it's you I adore.
I love you more than I ever thought possible
And for you I'll always be thankful.

So there you go. I gave it my best effort. This really isn't written to one person specifically but I guess this is more about the qualities I the people that I love (which there are a lot of) possess. In thinking about it this poem could be given to any one of my family members or friends. I have been blessed by the Lord to have some pretty awesome people in my life. People who make me want to be a better person and are really there for me when I need them. And every day when I kneel down to pray I thank the Lord that He has brought them into my life.

Day 11- A Bucket List of Things You Want to Do Before You Die

2011-04-24T23:59:00.000-07:00

Thankfully, I've had a bucket list since I was 16! So that makes this one really easy! If you're really all that interested you can access said list on my facebook! Ha! Done and done.
Now, on to other things that have been going on in the life of Felicia...which as you will be presently surprised is...not a whole lot.
Thursday was the last day of finals for BYU and also my commencement! AHHHH!!! To think after nearly 5 years it finally came! My graduation from college! It was pretty cool. We got to have Elder Richard G. Scott address us. He spoke a lot to us about the force for good that we can be in the world...especially with the educations that we received and how we shouldn't give up even when times are tough. It was really cool to hear. Then Friday was my actual convocation...where my specific college met and they called our name and we got walk across the stage and receive our degrees. Pretty cool beans if you ask me. At my convocation my old Forming Marital Relationships professor Dr. Busby spoke to us about not being "too expert" in the home....especially since our degrees are in family science. He mentioned that a lot of times our families don't want someone to talk down to them in an expert voice but that they just want someone who will get down and fight in the trenches with them. A good reminder I think. After my convocation Mom and Dad insisted on snapping some pics so look for some of those to come. And that was pretty much it for my awesome weekend! I think Friday night Jim taught me how to play Chess. I was pretty excited about that since I've been wanting to learn to play for a while. Oh, and Saturday I went shopping with Jessica after work and I ended up buying myself a miniature wooden crossbow! It's pretty tight. And that night my lovely roommates and friends took me out to Texas Roadhouse for dinner to celebrate my graduation! All in all a pretty great weekend if I do say so myself.
Saturday was move out day at the 'Hood and so now the number of people out and about is shockingly small. That should change this week with the start of Spring classes at BYU but the number still won't be too big even with that. Which, I don't mind too much since I do better in smaller groups of people where I can actually get to know people. Hopefully, this summer will turn out as perfectly as last summer did but we shall see. Hanging out with the peeps tonight was pretty fun though.
Speaking of peeps though.... I told this story to Mom and Dad while they were here for graduation and I know that they'd be utterly disappointed if this wasn't documented in some measure. So, about a month ago Jim and T and I were sitting around on a Friday night contemplating activities when Jim mentioned that he'd always wondered if you could stick Peeps to like a wall or something if you heated up the bottom. We contemplated the idea for a little bit, decided it was worth a try, and then promptly went and collected our friends and went and bought PVC pipe so that we could make marshmallow blow darts guns instead. Well two weeks ago my friend Dan "Chaps" and I decided that Peeps were a go. So that Thursday night Chaps and T and I went to the store and bought a bunch of boxes of Peeps at the amazingly low price of $1/box. We went back to the Hood and grabbed some friends including Ryan, Lacey, Lisa, and Colin and proceeded to not exactly heat the bottom of the Peeps up and stick them to things....but light them on fire. They burned a'ight on there own, but then we soaked them in finger nail polish remover and they lit up even better. Then T decided we should see what they would do if we soaked them in gas. Seemed like a good idea. So we bought some gas and proceeded to soak some Peeps in it. Everything was going great until the gas ate through the plastic cup T had used for the soaking and we ended up with gas all over the back lot where the burning was taking place. Well, at that point of course the only option we had was to light the thing on fire...so T did. Wow did it go up...and it singed the hairs off T's arm. haha I think Lisa did take some pictures so I'll have to see if I can rip them off her facebook and post them here for reference however, at this point I neither have the time or the motivation as I am at work. So yeah, there's an update on my adventures! :D And that's about all this kid wrote.

Day 10- Songs you listen to you when you're happy, sad, bored, hyped, mad

2011-04-20T00:31:00.000-07:00

Mmmmkay....
So I know it's been a while since my last post. And that was kind of the whole point of the "30 Days of Blogging" thing...to get me to do it more regularly, but what can I say? April has just been an extremely crazy month and it has gone by so friggin fast it's ridic-uh-lus. There will be a short follow up post containing a bit of an explanation. And...if I don't get around to that then I guess you'll live.Now back to the business of this 30 Days of Blogging thing. You know what this post is supposed to contain from the title and let me tell you what, this is going to be really hard for me because as I already stated in my first post I have an extremely eclectic taste in music.
For starters, I will tell you that I do believe Starlight by Muse might be my favorite song of all time.

As for this category business....

When I'm happy it might be something akin to...

Perfect Day by Lady Antebellum

Because it reminds me of last summer and days spent chilling with my peeps wasting time by the Provo River.

or it might be...

Extraordinary by Mandy Moore

Because it's kind of empowering and makes me feel confident....like I can do anything!

or it could be...

The First Single by The Format

Because it reminds me of good times working at Blockbuster and that sometimes you just need to get over yourself.

When I'm sad I might listen to...
Hurt- by Johnny Cash

Because sometimes I just need to be sad and wallow.

Just a Dream by Nelly

Because I can really relate to the confusion that he talks about and wondering what's going to happen. Not necessarily with relationships but just with life in general.

The Scientist by Coldplay

Because Coldplay is awesome...and it's a blend of the previous two.

When I'm bored...
These Are My People by Rodney Atkins

Because he sounds totally happy with the life he has been given.

Do You Believe in Magic? by The Loving Spoonful

Because sometime you just can't beat oldies.

3 am by Matchbox 20

Because it makes me think of my childhood.

When I'm hyped....

Better Life by Keith Urban

Because it reminds me that you live the life you want to lead. Again not just about relationships but just life.

Club Can't Handle Me Right Now- Flo Ridda

Because it has a great beat and the lyrics aren't totally morally repugnant.

That Green Gentleman by Panic! At the Disco

Because things change...and that's okay.

When I'm mad...
Johnny Cash by Jason Aldean

Because sometimes I get fed up.

Hot N Cold by Katy Perry

Because sometimes relationships suck!
(side note: when I looked this up I totally found another video of a spoof she did on this song with Elmo for Sesame Street! haha)

Let It Happen by Jimmy Eat World

Because sometimes people refuse to take responsibility for themselves.

And there you have it!
P.S. this actually took me a substantial amount of time...at least 1.5hrs.

Day 9- Something you're proud of in the last few days.

2011-04-05T23:24:00.000-07:00

My Job!

Okay, so I must admit that this was kind of a hard thing to think about just because I couldn't really think of anything momentous happening in the last week or so....just life.

But then thinking about it, I really am proud of the work that I do currently and proud of the work that I will be doing in the future as a Social Worker.

I'm proud of that fact that right now and when I eventually graduate with my MSW that I will be devoting my life to helping people who can't necessarily help themselves! There is something satisfying about knowing that you've had the power to affect a change for good in someone's life. That you've made things a little easier for them...done the work that the Lord would do. It definitely increases my capacity to love and become tolerant of others every day!

Day 8- List of Short Term Goals for this Month and Why

2011-04-04T22:40:00.000-07:00

Ok! So I know I'm extremely behind but what can I say? Thing got a little crazy this last weekend with Conference and other plans.
Friday I hit this place called Sammy's for dinner with Lisa and our friend Casey. It was kind of an adventure because first we were just going to go to this soup and salad place, Zupas. But then while were in line there I remembered this amazing sandwich shop called Hickory Kist that I went to about a month or so ago so we drove over there only to find out that they close at 6pm....seriously. On a Friday night? In a college town? I don't know how they expect to turn a profit. Anyway, so we were still in search of food when we walked around the corner and there was Sammy's looking pleasant and rather non-busy which is quite impressive since it is always busy. See, Sammy's is known in the Provo area for having amazing shakes....they put a whole piece of pie in each one. So yes, that was tasty, and then after that we went back to the G-hood (my apt complex is called Glenwood but in P-town it is more commonly referred to as GlenHood) and met up with the usual group of peeps for night games (capture the flag, utlimate frisbee, etc. at the park). After night games were finished we went back and watched O Brother, Where Art Thou? which if you watch by yourself is kind of dumb, but if you watch it with a bunch of people is actually quite hilarious.
Saturday I woke up and watched the first session of conference, then Allen came over and we went to the store and bought stuff to make Nachos and we did that as a big group for lunch. We also watched the travel channel and saw this giant rubber band thing. Basically, they attach you to a giant sling shot, then use a trailer to tow you backwards and then release and you bounce back and forth. It looked so cool! And, best part? This giant rubber band is conveniently located just a few miles north inside the Provo canyon. Guess who has a new idea for a summer activity?! After lunch we dispersed to watch the second session of conference then the girls and I went shopping while the guys went to Priesthood. Afterwards they all came back to my place and we had a little muffin party! Dee-lish! Then, a bunch of us went out to grab some substantial food, which was pretty fun but things seemed to be hitting a downward spiral as I headed off to work at 10pm.
Sunday morning I didn't even bother with going to sleep after work because I knew that I would wake up in time for conference if I had. Lisa had a bunch of people over for breakfast Sunday morning and then we tuned in for conference. Might I add though that at this point I had been awake for 24hrs straight and I'm a little ashamed to admit that I was struggling not to nod off during the first session. In between session Ashley and I headed over to Courtyard at Jamestown, an assisted living villa in south Provo. I have been volunteering there since last semester, but took a little break these past few months and am beginning to start going again. Ashley needs the volunteer hours for one of her classes. It was quite an enjoyable visit, as it usually is. I love the elderly! I love hearing all of their stories and their perspectives on things! : )
After Courtyard we headed back and caught the last session of conference. Then I took Ashley home and Lisa and I cleaned up a little bit after the morning's breakfast festivities. I finally worked in a little bit of a nap and then Lisa and I went for a drive up the canyon, to the Y and the temple. It was good to just talk to her and know that there is someone out there who feels the same way I do sometimes and knows what I'm going through. After that we headed back to the apts and hung out with Allen for a bit before I had to go to work. All in all it was a pretty great weekend! I loved all the conference talks on Service, especially President Eyring's and Elder Ballard's. I also really enjoyed the talk by Elders Oaks and Christofferson! So great! Like Christmas in April.
Anyway, now that I've updated back to this business of the 30 day Blog post.

Long term life goals!

'nough said.

But seriously some goals for this month:

Start to save money/put myself on a budget.

Be more consistent at my scripture reading.

Love everyone.

Help as many as I can.

Be a good friend.

Make it through graduation.

Love my family as much as I can.

Let people know I really do appreciate them and am thankful that the Lord brought them into my life.

Day 7- A picture of someone/something that has had the biggest impact on me

2011-03-31T01:01:00.000-07:00

Jesus!

Let me tell you what....there are some pretty creepy looking pictures of the Big Guy floating around out there on the internet. That isn't meant sacrilegiously at all, but some other religions have some pretty tripped out conceptions of what he looks like... that's not meant as a slam, it's just that in my life I have become accustomed to this one and I love it dearly.

Anyway, so yes, He and His gospel have had the biggest impact on my life. First and foremost they have taught me the right way to live. They've taught me to be honest. To care about other people, in most instances even more than I care about myself. They've taught me to follow the promptings of the spirit, to trust in righteous priesthood holders, and that I can still hear the voice of the Lord today, both personally and through those who have stewardship over me. But most importantly it has taught me that I can be saved and live with Heavenly Father and my family in the Celestial Kingdom forever all because Christ was willing to give His life and atone for my sins....all of ours. I've often thought how poetic it is that Christ even suffered for those people who were putting Him to death, like Caiaphas. I mean how selfless and awesome can one person be. In the case of Christ...pretty darn. Perfect in fact.

However, I think the biggest impact He has had on me has come in the last year or so...a lot of it even in the last month. When I broke up with Dave at the beginning of the month I was freaked. For those of you who saw me after Matt you know that I was a mess for quite a long while. But the thing was that I dated Dave a lot longer and loved him a lot more than I love Matt, more than I ever dreamed possible. So, naturally I was expecting the fall out to be a lot worse. Now....in the case of Dave I have fared a lot better than I did after Matt. Part of that is because of Dave being who is. He really did love me and he loves the Lord and I know he was doing what he really thought the Lord wanted him to, and he treated me a lot better than Matt ever did. Not that Matt treated me bad per se, he just didn't handle the situation in the greatest way possible. Part of it also was that I had been praying to the Lord for some time before it happened that He would give me the faith, strength, and courage to handle whatever happened with our relationship...whether that was Dave and I splitting or having it progress to something further. But, I was still afraid when it happened that I would tailspin the way that I did after Matt. But, y'know Christ really has been with me through this. He has given me the faith and hope to know that everything will work out in the end. And he has given me the strength to move on and find a way to be happy on the outside even if I I'm hurting on the inside. I have seen my faith and knowledge grow so much this last month. I have received the knowledge that I really am the Lord's daughter and that He wants what's best for me...even if it means in the moment I'm miserable. And y'know how in the BD it says that once we truly understand our relationship to the Lord, that we are His children and He is our Father, that prayer becomes natural and instinctive? Well, I'm here to tell you that that's true too. Since I had that confirmation to me my prayers have become so much more sincere and at times when I find myself with a few extra minutes to kill, like when I'm on break from work at 3am, I find myself turning to prayer.

The Savior has also helped my patience and tolerance of other people. This year I've been asked to face some pretty difficult people on a daily basis...especially at my work. And it's not to say that these people are bad or abrasive or anything like that, it's just in some instances they are very different from myself and that causes friction sometimes. Especially if you know me because I tend to snap really easy...and a lot of the time I don't even realize I'm doing it. For a while instead of just voicing my opinion to the individual I would turn to Dave as my sounding board. I would just rant to him which was pretty easy to do because he is so mellow and rarely gets riled up about anything whereas I get riled up all the time. But, talking to him one day he made some good points. A. getting mad only makes me feel bad, not the other person. B. chances are my getting mad isn't going to do anything to change the situation so it's kind of a waste of energy. C. getting mad is a choice, there are things that I can do to find a way to not become irritated with someone and even find a way to love them. That being said I started praying that I would find a way to love people the way the Lord does and see in them the good qualities that He sees. It has helped me so much and I know that it is because the Savior really can do amazing things with our hearts if we come to him and are sincerely willing to be changed.

So in a nutshell he has had the biggest impact on my life because he has changed my life. He's change my heart and my prospects and for that I am eternally thankful! :)

Day 6- Favorite Superhero

2011-03-29T23:41:00.000-07:00

Spiderman

Honestly, how could he not be your favorite?! So, the first Spiderman movie came out the summer between my 8th grade and freshman year of High School. I didn't see it right away, it actually took me quite a while but I remember watching it for the first time one night when I was babysitting at Suzanne and Nathan's after I put the kids to bed and I was glued to the TV. It was so good. Thus, my obsession was born. The second movie came out when I was 16 and it was even better than the first...and the soundtrack really was just amazing. And then....the third one happened. That movie really was kind of a joke, just not good all around. But, I remain a loyal fan!

I think one of the reasons that I like Spiderman so much is that yeah, he is a superhero, but he is a smart superhero. He uses his brain and in a lot of instances and saves a bunch of human lives due to his knowledge. (This is the same reason that Simon is my favorite chipmunk.) Reference the first and second movies if you have any questions. It speaks to the power of learning and using what God gave you.

The other thing that I like about Spiderman is his motto "with great power comes great responsibility." He chooses to be good and serve people who can't help themselves. This is proven by the instance in which Peter Parker forsakes his superhuman identity but the eventually goes back to it because he realizes how important it is.

Coming in at #2

I suppose though that in the event the Spidey were to cease existence this guy would do. This one is mainly because when I worked at Blockbuster I worked with this guy name Grant who was obsessed with the Bat. He had Batman action figures and a belt buckle and hats and jackets....he even had the Batman insignia tattooed on his arm....that is a level of devotion I have yet to experience for Spidey. But he and I used to get into Batman vs. Spidey arguments all the time. I used to contend that Batman wasn't really a superhero because he had no super powers...he was simply rich. And Grant used to say that Spiderman was just a nerd who had a run of odd luck with a genetically altered spider...it was an accident not all that super. Anyway, every I see Batman I think of Grant and all of our contentions and it makes me laugh and brings warm fuzzies to my heart. The other thing that I like about Batman is that he has a dark side but like Spiderman he chooses to be good.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that other superheroes don't/didn't make that choice but for these two it appears that it is something that they have/do struggle with and I like that. I think it helps us to realize that being good is a choice that we all have to make.

Day 5- A picture of somewhere you've been.

2011-03-28T22:36:00.000-07:00

The Sacred Grove.

Palmyra, NY

When I was about 12 Mom and Dad took us on a little family road trip. We drove from El Centro all the way to Maine and back viewing church history and other historical sites along the way. We took a lot of tours of a lot of reconstructed log cabins....let me tell you what. But one of the places that we visited was The Sacred Grove where the Lord and His son, Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith and ushered in the dispensation of the fullness of times. That was a really special experience and I think it was at that time that my testimony of Joseph Smith, his work, and this gospel began to take form. As I walked through that grove of trees I could feel it in my bones for the first time that this gospel is true and that this work is real. That Christ does live and atoned for our sins, and that Joseph Smith did in fact see him that spring day in 1820. And that by following this gospel I can receive eternal salvation in the Celestial Kingdom and live with my family and God forever.

:) It really is a sacred place and you can feel the spirit as you walk through that hallowed ground. I love this picture because to me it kind of looks like the pillar of light that Joseph described when the Lord and Christ appeared.

Nauvoo Temple

Nauvoo, IL

On that same trip I described before Mom and Dad took us to see the Nauvoo temple grounds. At that time the temple had not been rebuilt and so there were only the remaining footprints from the original temple that had burnt down. I was touched then by the sacrifice that the Saints had made to build it. How, Joseph Smith never got to see it finished. How the Saints waited hours to receive their endowments. And how the ultimately left it behind. However, I believe it was the October following our road trip President Hinckley announced the plans to rebuild the Nauvoo temple! We got to go back for the open house and then I was able to watch the dedication of the temple. It was such a neat experience and the spirit was definitely present. I suppose that's why the Nauvoo temple is my favorite. Some day I'm going to go back there to get married!

Day 4- A habit I wish I didn't have.

2011-03-27T22:43:00.000-07:00

Where to begin?
There are in fact many habits that I possess that I wish that I didn't.
For as long as I can remember I have had this terrible habit of biting my nails.

This is bad for many reasons. First and foremost, seriously just think about how many germs your hands come into contact with and then think about putting that in your mouth! Yuck! But then on top of that I usually really don't know when enough is enough and I end up biting my nails down so far that it results in pain and sometimes blood. :(
The other bad habit that I'm working on breaking right now is over-thinking things.

There are so many times where I have driven myself to distraction and tied myself into knots and I think in some instances even fallen into depression because I over-think things. Because I simply can't just give place to things, trust and have faith in the Lord, believe that everything will work out for the best in the end, and then let the problem go. I was talking to a fried of mine the other day who was having the same problem and the advice that I gave him is the advice that I need to take. Just recognize that you don't have any control over it, and that things will be how they're going to be, and that eventually everything will work out in the end so just forget about it for now.
Another bad habit I have is gossiping.

A few weeks ago I read a talk by Robert S. Wood called Instruments of the Lord's Peace. Basically he talks about inviting the Lord's peace by not stereotyping, gossiping, and talking about people behind their backs. I decided that was something that I needed to change about myself. Then Friday I was talking to my friend Tyrell "T" about it and he mentioned that is part of what is considered to make a person charming...if they don't have anything negative to say about other people. It's really something that I'm working on changing.

And to close the last habit that I can think of that I hate is my impatience.

Sometimes I find myself getting frustrated when things aren't occurring in a timely manner. But I also find myself experiencing the same emotions when I don't get what I want. In either situation it isn't a very attractive quality and it's one that I'm trying to curb.

So there you go a full list of my terrible habits that I'm working on changing.

Day3- A Picture of yourself as a child

2011-03-27T05:54:00.000-07:00

What can I say? I'm in college and have no childhood pictures of which to speak of. The only one I could scrounge up was one that Jenna posted of the whole family on facebook. In any case... if you're having troulbe locating me I'm the midget in the white and blue dress standing smack dab in front of Grandma.

In other news, in Spanish Fork, UT there resides a Hindu Temple. Odd, right? I mean considering that it's kind of in the middle of Mormon-ville, USA. Anyway, one of the Hindu religious festivals has to do with the welcoming of Spring. It's called Holi. The story behind it is basically kind of like Shadrah, Meshach, and Abednego from the Bible. Except for the Hindu's, it was a demon that was demanding to be worshipped and it was one man not three that refuse and was subsequently thrown into a fire. Anyway, one of the ways this is celebrated is through chalk throwing. In Spanish Fork they advertise it as The Festival of Colors. Well, Provo is a college town and just a stone's throw from Spanish Fork, and well, chalk throwing is pretty much bomb-diggity and so you can bet that thousands of college kids flock to the festival every year. So much so that the temple in Spanish Fork doesn't just do one throwing they do five-ish, simply to support the sheer volume of people that flock to the festival....that and I'm sure it makes them a dang lot of money. Anyway, Holi was Saturday and myself and a bunch of my friends attended. I was not able to get any pictures for myself but here are some photos of the madness as captured by other people...

Pictures of the Throwing

People usually come out looking something like this....

Anyway, it's a ton of fun! You get chalk in every place imaginable. The chalk is gardenia scented and so you're smelling that for like a month and blowing green and purple boogers but it's totally worth it!

Welcome to my life....or at least the best part of the winter semester here in Provizzle.

Day 2- The meaning behind your blog name

2011-03-26T01:22:00.000-07:00

My name is Felicia Ann Bainbridge. Check the initials they're FAB. Fab as anyone who happened to live in the early '90's would know was a shortened version of the word fabulous. Now, at 22 years old I'm not too terribly enthralled with the similarity between my initials and the word fabulous, but at 16 I was. So much so that I used to write it on everything and I even incorporated it into my email address: fabulous_felicia@hotmail.com. Underneath all my insecurities I truly believed that I was fabulous and I still do. But I'm a little more confident and don't feel the need to emboss it on every piece of paper that I come into contact with. So, I suppose that the name of my blog The Oh-so Fabulous Life of Felicia is a throwback to my younger years a kind of way to tease myself if you will. Because now at 22 I realize that I am a daughter of God and I got to come here and receive a body and experience the plan of salvation and that that very fact alone makes my life special but that other than that my life is just...life. Nothing abnormal about it one way or the other....and I'm okay with that. :D

Day 1- Recent picture and 15 interesting facts about myself

2011-03-24T23:54:00.000-07:00

15 interesting facts about myself:

1. While I know that I'm not a dog or anything, that I'm actually quite attractive, I do feel that I'm extremely unphotogenic. I always manage to close my eyes at just the right moment so I look high or someone happens to take it from angle making me appear to have a double chin, etc. This being the case I like to make goofy faces when a picture is being taken, that way if it looks cute/funny then great! And if not I can say that it wasn't necessarily intended to look cute. This photo was taken on a Friday night at a burger place called JcW's with my friends Lisa, Dan (Chapps), Ashley, and Ashley's friend Jared and for some reason I really like it.

2. For as gunshy as I am about physical affection, my favorite thing to do in a relationship is simply cuddle. Weird I know and I wasn't really aware of it myself until Dave mentioned it a month or so ago, and it really is true. I mean I liked kissing him and all but my favorite times were when he would come up from behind me, slip his arms around my waist and just rest his chin on my shoulder.

3. For as discriminatory and judgmental as I can be sometimes I really love helping people in need. I remember reading in the scriptures Mosiah 2:17 and having that really hit me while I was in High School. And then too when it talks about the same thing 3 Nephi. We're all working towards the same thing and it's our responsibility to helps others along the way. I guess I really have found the right major (Social Work) for myself.

4. College has really changed my views, tastes, and ways of thinking...definitely for the better. I've learned to keep an open mind and try new things. I can now say that the band Muse is most assuredly one of my favs., that sushi is in fact delicious, ultimate frisbee is a great past time, nothing beats BYU football, that things aren't always as they seem, that people are just people and we have to find a way to love them for who they are, that getting upset and impatient is just a waste of energy most of the time because it likely won't change anything, that some sci-fi stuff isn't so bad like Stargate: Atlantis and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (so funny!), try your hardest at whatever you do because people will respect you for it, that Mom's cinnamon roll recipe really is one of the best out there, and that the only true way to happiness is through living gospel principles and following our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

5. My weakness in life is cookies! I really honestly do believe that a good cookie is my favorite dessert. A nice warm Paradise Bakery & Cafe chocolate chip cookie...you can't beat that. I've compiled a bunch of different chocolate chip cookie recipes and someday want to try them all out at once to see which one suits me best.

6. I'm a French Fry fiend!! I love them soo much!! Sometimes I don't even want the burger or whatever consists of the other part of the meal...just the fries.

7. I love to cook. Sometimes when I'm bored at work I get on allrecipes.com and look at recipe reviews.

8. I'm working on changing my "blank face" because apparently it's one that screams "I'm totally angry" or "I don't like you" which is hardly ever what I'm thinking. I guess when I'm not thinking about anything in particular I just look mad. I'm working on changing it to a smile or maybe a nice pensive face, who knows?

9. As I've gotten older I've learned the value of staying active. When I was a kid I was always the one glued to the TV...not so much anymore. I still have my periods when I just feel like being a bum, but as a rule I like doing things, going to the gym, or playing a game of ultimate frisbee. Playing board games with my pals, or cooking, or taking a trip the hot springs or the rope swing out in Mona, UT etc.

10. I'm not really all that crafty, but I've always wanted to be desperately. That being the case I find myself constantly undertaking projects like knitting a hat, or crocheting an afghan, or soap carving, or painting, etc....I just wish the looked better.

11. The gospel means more to me than anything else in this life....'nough said.

12. The best way to get me to do something is to tell me that I can't do it. I'm trying to crochet an afghan right now and have been asking help from this guy at work who is like a crocheting master. He told me the other day that it's maybe just a bit too advanced for me and that if I bring it in he'll start it for me. Challenge accepted. I'm now more determined than ever to complete all parts of this afghan on my own!

13. I'm realizing that maybe I'm just a little too independent. The other day some of my friends were watching How I Met Your Mother which...don't even get me started on that show. But the characters were talking and they were like "what's the other word for selfish?" "Independent?" I hadn't really realized it but being independent is kind of being a little selfish. At the very least I'm depriving someone of the same satisfaction that I get from helping people. At the worst if someone wants to spend time with me but I say "no" to their help it could sound like I don't want them around....which isn't the case I just feel bad because I feel like i'm keeping them from other things. I can also see too much independence being shockingly similar to pride. I just have to come to grips with the fact that I can't do everything on my own and sometimes it's necessary to ask for/accept help.

14. I have a very eclectic taste in music. I like everything from Nirvana to Maroon 5 to Death Cab for Cutie to Rihanna to Kenny Chesney to Eminem to Jimmy Eat World to Mumford and Sons to Keith Urban to Mandy Moore to Sarah Barielles to Nelly to Flo Ridda to Eric Church to Sherwood to Augustana to The Black Eyed Peas to Bob Marley to The Beatles to The Temptations to Stevie Wonder to Van Morrison etc.

15. I'm dadgum terrible at sports! My lack of coordination does not help. I've always wanted to be good at sports but sadly have never succeeded. That doesn't mean I quit trying though, and oddly enough a lot of guys respect me for that...or for my willingness to go out there and make a fool of myself in front of them. haha

2011-03-24T22:16:00.000-07:00

So, life has been kind of rocky for me this last month or so.
For those of you haven't already heard from Mom, Dave and I split in the early part of March. There were a lot of reasons, some of them had to do with me and some had to do with him. Dave and I are still working on the being friends thing afterwards and we're struggling. It's hard, but don't hate him. He really is a good guy and he really did love me and he really did help me to become a better person. It's been really hard but the Lord has been helping me through it.
I've realized a lot about myself. Like how I receive answers to my prayers. For the longest time I felt like I had never truly received an answer to prayer. Turns out I was going about it all wrong. I think the Lord has been talking to me this whole time and I just wasn't listening correctly. My whole life I've always focused in on what I was feeling after I prayed but not necessarily what the Lord was saying to my mind. Does that make sense?
Anyway, turns out it makes a big difference. The only way I can think to describe it would be to compare it to someone talking to me in English the whole time I was listening for Spanish.
I've also learned (as I posted about last) that only you can make yourself happy. You can't depend on other people to do it for you. You can't say "when they do this then I'll be happy" or "when this happens then I'll be happy". It's just irrational to think that way and if you do you'll likely spend a fair amount of your life disappointed. I think the best thing is to just decide for yourself to be happy....even if it's hard and sometimes you just have to grin and bear it.
I've also learned about the amazing amount of peace the Lord can and will give you if you turn to him with sincere faith and trust. He really is a miracle worker and can help even on the darkest days. : )
The other resolution I've made is to try and be more patient and kind with people. I've been praying that I'll be able to see in other people what the Lord sees in them and love them the way that the Lord does...even if they've hurt me or annoy me or whatever. As part of that I'm also trying hard not to talk about people behind their backs/gossip about people. It's something that I do that was brought to my attention about a month or so ago and I was pretty embarrassed because I do do it and it probably sounds really juvenile and childish and isn't very attractive.
So, now that we've covered all of the things that I've learned this past little while lets continue onto a new topic of conversation.
My roommate Lisa and my friend Ashley have blogs that I follow and they have both recently started:

30 Days of Blogging

day 1- recent picture of you and 15 interesting facts about yourself
day 2- the meaning behind your blog name
day 3- a picture of you as a child
day 4- a habit that you wish you didn’t have
day 5- a picture of somewhere you've been
day 6- favorite super hero and why
day 7- a picture of someone/something that has had the biggest impact on you
day 8- short term goals for this month and why
day 9- something you're proud of in the past few days
day 10- songs you listen to when you are happy, sad, bored, hyped, mad
day 11- write a bucket list of things you want to do before you die
day 12- write a poem to someone you love
day 13- your 5 favorite books and why
day 14- a picture of you and your family
day 15- put your ipod on shuffle: first 10 songs that play
day 16- a picture of yourself
day 17- someone you would want to switch lives with for one day and why
day 18- plans/dreams/goals you have
day 19- write about a sweet memory from your past
day 20- write a letter to someone
day 21-a picture of something that makes you happy
day 22- what makes you different from everyone else
day 23- something you crave a lot
day 24- post your favorite quote or verse of scripture and why
day 25- what I would find in your bag
day 26- list 10 things that you are thankful for
day 27- my day job verses my passion
day 28- cruise a thesaurus and pick out 10 words you like the sound of
day 29 - favorite TV shows and why you like them
day 30 - movies you can watch again and again

I'll keep you posted. : )

2011-03-19T01:42:00.000-07:00

So it's been a while since my last post.
Lots of things have been going on and I just haven't had the time/motivation to keep up.
But the other day I really had this change in perspective.
Only you can make yourself happy.
I know, you're probably thinking "Duh! We've all known that for a really long time." and trust me, I have too. But I was having a really rough day last week and for some reason that idea really resonated with me. I can sit there for all I want and say "So and so did this and it made me unhappy" but that's not the truth. Yes, I can feel sad or have my feelings hurt by the actions of another person, but they can't make me unhappy....that's a choice that I make for myself. Yes, there may be times when I'm feeling pretty low after someone has done something thoughtless or inconsiderate but I can choose to dwell on that and be unhappy or I can choose to forget about it (because I can't change it), put a smile on my face, laugh, and just try my best to be happy.
Again, I've known this conceptually for a really long time, as we all have. But for some reason this past week it really has stuck with me and it's a principle that I'm trying to implement into my life.
I can't depend on other people to do things to make me happy, if I do I'm likely going to spend a fair amount of my life disappointed. Instead I have to develop myself. Do things for myself that will make me a better person and help me to grow. That combined with the gospel of Jesus Christ is the only way to be happy. So that's something that I need to work on. As long as I'm making sure that I'm doing what I'm supposed to and doing things that I enjoy and make me feel good about myself then the Lord will bless me.
I'm not suggesting that we should only consider ourselves. The scriptures say that we need to consider and serve our fellow man. But at the end of the day only you are responsible for what kind of day you've had and whether or not you're happy.

2011-03-11T23:45:00.000-08:00

For as long as I can remember growing up in the church I've hear people say that you should never pray for two things: patience and humility. They say this because most often when people pray for these things they don't like the experiences they have to go through to develop those traits. For example, my friend Allen prayed for humility while on his mission and in one week on five separate occasions he had a bird poop on his head. haha Pretty humorous but also a pretty good illustration.
The problem is that I have always struggled with having patience and humility...I mean really, let's just face facts.
That being said I've always wondered how to develop those two qualities that I know I've so grossly lacked. This last week though, it kind of occurred to me that maybe a lot of prayer is really knowing how to talk to the Lord. Knowing what to ask for and how to ask for it, and also knowing how to discern an answer.
For example, this last year I have been confronted with some people that are very different than myself. We have very different interests and opinions. I've known that this would be a problem because of my natural impatience for people I view to be ignorant or close-minded. I began praying for patience, and I really didn't feel like I got any results from it. But, at some point along the way I stopped praying for patience and started praying that the Lord would really help me love people, love them the way he loves them, think they have the best intentions instead of the worst, and see in them the valuable qualities that he sees in them. That I think more than anything has helped me more than anything to develop patience and humility.

2011-03-08T14:30:00.000-08:00

Try as I might I don't know that I'll ever understand the way that the Lord works. But then...who knows? Maybe I'm not supposed to.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I know that the Lord loves his children and wants us to be happy. I understand that a lot of what He requires of us is in order to bring that about, but it's like in my last post. Sometimes the thing that he requires of us at the moment is so painful it's hard to imagine what sort of sick joy might come out of having had that happened. The only plausible explanation in those scenarios is that he's asking that of you to develop your faith, to help you grow more, to see how much you love Him and if you are willing to put Him above everything else, and possibly because in order for better things to fall together sometimes already good things fall apart.
I had some pretty good things fall apart this last weekend. And I don't know if it's because the Lord simply is trying to test my faith (which is something I've always struggled with) or if it's because there are better things in store for me, or if possibly it's both. But I do know that the Lord wants me to be happy. And even though there some pretty crappy things that have to happen sometimes, there are usually some pretty awesome things that happen just around the corner. Yesterday I got into grad school at BYU! : ) Evidence that even though right now the Lord is asking me to go through some pretty tough things (or at least it feels that way) he still loves me and knows what will make me ultimately happy. The caveat to this and to all that the Lord asks of us is that we need to have faith. Faith that He knows the end from the beginning and what is best for us in the end.
Faith can be a difficult thing to muster. At least in my case I constantly want to have faith. I'm constantly just trying to trust in the Lord and go with what He wants. However, the problem is that I'm kind of a worry wart and even though I try to end every prayer with "thy will be done" I find that I constantly come to the Lord in supplication asking for answers. Sometimes I already have an answer but I keep questioning the Lord seeking more concrete answers. I have been doing this recently with my struggles. I've prayed about it and feel like the Lord had already given me an answer to my prayers...basically that He wasn't going to give me an answer to a specific question at that time, rather He was going to ask me to go forward with faith at this time and trust that He knew what was best. But then for the last two night when I was at work I've just had this inkling that I knew how things were going to be and so I felt the need to pester the Lord about which answer was correct, the one I felt I got in answer to prayer or the feeling I got simply pondering at work. The stupid thing was too, that I prayed about it the night that I got the impression at work initially and I felt I got the answer that the answer to my prayers was right and that the feeling I had at work was simply the adversary trying to get me to question my answer and weaken my faith. And yet, last night at work I got the same feeling and decided that I needed to pray about it again today when I got off. But I also had it hit me this morning. It's not real faith if we're constantly questioning the Lord for an answer. I mean, I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't ask for answers from the Lord but if you have asked the Lord and felt like you've received an answer then it's time to stop questioning and just take that answer and go with faith that the answer was from the Lord and if it wasn't He will redirect you somehow. But when we've received an answer from the Lord, whatever that answer may be yes, no, silence, etc., then it is demonstrating a complete lack of faith in the Lord to keep returning to him and questioning the answer you felt like you've received. The one exception I could see to this would be in the instance that the Lord remained silent and didn't provide you with an answer. But even then, I don't think that that the questioning should occur more than twice. If after that you still feel as though you haven't received an answer I feel that it would be totally necessary to move forward with faith and trust that the Lord is expecting you to make the decision on your own.
The Lord wants us to be happy, just as any parent wants that for their child. But He also wants us to trust Him. He wants us to believe that He loves and wants what's best for us. Because He wants the ultimate good for us, and that is to live with Him again. And surprise, surprise that requires nothing but faith! Faith that this gospel is true, that Joseph Smith and every subsequent leader of this church has been a prophet and worked as the Lord's mouthpiece, faith that the temple ordinances really do allow us to live as families for eternity. Of course the Lord wants us to have faith and trust in Him because he wants us to return to Him, and so it makes sense that sometimes He is going to require things of us to strengthen our faith.

2011-03-04T23:47:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the things that the Lord asks of us don't always make sense. At least not at the time. And it can be hard to trust that it will all work out in the end because we don't know how it will. But we can trust that the Lord does. He knows the end from the beginning. We can only see a few threads but He can see the whole tapestry...the grand design. Today was a really hard day. Some stuff happened that I'd kind of seen coming for a while. But I've been praying and I know that somehow, some way the Lord will help me through this. And I know some day when things have settled themselves I'll look back and be glad that things happened the way that they have. But for right now it's sad and it still hurts. I honestly believe that these things are a test of my faith. To see if I'm willing to do the things that Lord asks of me, eve if it hurts and I don't want to. To see if in times of trial when I really am hurting I will have faith, and turn to the Lord and trust that even if I don't know how things will turn out he does. That's really what I'm trying to accomplish here. I don't why the Lord has chosen to ask of me the things that he has and I don't know how they will work out in the end. I don't know if things will end up in the way that I thought they would or if they will end a completely differently. But I know that they Lord does and that I'm going to try my hardest to put my faith in him, good or bad, through whatever comes.

2011-03-02T05:47:00.000-08:00

Dave has recently been addicted to this song called The Cave by the band Mumford & Sons. His obsession extends so far that any time I happen to leave my computer turned on in his vicinity he quickly youtubes it. haha Needless to say I have heard a lot of this song. I have never been a particular fan of the song. Don't misunderstand, it's not that I dislike the song, I've just never found it to be the musical wonder that Dave has found it to be. But tonight, as I was driving home for my break from work this song came on the radio. And as I was listening to it I found myself to be happy and genuinely enjoying the song. As I was pondering this turn of events this evening I came to the conclusion that my shift in feelings about this song is because of Dave. For so long I have watched Dave listen to it over and over on my computer or his own, I've watched him crank it up when it comes on the radio and sing along, and I've finally reached the point where when I listen to this song I think of nothing but Dave. And every positive (which the majority consist of), negative, worrisome, etc. feeling I've ever had towards that boy is now evoked whenever I hear the first few strains of that song.
I've often thought about music's ability to do that to us, to get under our skin in such a way that the meanings or feelings associated with a song are forever changed. For example, We Didn't Start the Fire is the last song that I remember listening to before Cherstin and I got into that accident when I was 15 that totaled the car and left me with a concussion, every since then listening to that song has always been difficult for me. There are certain songs that I listened to with Matt such as Every Other Time by LFO that have a negative connotation because of how badly Matt hurt me and how little he seemed to care (again, don't misunderstand, I'm not saying he didn't, but he definitely didn't let me see it if he struggled at all). And even if things eventually come to an end for Dave and I, I know that this song The Cave by Mumford and Sons will always have a positive connotation for me because of how much happiness and love Dave has shown me. He has been my best friend for a long time and has stood by me through things when it would have been easier for him to walk away (ie my grad school application and my indifference at the beginning of our relationship), he has taught me patience and charity, but most importantly he has taught me the value of faith and how to strengthen it.
The Lord has given us so many things for so many reasons. We know that one of the reasons for music is because the Lord delights in it and in many instances it can act as a prayer unto him (D&C 25). But, maybe one of the reasons music has been given to us is to help us remember. The Greeks were able to memorize epochs like The Iliad simply by putting it to music, and my Junior and Senior Years of HS as much as I hate to admit it, those darn scripture mastery songs Mom played really did help. Remembering is such and important part of the gospel and of life in general. I mean how can you know where you're going if you can't remember where you've been? So maybe one of the purposes music serves is to help us remember things, not just stories and scriptures, but principles we've learned and people who have helped us along the way. That way if we're ever in a moment of doubt or uncertainty we can simply listen to a song and all at once feel every single emotion we've ever associated with that bit of music. Maybe these are just the rantings of tired little white girl at 6am but for some reason they really resonated with me tonight so I thought that I'd share.

2011-02-28T00:27:00.000-08:00

So, I know I already posted today...or I guess it would be yesterday but given the time it feels like it's still the same day.
It's funny the way that life/the Lord can put you in your place sometimes. At work there is one unit that I really am not a huge fan of. Mainly because of one patient who I have just found to be rude and uncooperative.
But tonight as I was sitting at work she came up and said hello to me. A few minutes after that I witnessed her changing her clothes and putting on her make-up. And then after that she asked me to help her decide which shoes she wanted to wear and if I would help her put them on.
I realized tonight that as frustrating as this patient might be sometimes, she is still a person. She has the same needs and wants as me. She still wants to look her best, she still wants to talk to people, etc. And yes, some days she might be a little bit ornery, and rude, and impatient, and difficult to work with/help. But aren't we all? Especially if we have been put into a situation like the one at my work. Where basically all of her independence and freedom has basically been taken from her. Where once she was use to going where she wanted when she wanted and doing things herself, independently, she has to look to the staff for every little thing, even something as simple as opening up her closet? I can't say that I would handle that sort of situation any better.
It just gave me a bit of insight tonight, and while I'm sure that I will still find myself getting frustrated at times and dreading working with her, hopefully I'll find it in my hear to be a bit more understanding as well. She's still one of God's children, all the patients are, and they require a little extra help. So it is up to me and the rest of my coworkers to provide them with the help they need and do our best to love them the way that the Lord would.

2011-02-27T22:57:00.000-08:00

This morning when I got off work I showered and went to sleep out on the couch thinking that I might hear my roommates when they got up and started getting ready for church. I had hoped it would help get me up earlier and get me to church on time....it didn't. Today was fast Sunday because we have stake conference next week. Which, since the Provo Tabernacle (where we traditionally held stake conference) burned down in December we have to find a way to cram ourselves into one of the buildings on campus! Our stake conference isn't until later in the day on Sunday. I think like 1-3 or possibly even 3-5...I'm not sure which. It's lame but what can you do?
When I got back from church at 2 I noticed that I had missed a phone call from someone and that I had a voice-mail. When I checked it it was someone from my work saying that they knew it was my day off but asking if I could work a shift tonight anyway. This was news to me since I'm traditionally schedules to work Sunday nights. I called back and apparently someone had made a scheduling error. Woops.
Speaking of work I think I might try to get into what they call the HV Pool. It's basically the same thing that I do now but I cover extra shifts instead...the bonus is that I get to make my own schedule which is nice because I wouldn't have to go to work at 10pm every Friday night right when people are in the middle of activities.
After that I tinkered around a bit longer before finally laying down to take a nap. It didn't really happen though. Pretty soon my roommates home teachers stopped by and then a million people came to the door...
Dave showed up not long after that though and told me that dinner was going to be ready in like 5minutes anyway so it turned out kind of provident that I didn't actually get the chance to fall asleep. T did dinner today for dinner group. He had gone out yesterday afternoon and bought a couple of pizzas from Papa Murphy's. Needless to say we were all very happy people. After dinner I finally laid down to take my nap and Dave joined me.
I had been asleep about an hour when I heard a knock at the door. My natural tendency was to just ignore it as I was in the middle of some intense z's but I decided to answer it anyway. Good thing too, it turned out to be Allen and Jim asking to see if they could use my apartment to give a girl in lour ward a blessing. I guess her apartment and theirs were both busy? In any case I was happy to oblige. I nudged Dave and we maintained consciousness long enough for them to give her the blessing and then I fell back asleep and I'm pretty sure Dave did as well.
We woke up about an hour later. We went over to Dave's to see what everyone was up to, which was really not that much. We ended up catching a bit of the Oscars because Lacey wanted to see them. Eventually though Dave said that the awards were kind of bugging him because he didn't really care and he changed it to Pearl Harbor instead.Good movie.
Other than that it's kind of just been an off day. I'm sure I'll get over it but for right now I'm a little concerned.

2011-02-26T22:49:00.000-08:00

Today was pretty boring....
I woke up around noon ate lunch and then hit the gym. I don't usually do the gym on Saturdays but I missed going Wednesday because of work, so I needed to catch up and pretty much everyone was gone anyway.
I came back from the gym ready to get in the shower and get the filth off me only to find much to my chagrin that my roommate had stolen all the hot water. I was pretty frustrated especially seeing as how I had just asked not even a month ago if we could refrain from having one person expend all the hot water on themselves. I had to wait an hour wallowing in my nastiness before the water heated back up and even then it was only warm for like 5min before it turned cold again.
After I hopped out of the shower and got dressed I ran over to the mall still in search of a tie for Dave. I finally found one that would match well enough and purchased it. He said he really liked it, or at least I hope he did. A bunch of us ordered pizza and so we chowed down and chilled out for a little while. Dave and I took a nap on the couch. Sleeping next to the kid is a lot like how sleeping next to Ben used to be. He's just this solid mass right there next to you, it's almost like sleeping next to a really big dense pillow that gives off heat. It does lead to a pretty good nap though.
Later in the evening a bunch of us went to go play Wal-Mart Tag. Dave and I think still have some communication issues I think. Just in that like today when we were trying to decide if we wanted to join the others for Wal-Mart Tag I told him that I really didn't care one way or the other so he needed to make a decision...if he wanted to go then we could go. The problem is that he says he can be happy doing whatever and so he wants to do what I want to do. He says that he doesn't always want me to do stuff just because he wants to if I really don't want to do them and that it's more fun if we're doing something that we both enjoy.. But a lot of times I'm pretty content to stick to my hermit-ish ways and bum around the house. I know that he likes going out and being active and doing stuff so I go with him. I insist that we go out and do stuff that I know he wants to do because it is important for me to put him above myself but then he says he feels bad because we're constantly going out and doing stuff that he wants to do that I don't really want to do, but I would feel bad if we were to stay. So it's kind of like a stalemate sometimes. Tonight I finally told Dave how I felt, that yeah, a lot of times I don't want to go out and do stuff, but that it's important for me to do stuff for him because I know that he likes it, and a lot of times I usually end up happy that I did something despite the fact that I didn't want to in the beginning. I also reminded him that I'm pretty good at expressing when I genuinely don't want to do something, which he didn't try and argue with. :) I promised him that that wouldn't change. That being said I hope the situation has resolved itself. I still just think it's sweet that that kid is more concerned about me than he is about himself.
After Tag at Wal-Mart Dave and I dropped by the BYU Creamery and picked up some milk and Oreos then we went back to the apartments and watched an edited version of Terminator 2 before I had to go to work.
One of the things that I really appreciate about Dave is that it doesn't matter what is going on or what he is involved in, when it is time for me to go to work he stops what he is doing for a few minutes and walks me out to my car to say goodbye. It's really sweet of him and I don't think he really knows how much it means to me. I've tried to tell him but I really just can't find the right words. In any case, that boy really does wonders for me and I feel really blessed that I've gotten to know him, not even necessarily date him but just know him as a person....I just wish I could find the words to tell him.

2011-02-25T23:56:00.000-08:00

In some ways I feel like a lot has happened this last week and in others I feel like much hasn't happened at all.
I guess a lot has happened, it's just been a lot of the same old same old.
Tuesday night I didn't have to go into work because I had some reinforcement training taking place Wednesday morning at 8am so they canceled my Tuesday night shift. It was rather nice to be able to spend an extra night at home this week. Dave and I found ourselves watching While You Were Sleeping and then hitting up Baskin n' Robbins afterwards for some Sundaes. While we were there the attendant started talking to her co-worker about some problem she was having with her chemistry homework. Dave asked for some clarification about her problem and then completely answered her question. I'm dating a smart fella' I guess. All our friends found it rather funny when they heard the story because that's just how Dave is. No matter where he goes it seems he finds some way to help someone with their homework.
Wednesday my reinforcement training let out early so I ended up getting done 2.5hrs early. I used that time to go home and watch Sleepless in Seattle and work on knitting Dave's hat. I was doing pretty well on it but hit a snag towards the end of last week and lost a couple of stitches. I ended up starting over completely while I watched the movie. After the movie was over my roommate Jaime expressed interest in watching An Affair to Remember a movie that they talk about quite frequently in Sleepless. It just so turns out that I bought the movie back in December so we threw that one in right after Sleepless finished. After Dave got back that night we made plans to go see the 9:40pm showing of Tron at the dollar theater. Dave said that he needed to do some homework beforehand though so I set myself to making cookies. Needless to say we both got distracted and missed Tron and ended up just popping in The Italian Job instead.
Thursday, was the usual. I had the day off so I puttered around, worked on my knitting more, watched Fools Rush In, and then went and did P90X Yoga with Jim and Dave. Afterwards, Dave came over to my place to hang out for a bit. He worked on some homework while I deep cleaned my kitchen which desperately needed it. Then we ended up making a late night run to Taco Bell/Wendy's with Lacey and Lisa. After that we went back to my place and Dave ate his food while I snacked on grapes and made myself some peas. He helped Lisa revise a Spanish paper, and then he and I gave each other back massages. Can I just say I've never thought massages were anything special, but for some reason they have felt super good lately. I think I've maybe been torking my back at the gym more than I realize.
Today, after Dave got back from campus we went out sledding and to dinner at a place called SmashBurger with some friends. I was just in one of those quiet moods, which I feel bad about because I know that Dave has less fun when I am because he feels like he has to cheer me up. It's not that I'm even in a bad mood really, it's just that I'm a little more quiet, but Dave I feel like then hangs back with me and doesn't have as much fun as he could or would like. He tried to bring me out of it a couple times, but sometimes I'm just in a mood and it's kind of difficult to extract myself from that even though I really did try for him. After dinner I took him up to Draper so that he could spend the night with his cousin/best friend who is getting married a week from tomorrow. Dave is pretty sad about it. He says that he is happy for his cousin but sad for himself. haha He's a funny kid. I spent the rest of my night before work looking for a tie.
Dave has this light celery green shirt that he really likes and that he looks really good in. The only problem is that he doesn't have a tie to go with it. He says that his old roommate had a tie that was a darker green that he use to borrow that went really well with it. Dave has a internship interview with Raytheon down in Tucson this next week and I know he's a little nervous so I was wanting to get him a tie to match the shirt but will still look good with a white shirt just as a kind of good luck/knock 'em dead present. However, I'm having a dickens of a time finding one that seems to be the right shade of green. I got in touch with his old roommate tonight though and he's going to bring the tie that Dave use to borrow by tomorrow so I can take a look at it and get a feel for what color/shade of green I'm looking for. Hopefully I'll have some luck tomorrow finding one that will go well with this dadgum shirt of his.

2011-02-20T23:45:00.000-08:00

Today was a pretty awesome day, Sunday's usually are though I have to admit.
I got back from work and slept for an hour or two before waking up and rushing off to church so that I could make it in time to teach my RS lesson. I went a little over, but there was a fair amount of participation and the EQ lesson went even longer than ours so I was pretty ok with it in the end. I'm really trying to stop being so critical of myself when I teach a lesson. The rest of church was good. We went to Jaime's preach my gospel class to support her and Lisa played a musical number in Sacrament. She did her own rendition of All Creatures of Our God and King. It was really good I only dream that I might learn to play an instrument that well. I know what you're all thinking "You can. If you just work at it and practice hard enough." which is true. But you have to admit that some people just have a natural musical ability/ talent that I don't. But I really am going to start trying to learn.
After church Dave received a text message from his old roommate and our mutual friend Cody asking if we wanted to play games or something I don't know what Dave texted him back but Dave came over and we had some lunch and then we laid down on my living room floor and took a nap. I don't usually nap during the day but I was so tired and I really needed it. It was glorious. :) Two hours later we awoke to a knock at the door. It was T wanting to know if we wanted to play some board games. We agreed and went over to Dave's because Allen had likewise agreed. Dave at this point texted Cody and asked if he would like to join us for games.
However, right as we got to Dave's Allen informed T that there were some new updates for a computer game that they play but that they were only lasting for the next hour or so (or something of that nature). T promptly postponed all game playing. With the delay Dave and I decided to bake some cookies so that we could give some to our friend Dallin.
I don't know if I wrote about this or not, but on Valentine's Day I got a text from Dallin saying that he had tickets to go see True Grit at 7:20pm but that he couldn't make it and he wanted to know whether or not Dave and I wanted them. The reason he was giving the tickets away was because he works at a silver refinery and apparently had some blowback from one of the furnaces and ended up with some hot plastic burning his face around his eyes and nose. He got a blessing and went to the hospital. We saw him today and the scabs from the burns are already healing over nicely (just another testament to the power of the priesthood, modern medicine, and a lot of faith I suppose.) Also, Dallin found out earlier this week about the troubles that Dave was having with the gas leak in TJ. He has gone above and beyond to help Dave figure out what the problem has been exactly, he even called one of his cousin's to get his advice and called in a favor so that Dave can take TJ in and have the leak looked at if need be. We thought all that was pretty cookie worthy.
After cookies and dinner Cody showed up and we were finally ready to start playing the much anticipated games. Lacey somehow roped a T and a few other people into play Settler's of Catan even though she knows I hate that game. However, Dave and Cody were kind enough to play another game called Dominion with me.
It was a really fun night and it was really good to see Cody. He and Dave are really good friends, they really enjoyed living with each other and I know that they both would like to be roommates again one day.
Cody and I were talking today and he asked me "Where are you living in the fall? Because wherever you live is probably where Dave will live. So you should let me know so that I can move there and Dave and I can be roommates again!" haha I'm really glad that they have such a good friendship. It makes me happy.

2011-02-20T03:40:00.000-08:00

I don't know that much has gone on today to write about.
I woke up at noon and got dressed and worked on Dave's hat some more while he was out working on TJ. I went and hung out with his roommates for a little bit too.
Bad news for Dave. The o-rings he got didn't fix his gas leak. He's pretty sure that that means there is something wrong with his fuel injectors and that means it's going to be a lot more expensive.
After Dave finished up with TJ we went out to dinner at Mimi's Cafe. It's this super good restaurant in Provo, if you're ever in the area I hope you try it. After dinner we had had plans to go swing dancing but Dave said that he was feeling a little too tired/full so we bagged on the dancing and just went back to my apt and played Clue with Lacey and her boyfriend Ryan and basically just sat and talked for a little while. After dinner had settled sufficiently Dave and I went to the grocery store and bought some ice cream sandwiches. When we got back John had arrived with his new puppy to spend some time with Lisa. It was the cutest dog. I'm not usually one of those people that falls to pieces over an animal but this dog was cute. Then we basically just hung out for a little bit before I had to go to work. I have to teach the lesson in RS tomorrow morning, it's on work and personal responsibility. It seems kind of an appropriate topic seeing as how I will have just gotten off work. I finished my lesson tonight at work and was contemplating just staying up until church started so that I didn't risk waking up late and not making it in time to teach when Dave said that he would call me at 10am (an hour before church starts) to make sure that I am awake and won't be late. He really is too good to me.

2011-02-18T22:43:00.000-08:00

Today, was actually quite a relaxing one.
I woke up and dinked around for a little bit. Around noon Dave came over and we had some lunch and then I dropped him off at school. Apparently he thinks that his car "TJ" (stands for The Jeep) has a gas leak and so he doesn't want to drive it a lot until it gets fixed. However, seeing as how TJ is about as old as Dave and I are and Dave does most of the repairs himself it could take a while.
After that I went to the gym, which, happy day (!) I'm finally starting to see some improvement! :) When I got back from that Lacey called me and asked if she could get something out of my car. I think I wrote about how she totaled her car last Saturday and asked me if I could take her to get her stuff out of it Monday afternoon. Well, her stuff has been sitting in my car since then. She asked if she could grab something out of my car that she had borrowed from her brother and if I could give her a ride down to Springville to return it to him. I did that and when I got home promptly jumped into the shower. I had just gotten out of the shower when I got a call from Dave asking me if I wouldn't mind picking him up from campus. So I left with sopping wet hair and no make-up to get him.
I picked Dave up from campus and on the way back he asked if we could stop by his work. He said that if he was going to be working on TJ this weekend he kind of wanted to grab his grubby work jeans. He also asked if we could stop by the Jeep dealership so that he could purchase some o-rings that he hopes will help fix the gas leak. We then went home and I finished getting dressed before heading back out to Michael's to grab some yarn.
For Valentine's Day my roommate Lisa made her boyfriend John a hat. When we all went out to Chipotle that night for dinner Dave was looking at John's hat and said "That's a cool hat." and I said "Yeah, that's a cool hat. Lisa did a good job with it." and Dave was like "Yeah, I like it." At this point, thinking that maybe he was hinting at something I asked "Do you want me to make you a hat Dave?" to which he said "I don't know...I don't wear a hats." and I asked "You mean like never?" and he said "Well, I had a beenie once. But, I don't know, I don't have a hat...so I don't wear them." Anyway, I'm thinking that this might have been Dave asking for one without really knowing how to ask and I have a lot of time on my hands at work so I've decided that I'm going to knit Dave a hat. That's what the yarn is for.
After I got back from getting yarn Dave and I went out with T, Jim, and our other friend Bryan and got some Sushi. I know most of you don't like it...or think you don't like it based on some pre-conceived notion about fish....especially raw fish. But it's soooo good. Give it a try, especially the tempura stuff and I think you might be surprised.
After that we went back to my apt and watched an episode of "I Love Lucy" before I had to go to work and Dave wen to go play Sardines in the Library with a bunch of people. I converted Dave to Lucy and I bought the entire series on DVD back in January so we've slowly but surely been making our way through the episodes. And that's life for this Provo kid.

2011-02-17T00:34:00.000-08:00

Update: I really dislike how late in the afternoon I arise as a result of not getting to sleep until 7am!
This morning I didn't wake up until a little after 1pm! Blegh! :(
Anyway...it was a typical day. Gym...and that's pretty much all I had time to do with my "day". I also got the opportunity to talk to my mom and Flora on the phone a bit which was encouraging.
Dave got back from school a little before 7. At 7:30 we had dinner and then watched The Shawshank Redemption (edited on amc, people.) It was a really good movie but very hard to take. It definitely tugs on your heartstrings, and there were definitely a couple of scenes where I had to hide behind Dave, and that was even with it edited. I would hate to see the full theatrical version.
And now, because it is my night off....I'm going to bed.

2011-02-16T00:10:00.000-08:00

Today, was rather unproductive.
I didn't wake up until nearly 1pm!!! I got off work this morning at 7am and went back to my apt and went straight to bed. I set my alarm for 11am and intended to wake up and get stuff done but when 11 rolled around I looked at my phone and thought "eh...I don't have anything super pressing to be up for." and promptly went back to sleep. I rolled over at Noon and thought the exact same thing. At 1 I finally mustered the courage to stumble out of bed.
I rant to the gym really, quick. Then I came back cleaned the kitchen and got dressed for the day. Keep in mind though that I didn't wake up until 1 so this really wasn't occurring until sometime in the late afternoon. That really was what my day consisted of.
For dinner tonight we all went out to Chili's for dinner to celebrate Jaime's birthday. Man, they have good food! I told Dave tonight that it's always weird for me to go to Chili's because we didn't have places like that in El Centro growing up. Eating out consisted of Jack in the Box, Del Taco, McD's, Burger King, Wendy's (which we never ate), KFC (which we also never ate), Taco Bell (which we never ate), the Hamburger Stand, and Jalisco's. Only one of those (Jalisco's) even approaches a Chili's type setting. I told Dave that growing up I thought Chili's was a some fancy restaurant because we never had it in El Centro...needless to say he laughed at me.
After that we went and gave Jaime her birthday gift and it was time for me to jet to work which is where I am currently. With some pretty heavy concerns weighing on my mind. I really am trying to put all my faith in the Lord and trust that whatever happens is for the best. I just wish that I didn't falter so much in that faith.

2011-02-14T22:52:00.000-08:00

Today, actually turned out to be quite a bit busier than I planned.
I woke up today around noon having slept about 4.5hrs after what felt like a very long night at work.Upon my stumbling out of bed I had a text message from my friend Lacey asking me if I could take her to her car at 1:15pm (she got into a car accident Saturday morning and needed to be driven to the towing facility to get some stuff out of the trunk.) I replied that I most definitely could. I had a few other errands that I needed to run before doing that which included going to the post office to mail some stuff to mom and dad and then hitting up Best Buy for a b-day present for Jaime, my roommate, because today was her 24th birthday. I promptly ran to get those done before picking up Lacey.
On my way back from Best Buy (they didn't have what I was looking for) I got a text message from Lacey changing the time to 2:20. When I got the text message I was stopped at a light at the intersection right next to my gym. Needing to go and get my workout done for the day, I decided to just go to the gym for a bit until it was time to take Lacey to her car. Well, I was right in the middle of my workout when I get a phone call from Lacey asking if she could come pick her up to go get her stuff from the car, at this time it was about 1:28. I promptly left the gym and went to go get Lacey. When she got in the car we both realized we had a bit of a miscommunication and that she had texted me 2:20 but meant 1:20 instead. We got to the towing lot and no one was there to let us in to see her car so we turned around and I dropped Lacey off at her apt and then went back to my place to change into some more appropriate gym attire. I headed back to the gym but right as I was pulling into the parking lot I got another call from Lacey saying that she had learned from the towing guy and that he would be at the yard within the next 15 min to let her at her car. I turned right around went to pick up Lacey and then headed right back to the towing yard to get her stuff. After that we stopped by the store so that Lacey could pick up some last Reese's minis and so that I could pick up some stuff to make a birthday cake for Jaime. After that I dropped Lacey off again and headed straight for the gym.
After my workout I headed back to the store to pick up some stuff that I had forgotten on my first go around. While there I also on a whim bought a rose for one of my old roommates from last year, Keri, who lives on the floor beneath mine. I then went back to my apartment and got some stuff together to drop off with my old roommates Jenny and Rachel. I chatted with Rachel for a bit and then ran off back to my apartment to shower and get ready for this evening.
I showered and got Jaime's cake going in the oven and was in the process of doing my make-up when Dave appeared carrying a bouquet of roses and a wood carving of my name that he has apparently been working on all semester. He painted it black and then had some daisies painted on it because he knows that they're my favorite. When I asked him if he was the one responsible for the flowers he said "No, that was DeVeer (his boss at the paint shop). That man just really likes painting Daisies." haha After that he went off to eat some food and I finished my makeup and then my roommates and Dave and I headed up to the nearest Chipotle in Sandy where they were having a buy one burrito get one burrito free deal in honor of Valentine's Day. After that we all went over to Paradise Bakery and Cafe for some cookies. Usually I jump at the chance to get some cookies from paradise but today I was feeling a little indifferent one way or the other and when I told Dave this he about fell over. We got there right as they were closing down and so the guy behind the counter was trying to get rid of the last of the days cookies so he didn't have to take them home so he was basically giving them to us for free. It was pretty great. :)
After that Dave and I left to head back to Provo so that I could get back for work. My roommate Katherine was riding with us and I forget what we were talking about but somehow Katherine dared Dave to kiss me at the next stop light and Dave definitely did it. It was pretty funny. We got back and I went and gave Keri her rose and talked with her for a minute or two and then went and spent the rest of my time before work with Dave.
All in all I would say it was definitely a fabulous V-day. And to make it even better I found out that Desi and Mike had little Ruby this afternoon. Perfect end to a V-day although I kind of wish that I could have spent a little more time with Dave instead of having to come to work.:)

2011-02-13T22:48:00.000-08:00

Today was a pretty good day. I had more success at getting to church this week than I did last. I woke up at 10:45am aiming to get to Relief Society on time if I did my hair and makeup super quick. That didn't happen, but at least I made it to Sunday School and I actually got to take the sacrament today! Yahoo!
In Sunday School we talked about following Christ and his prophets and apostles. We talked about how the early and modern day apostles give up everything to follow the Lord and proclaim his gospel. It really made me think about whether or not I do that. Whether or not I'm willing to give up everything and follow Christ. It's like yesterday I was reading "Beware of Pride" by President Benson and he says that the most important question a man can ask himself is not "what does man think of me?" but "what does God think of me?" I have resolved that this will be my new motto and that I will do my best to give all that I have in devotion to the Lord.
After church Dave came over for lunch and then we went over to help a girl across the hall move out (apparently she is moving home due to some health problems.) After that we had dinner and just hung out for the rest of the evening. It turned out to be a pretty relaxing day which I needed since yesterday was most assuredly not.

2011-02-12T22:40:00.000-08:00

It's been kind of a rough day for reasons that I don't really want to talk about. It's one of those things that I'm just going to need to pray about and have faith with. I feel that I've always struggled with my faith, with completely trusting in the Lord, but I'm really going to have to try with this and just trust in the Lord that even though I don't know how and it may hurt things will work out for what is best in the end.
Change is a funny thing that I've been thinking a lot about lately. I don't always like the person that I am. I don't always like that I get grumpy and irritable over things that are really no big deal. I wish I could be more patient and mellow. I don't like that sometimes I can be really discriminatory and judgmental I wish that I were more loving and kind, I want to learn to see everyone in the way that the Savior sees them. I wish that I weren't so serious minded all the time. I wish that I weren't so critical and proud. There is in my mind's eye the kind of person that I want to be and then the kind of person that I am. I want so badly to change myself and become the person that I want to be, the person that I know that I can be. The weird thing about change though, is that it is a really hard thing to effect, especially as it sometimes seems, in ourselves. But the even weirder thing about change is that is absolutely and completely 100% a choice that we make. It's a choice that I make to be grumpy and let things bother me. It's a choice to discriminate and judge others, it's a choice to take everything serious. It's a choice to be critical and proud. Yes, some of these choices we make we're so accustomed to making them that we don't even realize that we're making them anymore, some might say that they become habit. But there is always a way to break a habit, you can always change, you can always make different choices. The trick is doing it because they certainly can be difficult at times. So here's to becoming a better me. The me that I want to be, the me that I know I can be, the me that I know the Lord wants me to be!

2011-02-11T23:39:00.000-08:00

Last night I made some oatmeal butterscotch cookies. Because of my yoga excursion I didn't get to baking them all so I still had some dough left over in the fridge. This morning as I was lying in bed, my eyes opened and I thought I want some cookie dough. So, I promptly got out of bed and went ate cookie dough for breakfast. haha So much for trying to eat healthy. Woops...

I then sat down and watched some I Love Lucy until Dave got back from school. He then took me over to the towing company to pick up my car. I walked in and the guy was like "Do you know how much the charge will be?" and I was like "Well the sign said $145" and he said "Yeah, that's the towing fee. There's also a $30 state charge to make sure that the car wasn't stolen and a $25 dollar storage charge. It's going to come to $200 even...if you pay with cash...but if you pay with a card we have a 5% processing fee so it'll be $210" Really, I ask you, who just carries around $200 in cash! First, they jack my car and then they charge me out the wazoo to get it back. But what can you do? So, 10 minutes and $210 later I was driving Winkle back to my apartment complex.

After that I made Dave and I lunch and then just hung out before he had to go back to class. He called and scheduled a flight to go down to Tucson in the first part of March and interview for a summer internship with Raytheon Aerospace. He's also applying to Ball and I think a few other places but Raytheon looks really promising since his dad works there and if I remember correctly Dave's dad's boss asked him if Dave was going to submit a resume.

After Dave left for school I hit up the gym and worked out with some Wiifit. And then just chilled for a bit. Around 5:30pm Dave, my roommate Jaime, and I went over to the BYU Bookstore to buy a BYU tie for Daddy to use in some gag he's got going with one of the guys he's in the YM presidency with. Then we went back to my apt and ate dinner and then Dave, our friends Mike and T, and I went over to this bakery in south Provo called the Sweet Tooth Fairy. It was featured on the food channel so we all wanted to try it. The boys were all pretty pleased with their cupcakes. I thought that their cookies and other baked goods left somewhat to be desired. We then went over to this store called FYE and looked around for a bit and then eventually back to Dave's to play this game called Dominion.

This is where I have to admit that I was bit of a jerk. We were playing this game and Dave was taking forever on his turn...repeatedly. It was really starting to get on my nerves but I'm afraid that I was a little too vocal and I ended up hurting his feelings. Dave, who never gets mad and angry finally shot back "I wasn't doing it on purpose just to annoy you!" and then I felt like crap. He's so sweet and he never gets mad or angry at me when I'm sure that there are a thousand things that he has cause to and yet I'm a brat and make him feel terrible and get upset at him for doing something so small and something that he wasn't even meaning to do, he was just playing his game. I took him out to the hall and apologized and I told him how sorry I was and he says that all is forgiven and I know that it is because that's just the kind of person he is but I still feel terrible for the way that I acted. I definitely have some repenting to do. :(

2011-02-11T00:09:00.000-08:00

Yesterday afternoon I wasn't feeling so well, and I woke up early this morning and still wasn't feeling too well so I took a few IBUProfen and went back to bed. I woke up a little later feeling better so I hit the gym. I also left a message for Ann, my supervisor at the CJC, this morning and asked her if she still needed me to come in to help out with the groups tonight and she said that I didn't have to come in at all anymore, she said that if it were her she would try and find something else to do but that if I'm bored I can come in whenever I'd like.
The rest of the afternoon was pretty lazy. Dave and I along with our friends T and Jim do P-90X yoga every Thursday night. The living rooms in our apartments aren't big enough for all for of us so we have to resort to using our apartments complex's common building or "lodge". The only problem is that tonight when we went to go do it there was some big group meeting in our building. So, we decided to head over to one of the clubhouses of a neighboring apartment complex. Well, it turned out not to be such a great idea. We went to this apartment complex called Carriage Cove and their clubhouse was open so we went in to do some yoga. We just didn't see the sign posted out in the parking lot that said that they would start towing cars without a permit after 9pm. You guessed it, my car got towed. And to be honest I'm really miffed about it! I mean honestly! 9pm is a little early to start towing cars, and what if you're over there visiting a friend?! And it irritates me that they went straight to towing my car instead of just booting it. Now I have to pay $145 dollar because some stupid apartment complex decided to be utterly unrealistic! Anyway, Dave did a pretty good job of calming me down, as he usually does and he's going to go take me to pick up my car tomorrow morning.

2011-02-10T00:12:00.000-08:00

Today, was my day off and hence a really lazy one. I'm getting adjusted to the schedule during the work week but still find myself pooped when my days off finally rolled around. :{ That being said I don't think that I will be picking up any extra shifts around the hospital until that has dissipated a little bit.
It really was just the same old same old around here. Woke up, cleaned a little bit and then hit the gym.
A few months ago my friend Tyrell (we call him T for short) suggested that we make some home made jam. Dave and I both thought it sounded like a great idea, the only problem has been that its the dead of winter and there aren't really that many fruits that are ripe this time of year that you would really want to turn into jam. Well, I noticed that Strawberries have been around in abundance, and on sale too, what with V-day approaching and all so Monday I told T and suggested that we make jam sometime this week. Well, this afternoon I bought all the necessary ingredients and tonight we proceeded to turn strawberries into jam. The recipe on the back of the pectin box said that about 2lbs of strawberries would make one batch of jam and I bought 4lbs of strawberries so we were just expecting two batches of strawberry jam (about 10 cups) we were way surprised when we squeezed out four batches of jam (about 20 cups) and still had enough strawberries to make milkshakes/pour over our ice-cream. It was kind of ridiculous.
We ended the evening with some board games. All in all it was pretty great relaxing day away from work And now, I'm off to bed (before 7am!).

2011-02-08T23:33:00.000-08:00

Update on my Grad School Application Drama: Yesterday after I talked to the grad studies office I called the application coordinator at the social office and left her a voicemail explaining the situation and asked her to call me back or email me. This morning I woke up and headed right over to the CJC. I had Ann fill out the cover sheet evaluation for my letter of recommendation and print out the letter again and then I put it into an envelope and personally walked it over to the grad school office at BYU myself. I was really ticked. After that I hit the gym and did a couple other things. When I checked my email later in the day I had gotten a response from the woman at the social work office that I had called yesterday. She said that already had already had all three of my recommendations, that she had received Ann's via fax a few weeks ago, and that she had forwarded my application on to the admissions board for review. Needless to say I was even more irritated with the grad studies office. I mean really, Ann faxed that letter of recommendation around the 18th of January! And yet somehow they have no record of having received the fax or forwarding it onto the social work office like they apparently did. And on top of that, it took them at least a week to update my application status online and even at that when I look at it my application status just says that Ann started the recommendation but hasn't completed it and officially submitted it yet. Needless to say I'm not too impressed with the grad school office and I think that they will be getting a piece of my mind via a comment card or something!
Other than that, I didn't do much today. It was my roommate Katherine's birthday and we celebrated with her. We all went out to Olive Garden and then came back and had lemon cake that I made per Katherine's request.
Funny Story: Katherine is really quite shy but has this strange obsession with guys with 6-packs. Dave has a pretty good one. Once before Dave and I started dating Katherine saw a picture of Dave shirtless when we went swimming one day and she came rushing over to me exclaiming "You should date him! Have you seen his stomach?!" haha Anyway, for Katherine's birthday our other roommate Lisa and our friend Lacey decided that they wanted to set it up so that 22 men would come and give Katherine roses randomly throughout the day (it's her 22nd birthday). They asked Dave to be one of the guys to give her a rose and when he did he decided to be funny and have his shirt off. So he knocks on our door and Katherine opened it and there is Dave standing shirtless with a rose. I thought Katherine was about to die. Her excitement only deepened when two of the other guys who gave her roses and also knew about her 6-pack obsession showed up with their roses and no shirts! haha

2011-02-07T23:04:00.000-08:00

Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays Dave has a two hour break in his work/school schedule from 11am-1pm. That being said, it has become my habit Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights to ask him if he'll have lunch with me the next day. It's a thing we do. Sometimes if he has a lot of homework that he's behind in or something he says that he'd like to but that he'd better stay on campus and finish it, which is no biggie. The majority of the time though he obliges. Well last night (Sunday) when I asked him if he wanted to do lunch the next day he said he didn't know because he thought he had some homework to do. I told him that was fine and if he decided he could make it for lunch to call me when he was on his way home. This morning/afternoon around noon I woke up to a text message from Dave telling me that he had come home for lunch but forgotten that he had a presentation to give in one of his afternoon classes and needed to stay at his apt and work on it. I hopped out of bed, pulled some sandwich stuffs out of my fridge and meandered down the hall towards Dave's apt where I proceeded to make us lunch while he worked on his presentation. And for all my effort I got Dave teasing me about my bad morning breath. haha :p
After lunch I dropped Dave off back at campus and headed to the gym. It was a really short workout in the exercise plan that I follow which I was both grateful for and disgruntled about.
Last month I applied for the Master's of Social Work program at BYU. Everything went in around that time except for the letter of recommendation from my supervisor, Ann, at the Children's Justice Center. She tried submitting it electronically like BYU asked her to and they never marked the letter as submitted, but they also never told us why. We never heard anything from BYU about whether or not the letter was submitted, no confirmation, nothing. But they also never mentioned that the submission had failed, so if Ann and I hadn't constantly been checking we would have never known that the submission didn't go through. Ann tried numerous times to submit the recommendation electronically but they weren't taking it and so she finally got fed up and called BYU and asked what the deal was. They told her that when they would try and open the file that it was corrupted on their end and asked her to send it via fax. Ann told me that this occurred about 3 weeks ago. Roughly around the 18th of January. Well I got an e-mail from the Grad. Studies office last Friday night saying that a change had been made to my application. When I looked it just said that Ann had simply started my letter of recommendation and that it hadn't been submitted. And even at that they're showing that it wasn't started until the 25th of January which is about a week after Ann talked to me and told me that she faxed the letter to BYU. Well, it was so convenient that they e-mailed me Friday night when the offices were going to be closed for the weekend and I couldn't call to talk to anyone. So I finally called someone at the Grad Studies Office at BYU about the situation today after I got back from the gym. They said that they're not showing record of having ever received a fax from Ann! :{ I could think of some very choice words for these people right now. I mean, really?! I understand that faxes sometimes don't go through but it seems that the very least the person that Ann spoke to the day she called in could have done would be to wait on the phone with Ann to make sure that the fax went through, or at least checked to make sure that it did and then let someone know. Or, the Grad Studies Office could have let me know sooner that I was still missing a recommendation! I mean my application was due on the 15th of January, here we are nearly a month later and they're just barely telling me that they're still missing a submission. Overall I'm not very impressed with the Grad Studies Office. And what bugs me the most is that their inconsiderateness may cost me a spot in the MSW program. Because really if you think about it, they have started reviewing other applications but they won't have considered mine yet because it's still considered incomplete technically without the letter of recommendation even though everything else was in on time and it's out of my hands now. I just feel like Ann and I both have jumped through hoops and done everything we could to get the letter submitted and have received very little if any help from the Grad Studies Office. I wonder if the people that work in that office realize that they're not just processing application materials but that they're possibly dinking around with someone's future as they have mine for the past few weeks because they can't even send out a courtesy phone call/e-mail to me or to Ann telling us that her numerous attempts to submit the recommendation have all failed! And now, it may delay my entrance into Grad School for another year! I'm really perturbed and have half a mind to call up the office and start ripping someone a new one about this, but I know that I shouldn't because it won't accomplish anything all it will serve to do is get me more worked up and angry about the situation.
I'm working on my anger issues that I have. I know that I have a long way to go but I'm working on it.
After that I showered and hit the store to pick up some stuff for dinner. I'm in a dinner group in my ward, basically a group of 11 of us have gotten together and we each take turns cooking meals one night every two weeks for everyone else. It's a good way to save money, eat real food (besides ramen and mac n' cheese j/k), and get some variety in my diet. Tonight was my day to cook so we had Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. I had to cook it over at Allen and Dave's apt because a) their kitchen was actually semi-clean and b) they had some of the necessary equipment that I lacked. So after I got back from the store I went straight over there and started cooking. I was in the middle of roasting red pepper when Allen announced that he was going to get ready to go do some Parkour training. It's something that Allen, Dave, and their roommate gym all do for fun/exercise. Anyway, Allen mentioned that Dave had just texted him and that he was going to be on his way home soon and that they were going to go "train" when he did. I found this news a little odd since I dropped Dave off at school after lunch and hadn't heard a thing from him. Needless to say this revelation from Allen was immediately followed by a phone call from Dave asking me to come get him from campus. haha
The evening was pretty uneventful, I missed FHE because I was still cooking dinner at the time. After dinner was done I cleaned up Allen's and Dave's kitchen and then we all just hung out until I had to go to work. And again, that's where I am right now.

2011-02-06T23:42:00.000-08:00

So, I feel really bad writing this, kind of like it's a cop-out, but my work schedule is making it ridiculously hard to get to church on time. My church starts at 11am and getting off work at 7am and then going home and only getting like 2.5hrs of sleep is a little ridiculous. Today my roommate Lisa came into my room and was like "Felly, it's 10:50" at which point I rolled over and told her "Ok, thanks. I'll get up later. I'm not going to Relief Society." And then I rolled over and went back to sleep. I didn't wake up again until 12:05 when Dave texted me and asked me if I had any intention of coming to church. haha I told him I did and asked him to save me a seat in Sacrament. I promptly bolted out of bed and frantically began getting ready for church. Even at that I still missed the passing of the Sacrament. :{ I think what I may have to start doing is just staying up after I get back from work and then zonking out for a couple of hours after I get home. On the bright side, I did get caught up on all my tithing today! :)
After church I changed my clothes, grabbed some food and some necessary baking supplies and headed over to Dave's. I made No Bake Chocolate Oat Bars. They turned out alright, but I don't know that I'd make them again. The butter separated from the oats despite the fact that I cooked them and they tasted a lot like No Bake Cookies, which I think I prefer just a little bit more. It was a test out though.
Dave, Allen, and pretty much everyone else went off to Break the Fast at that point. They had soup and bread bowls. Let me tell you, give a bunch of college age males very short notice and no real ingredients and ask them to concoct soup and you'll get some very interesting mixtures. It was quite an entertaining spectacle to behold. It kind of reminded me of that scene from Singles Ward where the guys makes Lasagna with feta cheese because that's what he has. haha
After everyone returned from retrieving their soup we all sat down and talked for a little while before the Super Bowl started. I was completely opinionated for some reason and wanted the Packers to win. Weird since I really have no history with the Packers whatsoever, I think it was basically because they were the underdogs. Anyway, it proved to be an exciting game with the Packers intercepting a pass from the Steelers and scoring a touchdown and then making 2 more touchdowns from turnovers (if I 'member correctly.) That was basically what we did with our afternoon here in Provizzle. About half way through the game Dave and I made some 7 Layer Bean Dip which proved to be a delicious snack to tied us over for the rest of the game. The Black-Eyed Peas did the half time show and let me tell you, while there wasn't any indecent exposure like there has been in Super Bowls of the past, the Peas really don't sound that great performing live. We all wondered how so many people in the stadium were cheering for them and decided that they must have done a studio recording which they played over the loudspeaker at the stadium in Arlington, TX where the game was played. The game ended with the Packers winning, which most people were quite ecstatic about.
After the game I took the liberty to clean up Dave's kitchen a bit since I'd made a mess of it throughout the day. Dave came over to help me and when I told him that he could go sit down and relax and enjoy himself he told me that he enjoyed spending time with me, even if it was just cleaning the kitchen, and that that was what he wanted to do. A little piece of my fell in love with him all over again when he said that.
When the kitchen was all straightened Dave and I joined in for a couple of games of Rook with our friend's Lacey and Ryan. We played guys vs. girls and Dave and Ryan slaughtered Lacey and I which Dave was pretty excited about.
Sometime around the first of the year Dave and I started reading scriptures together nightly. I know that the Brethren have counseled young couples against it, and I don't even know how it happened but somehow we started. Well ever since I started my job at the hospital Dave and I have been kind of slacking in our paired
scripture study. The other night when I was at work I got a text from Dave telling me that we should pick it up again. So tonight after Rook we sat down and read some scriptures together (only half of 1NE 13 because I had to leave for work.)
After that it was pretty much time for me to head to work which is where I find myself now in between hourly checks and intermittently texting Dave.
So, today I mentioned in passing that I don't really think I'm that nice of a person. I say this occasionally and it always seems to bother Dave. It's not that I think I'm a terrible person, but I don't think I'm as nice as I always could be. I find myself getting easily irritated or doing things begrudgingly when I don't really want to. Well I said that today and Dave finally said he'd had enough and told me that I needed to stop saying that because if I kept saying that then I wasn't going to become a good person but rather, I really would become a mean person. He said that your subconscious will more easily believe things that you say out loud than it will things that you simply think so that I needed to start telling myself that I am a nice person. He told me that he thinks I'm a wonderful person and that it makes him sad when I discount myself. What a great guy right? I honestly wonder everyday what I did to deserve that boy. But for now I have decided that even if I don't necessarily think I'm the greatest person, the least I can do is start telling myself that I am, if for no other reason than for Dave. And who knows, maybe Dave is right and my telling myself that will eventually help me become the person that I want to be. As long as I don't get too prideful. But then one of my new years resolutions is to be less prideful and judgmental so hopefully I'll be aware if I start doing it. Who knows? Until tomorrow.

2011-02-05T23:25:00.000-08:00

So, I've decided that since I have a lot of free time on my hands at work most nights why not update this thing more regularly. Even if I am just sending these out into the void.

This morning I meant to get up early and go to the gym (I have a monthly membership at 24Hour) but that didn't really happen. I didn't wake up until about 11:20am and Dave was coming by a little after 1pm to pick me up to go to the University Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) vs. BYU basketball game. Normally I would have gone but I probably wouldn't have gotten there until closer to noon and I never take less than an hour at the gym no matter how hard I try. That means that I probably wouldn't have gotten back until around 1pm and wouldn't have been able to be ready in time for Dave to pick me up.
Dave picked me up a little later than expected and we headed over to the game. It was packed! Apparently it was pretty highly anticipated game for some reason. My roommate Anna told me that there had been people camping out in line for that game since Wednesday, that's a die hard fan right there. The game was pretty spectacular! Jimmer Fredette the guard for BYU has garnered a pretty good reputation. At today's game he broke the record for most points scored by a single player in the entire Mountain West Conference! He's pretty much guaranteed to make it to the NBA.
Dave and I had a double date this evening with his old roommate and our mutual friend Cody. Unfortunately we had leave the game a little early. Dave was a little bummed because it was his first time at a BYU basketball game and it was proving to be a pretty good one. Anyway, we went and saw a play that Cody had picked out for the date, get this Babe. I know what you're thinking...pig movie? And yes, you would be correct. We got there and it actually turned out to be more a production for little kids, with the actors pulling them in as extras and such. It really was more a play for young families and such but we all enjoyed ourselves anyway. Afterwards, we went to this place called Nicolitalia Pizzeria! Best Pizza Ever! It was so delicious. Dave and Cody decided to try this drink called the "Mitt Romney" it was equal parts Sprite, Root Beer, Gatorade, and Apple Beer. Nasty if you ask me but they both loved it.
After dinner we went our separate ways. Dave and I headed to the grocery store so that I could pick up some much needed milk, eggs, and butter. I actually ran into an old friend of mine from my ward last year. It was good to catch up with him. Dave and I then headed back home. We hung out with his roommates for a little while and discussed the phenomena that is male back hair. Finally, after being sufficiently grossed out, Dave and I went back to the store to pick up some stuff for dinner tomorrow. We are going to be making 7-Layer Dip and watch the Superbowl!
So last week I went to the gym and my right shin was sort of hurting a little but it went away so I didn't think much of it, but the Pain came back tonight. I asked Dave about it and he thought it could be shin splints. Whatever it is I hope it goes away quick because I dislike them whole heartedly, and it really hurts to walk up stairs. There were a few times that Dave noticed me limping from it and just scooped me up and carried me the rest of the way. He really is too good to me!

2011-02-05T04:48:00.000-08:00

Okay, I know I'm ridiculously bad at updating this thing! What can I say? Life just kind of gets away from me.

Starting where I left off.
I had an awesome summer here in P-town. I made a lot of new friends and it seemed like there was always something going on. Whether it was going fishing in the Provo River, to trips to the local hot springs, to the rope swing out in the Mona Pond, to just getting a game of Ultimate Frisbee together, or having a cap gun war on a Friday night, or going to see a movie, or watching fireworks or whatever. It got to the point where half the guys called me the social epicenter of the ward. I know what you're thinking. Really? Felicia? But I swear to you it's true, and I still question how it happened. Anyway, the point is that I had a great summer and really feel like taking the time off from school was the right thing for me at the time. Even if I never really found a job and struggled a bit financially.
Starting in the fall I began a job working at BYU Independent Study (IS). Also, my roommates Jenny and Rachel moved out which I was really sad to see. They are both really neat girls and they have helped to make me a better person.
Also starting in the fall I sort of began spending a significant amount of time with a friend of mine from the Summer. His name is Dave Weston and he is in the Mechanical Engineering program at BYU. Well, it is Provo, so give it a month and we were dating. I had my doubts at first, but I think it was mostly me just over thinking things as per usual. Now, I'm sure that he is really good for me and to me and that I am lucky to have him. He's really mellow and patient where I'm high strung and irritable. He likes to goof around and play games and find never ending ways to torment me while I tend to be a bit more serious minded. But somehow we made it work. We still are...have been since October.
During the fall semester I took a class on Adult Development and Aging, and it made me kind of realize that I think I want to work with the elderly. Dave laughs at me because he says that most girls see a baby and start falling to pieces about how cute it is...I get that way with old people. At the end of the Fall I graduated with Bachelor's from BYU. Yeppers, I'm a college grad. Weird huh?
In November with my impending graduation I began applying for jobs that would promote some of the concepts I learned in school and aid me along my way to getting my Master's of Social Work (MSW) (yeah, I finally picked). I applied for a position at the Utah State Hospital for the mentally ill working with the patients, helping to implement treatment plans and conducting groups activities as well as assisting them with ADLs (Activities of Daily Living). Well, I missed the initial interview setup and the supervisor let me know that she would contact me if they had any openings. I got a call from her one day while I was at work at IS and so didn't pick up, she left a voicemail saying that they had a canceled interview that day and to call back if I wanted it. I very nearly didn't because I thought that the chances of my getting it were slim. However, I thought better of it, decided it was worth the shot and gave her a call back to set up the interview. Even after the interview I was still pretty skeptical but I received a call back during finals weeks for the Fall Semester notifying me that I was being offered a position. I now work the graveyard shift (11pm-7am) at the hospital. I really feel like the Lord's hand was in it somehow. In any case I just feel blessed to have been able to find a job so soon after graduation, especially in Provo, especially in this economy.
You may be wondering, why I chose to stay in Provo upon my graduation from BYU. And those of you who think it was purely for Dave would be wrong. He did have something to do with it, but the real reason was Grad School. I want to get into the MSW program at BYU, and that being said I decided why bother with moving and then moving back if I am accepted into the program? That being said I finished applying to the MSW program at BYU in the early part of January and now it's just a wait and see game as to whether or not I will get in. Dave was great in helping me to get my application ready. He spent hours proof-reading my essays and making sure everything was polished and then of course Mom did the final review. I was going to apply to other schools but in the end decided against it. I just have a good feeling about BYU, and I don't know that I would be able to afford any of the other schools anyway. But I'll have to see. BYU is still giving me the run around about one of my letters of recommendation having been submitted so I'm going to have to call Monday and make sure that I light a fire under someone's rear-end!
Anyway, I'm trying to think, but I really think that's the end of what's going on for me here in the Utah neighborhood. Love you all!

2010-05-26T15:42:00.000-07:00

So...the other day I logged in to my facebook account to find that I had a wall post from one Mrs. Desi Rogers it read simply: "Dear Sister, Your blog SUCKS!!!! Update it please :-) Love Ya!!!" That being said...I think it's time for a post. Not to mention that it has been nearly a year since I've done so.

The fall in Provo provided lots of struggles for me. I had to say goodbye to a really good friend of mine which really hurt and I wasn't quite sure how to handle it. At that time I also started a new job working with a 3 year old little autistic boy named Jaden. It provided a challenge and was a little emotionally taxing sometimes...especially when I saw him struggle and get frustrated with the tasks we were working on. So that provided some stress. I was also contemplating going on a mission for the church, but struggled with when to go and knowing for certain that the answers I was getting were from the Lord and not from me as a form of escape. And then in early October Grandma Bainbridge passed away and it was really hard to say goodbye to her. But thankfully the Lord sends angels to pull us out of our hard times. Sometime in the fall I asked for a blessing from a friend of mine and one of the things that was said was that I needed to turn to my roommates, to look to them as sources of comfort and companionship so that's what I did. Jenny, Ariel, Serena, Lacey, Jessica, Michelle, and Kari helped to get me through some dark days in the fall. And of course the Lord sent others to lift my spirits as well. One person was Allen, I don't think he knew it and I don't know that he does now, but he really helped pull me out of a lot of sadness and frustration that was consuming my life at the time. He's just one of those people that is so incredibly ridiculous that you can't be sad when you're around them. Some other important people for me in the fall were Cody, who always willing to help me when I needed it, and Rulon Baily and Craig Bierdneau who provided many entertaining moments in their own unique way.

The winter provided some changes. Rulon and Craig were no longer in our apt complex so the amount of time spent goofing off with them significantly decreased. But then other people moved in as well and they provided their own unique spin to life. In the beginning of the winter Cole moved into my apt complex. Cole was a friend I had met about a year previously through a mutual friend of ours. I also had a new roommate move in in the winter, her name is Allie. Well, Cole started hanging out at my apt quite frequently and he and Allie really hit it off and now they're engaged. Kind of strange, but life happens. Colin was also a pretty important person for me in the winter, I had met him in the fall during a D&C class that we had together. He and I sort of became friends and then in the winter he started asking me out on dates pretty regularly. When it came down to him asking me to be exclusive with him I realized that I didn't really feel that way about him, but he's still a good friend of mine and he doesn't know it but he did a lot to help make me feel wanted again, which I hadn't in a really long time. So the winter semester passed in relative ease....at least compared to the fall. At the end of the winter semester Ariel and Lacey both moved out which it was hard to see them go because I really feel that I have learned a lot from both of them, but it was what was best for them.

That pretty much brings me to this point in my life. I was signed up to take classes all Summer, but about a week into the semester I realized that I was burnt out and completely sick of and unmotivated towards school so...I dropped all of my classes, postponed graduation until the fall, and am taking the summer off. I'm currently looking for work, but so far no dice. I have decided recently that I need to be more social in my ward so that is something that I have been working on a lot more lately, just putting myself out there. I think it's actually working quite well I think. I have made a lot of friends so far this spring and I'm realizing that people may think differently and look differently, but you should never underestimate their ability to make you laugh your butt off! haha I've also been hanging out with Gianina Bruno quite a bit, she is so stinking funny it baffles me why we weren't better friends before. I'm also currently interning at the Children's Justice Center in Provo, they work with children who have been sexually abuse it makes me realize that I really want to go into a profession where I can help people. That being said, I'm graduating in December, and from there I'm looking into going into either a master's of social work program or law school so we'll see. So there you go, that's an update on my life.

2009-06-28T22:55:00.000-07:00

I was talking to Mom on the phone today and she mentioned that I haven't posted in a while and seeing as how it's been nearly three months I figured it was about time.
The winter semester ended on April 22, which boy was I glad for that. Matty left on the 26th to go home to Houston for the summer, and I must admit that it was hard for me to see him go. Two of my roommates, Jessica and Michelle, graduated in April with their degrees in Elementary Ed. and History respectively. I was so happy for them, they both deserve it! It kind of worked to just make me all that much more impatient for next spring though when I will be receiving my degree and having a similar experience.
The Spring term here at BYU started April 28th. I took three classes, Intro to Family Processes, Strengthening Marriage and Family, and Intro to Stats. It was 9 credits which is equivalent to taking 18 credits in a normal semester because the spring and summer terms are so compacted. Boy, did it keep me busy. Other than that not much else happened. Our new roomates Jenny and Lacey moved in in early May. They're both super sweet girls and I'm glad that I get to have them as roommates. I'm trying to learn as much from the people around me as I can and they have definitely taught me a thing or two.
For Memorial Day at the end of May Michelle and I took off for San Francisco which was uber fun. We stayed with Michelle's Sister-in-law's family who were very nice and hospitable. We did Fisherman's Wharf, and Alcatraz, and the beach. And it was just so much fun. The only down side was that the weathery was kind of cold and blustery most of the time we were there. But hey, what can you do?
After we got back from Memorial Day we only had about two more weeks left of spring classes which went by rather quickly. Sometime in late May/early June I went and volunteered in the TRC (teaching resource center) at the MTC for the first time. Basically you go in, they give you a scenario and you pretend to be an investigator so the missionaries can come in and teach you a discussion to give them practice with stuff they'll be doing in the field. I've made it a goal to try and volunteer there once a week but I haven't had any luck so far. One Friday I couldn't go because of Brian's wedding, once I'd been sick and they wouldn't let me volunteer so I didn't risk getting swine flu (they've had outbreaks in the MTC), then I was out of town, and then this last week the TRC wasn't open because it was mission president week.
Mom and Dad came in for the weekend of June 5th-7th for Brian and Laurie's wedding. It was really good to see them, I just needed some time with my parents. On June 8th Michelle and I volunteered to give blood. It was the first time for both of us and we both admitted that we probably would've backed out if the other hadn't been there. I was a little nervous going in just because needles freak me out, I got through the screening just fine, but the freak out hit hardest when I actually sat down in the chair and they started prepping to shove a needle the size of a capri sun straw into my arm. The technician taking my blood was good natured about it though and talked me through it. I was surprised to find that it actually didn't hurt that badly, in fact the finger prick that they did in screening hurt worse. And it was actually kind of cool to see my blood running through the tube and knowing that my blood could actually help save someone's life. I've since set a goal for myself to start donating blood every eight weeks (which is the least amount of time you have to wait between donations). Also one Saturday earlier this month I went and volunteered at Habitat for Humanity. The house that they were working at that day was mostly completed so I got to spend 3 hours out in the sun shoveling rocks but it was still rewarding to know that I was helping someone, and Habitat is something that I've always wanted to do. I've since decided that that's something that I'm going to try and do more often as well.
Jessica finished her first year of teaching as an intern on June 12th, and so to celebrate she and I went and got Manicures and Pedicures...guess where...Wal-Mart! Haha That just makes me inordinately happy! They didn't do a half bad job either.
Spring classes ended June 15th and finals were scheduled for the 17th and 18th. Two of my finals were in class/take home so I got to knock those out on the last day of class. Which meant that I only had to take one test (Intro to Statistics.) in the testing center during finals days. I took my Stats. final the morning of the 17th and then jetted off later that evening to go spend the weekend with Cherstin, Dan, Abby, and Emmet in OKC! It was really good to see them. While I was there we went to a science museum, a water park, and an amusement park, and basically just spent time together. Which I was having a bit of Provo-itis so it was good to get away. Dan also was kind enough to give me a blessing while I was there, and in it he said some stuff that I really needed to hear. It's amazing to think that those words came from the Lord. I've counted and I have had four blessings so far this year...and it's only June. I really am quite dependant on the spirit and the priesthood. It just makes me that much more appreciative of the gospel and all that much more determined that I want in my home when I have a home of my own some day.
I got back from OKC last sunday night and summer term classes started the next day! haha
I was up early the next morning trying to get into my last english class for my degree but it was full. I then went to another section that afternoon again trying to get the professor to add me....still no dice. So I'm taking a Critical Inquiry research class, and then my English class I'm taking up at the BYU Salt Lake Center. It's kind of a pain having to drive all the way up there but in the long run I think it'll actually be better. For one thing it's a TTH class along with my other one so I'm completely free from classes MWF, so say hello to four day weekends. Plus it'll put me up in SLC more often so I'm hoping to stop in and see G-pa more often, which is something that I've been slacking at. My classes though this semester are worrying me a little just because I anticipate them being A LOT of work. But I think I'll pull through. I just found out yesterday that I got two A's and one A- in my spring term classes, which I was pretty stoked about.
I've recently set a new goal for myself to try and go to the temple to do baptisms every week, and I've decided at least one of those weeks I want to go to a different temple around here other than Provo. There are so many around here and why not go to them while I'm in the position to do so. Yesterday I went to the Mt. Timpanogas temple (Provo's closed for cleaning and it's the closest). It's a beautiful temple, but a lot different from Provo. It's interesting to note how different each temple is in architecture, design, layout, and decor. I was pondering that yesterday as I sat inside the Mt. Timpanogas temple but then it hit me that though each temple is different, each is still considered the house of the Lord, and the work done in each is the same. It was a real testimony to me that this gospel really is true.
I have this pair of pants that I bought back in February and a few weeks ago I noticed that the hem in one of the legs had completely come undone. I was at loss as to what to do, when Jessica mentioned to me that she could teach me how to fix it. I bought some thread and she loaned me a needle and yesterday morning I fixed the hem in my pants all by myself! It was kind of a crude job, I'm not going to lie just because it was my first time and such but I was quite proud of myself! I figure that no one is going to be concentrating that hard on my ankles anyway. But it kind of got me thinking that sewing is one of those things that I fought my Mom on when I was growing up, but it's a nice skill to have, especially when you're a wife and Mother I'm sure. So I asked Mom if she would teach me how to sew when I go visit in August! I'm really excited. I've also decided that I want to teach myself Spanish. It's not going so well but I'm not going to give up!
So far this summer I've read Massacre at Moutain Meadows, The Miracle of Forgiveness, Go Forward with Faith:The Biography of President Gordon B. Hinckley, and am working on reading Jesus the Christ. Matty kind of got me into reading churchy non fiction books and I must say I'm rather glad that he did. Reading them has opened my eyes and expanded my view on so many different gospel subjects, it's amazing. Jesus the Christ is a beastly book, 700+ pages but I'll get through it. It's a really good book!
So, there's an update on my life!
PEACE!

2009-04-15T16:00:00.000-07:00

It's been about a month since I posted so I figured I had better get at that.
Not a ton has really happened, though, just a college student's life I suppose.
March was any other month really, it had its lows and its highs. April so far has been the same but I think the highs have slightly outnumbered the lows.
The last weekend of March, I was feeling a little blue so I did what I do best and went shopping. Desi and Mike had given me a $50 giftcard to DSW for boots as my Christmas gift that I still hadn't used so I went and bought myself a cute pair of church boots because even discounted the snow boots were expensive. I also went shopping at Kohls because Mom and Dad gave me a Kohls credit card with $200 for Christmas and I had only used like $45. I bought a cute new outfit, which I call my "hooker outfit" no worries though, it's still modest. That weekend too, the Hindu Temple in Spanish fork was having the 'festival of colors' it's a hindu tradition where they light a fire and have dancing and things like that and then everyone begins to throw scented chalk as a symbol of unity and to help keep demons away. It was pretty fun! I also had an interview with my Bishop for a limited use temple recommend. Which is nice to have. Jessica and I went to do baptisms that week and it was SO nice, it just brings such peace.
The first weekend in April was conference. Matty was able to score tickets for himself, me and his friend Dave for the Saturday afternoon, and then my ward got tickets and I was able to get a hold of some for the Saturday morning session. Because we thought Dave was going to be spending that Friday night in SLC with a family friend and because we had to be there so early to get into the Saturday morning session, Matty and I went up and spent the night at my Grandpa's house in Murray which isn't too far from Temple Square, and then just took the UTA there. The Saturday sessions were amazing! We got to be there when they called the new apostle, Neal L. Anderson! Dave took us out for Thai food in between sessions which I had never had before but was shockingly good! After the Saturday session we had to haul keester back to Provo, so that Matt and Dave could make it to the Priesthood session. While they were there, I, having had conference leave me with such a wonderful feeling decided to see if I could maybe procure any extra tickets from my ward for the Sunday afternoon session (I already knew there was no chance of gatting any for the sunday morning session). I went and asked my relief society president if she had any tickets left and apparently she and her roomates had decided that they wouldn't be able to make it to the sunday afternoon session and she gave me their tickets! I was so thankful. It actually worked out quite well because my roommate Michelle had gotten a ticket for the Sunday Afternoon session but thought she wouldn't be able to go because she didn't have a way to get there. I called Matty to see if he wanted to go and he was game, my RS president had given me three tickets so I told him he could invite his sister Molly if she were interested or Dave again if she wasn't. We also decided that we would head up there uber early and get in the standby line and hopefully get into the morning session as well and we took lunch with us for in between sessions. We were in the Standby line and they had cut off a group of people right at us and were waiting for them to call another group in when this lady came up and told the attendants for the line that she had four tickets that she wasn't going to be able to use, and when the attendant made the announcement, Matty, Molly, Michelle, and I were all like 'right here!' It was so cool! I got to be in the conference center for all four sessions! I'm really glad we made it into the Sunday Morning Session too because I got to hear Elder Jeffrey R. Holland (my favorite apostle) speak! It was just so amazing! If you go here http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2253593&id=17811758, there are pictures on Matty's facebook from conference!
We got back to Provo that night and it was after the Canon Center (the campus cafeteria) closed so I invited Matty and Molly over for dinner. I decided to make them my specialty, pasta. Matty asked is he could help. I had a partial box of Penne and a full box of Elbow, I gave them both to Matty and told him to mix them thinking he would use what was left of the Penne and part of the Elbow. Nay. He used what was left of the Penne and ALL of the Elbow! LOL I swimming in pasta for like a week!
The next morning Matty and I decided to go to the temple, he wasn't sure if they'd let him do baptisms with me though because it's so busy so we went pretty early, but they did.
Last week was a little stressful just because it was the last full week of classes before finals and I had a paper due which I procrastinated terribly. Matty and I went to the temple again on Monday, it's amazing how much better my week is when I go, I still have my doubts, concerns, worries, etc. but it isn't overwhelmingly terrible. Yesterday was the last day of classes, today and tomorrow are days to get caught up on studying and then finals start Friday. I'm going to die this summer, I have a four day break between when finals end and when the spring term starts, finals for the spring semester end the 18th of June and then the summer term starts the 22nd of June! I talked to Mom and Daddy though and I may try to fly out and visit Cherstin and Dan in OKC for those few days in June between the spring and summer terms but who knows what'll happen.

2009-03-10T19:09:00.000-07:00

Nothing much has been going on here. I've been a little stressed with school and such lately. I have two tests this week, and a tap evaluation, then next week I have three tests. I know that I need to get moving and start studying but it's hard to find the motivation right now, I don't know why.
On the up side I think I have finally figured out what my major is going to be. When we were living in KY, Suzanne and Nathan were there too and their kids were diagnosed with some developmental disorders. They use to have specialists who were sent by the county that would come in and do therapy with the kids, and I always thought that it was fascinating. Well, here at BYU they offer a degree in Family Life Emphasis in Human Development. I think that's what I'm going for and then I can hopefully get a job working with kids who have disorders and stuff. I'm pretty stoked about it, I took a Child Development class at Front Range and really enjoyed it and that counselor that I talked to said that that was a good sign that I'd enjoy the major. For this major too, they offer internships that still count towards my degree so that I can get my foot in the door while I'm still a student and whenn I'm actually graduated I can say that I've already had some experience, so that's a big leg up. And added bonus if I work really hard this spring and summer I can graduate in a little over a year!
I've maybe with toying with the idea of a mission after that, but I'm still pondering it. I was considering it before but lately I've been questioning whether or not it really is that right thing for me, I don't think it'd be bad if I went, quite the contrary it could be excellent, but I guess I'm a little unsure and still have a lot of counseling with the Lord to do. I've been doing a lot of that lately.
There are only five weeks left in this semester and can I just say that I cannot wait! This semester hasn't been all bad, in fact there have been some of the happiest times of my life, but there have also been some not so great parts. I have the same teacher for two of my classes and he is this cute old man, but good gracious as a teacher he isn't the best I've had, I've actually pretty much dreaded his classes all semester because they're so dry. I know you can find anything interesting if you really try, but this semester I haven't really been up to it. I know that's my own problem-o. But suffice it to say, I'm ready to be done.
That's really all that's going on in my life as of right now.

oh..for those of you haven't already heard from Mom, Matty and I aren't together anymore. I don't really want to talk about it, we just had some problems. No hate mail or anything though ok? The split was amicable and he is still my best friend.

2009-01-30T23:47:00.000-08:00

Lots has been happening since I last posted. I got back to Provo from the Christmas Break on the fourth of January just in time for classes to start on the fifth! haha When I first started the semester I didn't think that it was going to be too hard, but now I realize that it may just be more work than I bargained for! My first week of school I had a test in Latin, I had two tests today alone, one in Latin and another in World Civ. Which would have been fine but my World Civ. test could have gone a whole lot better. It was an essay exam, which is fine except for I'm like the most verbose person known to man and I only had an hour to do it in, and when the TA's said that they were looking for detail and not generalizations, that's what I tried to give them. And I succeeded with two of the civilizations I was discussing, the only problem was that I was supposed to talk about four but ran out of time after the first two and had to leave it at generalizations as far as the last two were concerned. At the review session that I went to the TA's said that the average length of a paper is four to five pages! Oh, my gosh! When I talked to my roommmate Michelle about it she said that tests such as that are usually given in the testing center and that you would have to write really fast to crank out a four to five page essay in an hour. So that makes me feel marginally better about it but I still don't think I did very well at all. Matty was there for me, supportive as usual, although he mentioned that he didn't particularly like the fact that I worry so much and beat myself up over stuff that I can't change.
Which, by the way news there, even though I'm sure everyone who reads this is already aware, because I told Mom, and let's face it half of the United States probably knows by now! (haha love ya' Mom!) Matty and I have officially started dating. We had been getting closer just before we left Provo for the Christmas Break, and while we were gone we talked every night on the phone. The night I got back to Provo, he came over to visit, and I basically saw him everyday after. I introduced him to the comic genius that is Nacho Libre (XxOoXOxoXoxO haha) and he liked it, or at least didn't think it was utterly stupid like most people, which made me happy. Everyone could basically see me falling for him but myself. Earlier in the month my roommate Aurie said to me "The only one who can't see how crazy you are about him is you!" A few days later I got a taste of what it was like to go a day without seeing him, which I hadn't done in at least a month, and I have to say that I really didn't care for it. So after a bit more waffling on my part I realized that he's my best friend, he's sweet to me, and has been so patient because he's known what he wanted since at least November-December time frame but he's stuck with me through my indecision, he even told me that if I wanted him to stop liking me that he would because in the end he really just wanted me to be happy, he cares more about me and what I want than himseld and I finally admitted to myself how I felt and then of course I let him know. Today he took me out on a date, and as we were sitting at dinner he said to me "You know how they say you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink?" "What they don't tell you is that you can salt the horse's oats." Apparently, that day that I had to go without seeing him was planned, he was "salting my oats", trying to get me to realize how much I hated not seeing him. His plan worked.
Last Saturday I got to go to the open house of the Draper Temple. My roommate Jessica's family had bought tickets for ten and they were going to drive out here from CO to go, but the weather was too bad and they couldn't make the trip. So Jessica invited Matt and I to tag along with her and Ben. It was so beautiful in there! We got to go into the sealing room which is something we didn't have the opportunity to do at the open house for the Nauvoo temple, and it was really cool to look into the mirrors and see them reflect back and forth forever. It was so peaceful in there as well.
Well that's about it for updates on this kid!
P.S. Wanda and Hannah I'm learning a new routine in my tap dance class and will totally have to teach you guys! It's fun.

2009-01-01T15:22:00.000-08:00

L: My New Years Eve Challenge.

R: Emily and I getting ready for the slide on Monday.

Monday, I was sitting around with Desi, and I mentioned to her that Matty was going to Jack-in-the-Box because I had been pestering him to go because they have those in Houston and he'd never really been because he was one of those anti-Jack people because of the whole food poisoning thing a few years back (turns out that he doesn't particularly care for it anyway, and he also prefers Cafe Rio which is like half as good and twice as expensive to Chipotle! What am I going to do with that boy! haha). Well, at that point Desi and I decided that some Jack sounded pretty darn good so we drove about a half hour to get some. After that we took Emily to the park and let her run around for a little bit before going back to the house and running some errands.

So a few weeks ago, I was saying something to my roommate Jessica about how I'm terrible because I constantly sleep with my contacts in even though you aren't supposed to and it's really bad for your eyes. Well at that point Aurie (another roommate) overheard me and said that I really shouldn't do that and told me about how she had done that for a long time but then developed an astigamatism because of it and wasn't allowed to wear contacts for a year! Needless to say I've been trying to be better about removing my contacts before I go to bed at night and since, I've noticed that when I do happen to fall asleep with them in my eyes are always irritated the next day. Well, Monday night I was up really late and completely forgot to take my contacts out before bed! So Tuesday when I woke up my eye was a little dry and irritated and a bit pink so I took my contacts out to give my eyes a little time to breath. I spent the better part of Tuesday blind except for like maybe an hour when I went to get dinner at Chipotle for everyone and while we ate. And then I took them right back out. But, Tuesday night as I was talking to Matty on the phone my eye just started to burn and water like crazy and I couldn't figure out what was going on. I slept through the night but when I woke up Yesterday my eye was still just burning and watering like nobody's business and it wasn't just a little pink it was red. I immediately thought of Aurie and had this little freak out inside my head about how maybe I had an astigmatism. I spent the better part of the morning just trying to relax and praying that my eye would just get better. At around 11:30-12 ish Desi told me that I might walk down to King Soopers and purchase some eye drops so that is exactly what I did. I borrowed Desi's sunglasses and trekked down there and as I'm standing in the grocery store I can only imagine that I must look like the biggest crack addict or something of that nature as I'm standing there with shades on in the middle of the store with one eye bright red and leaking and I'm looking at eye drops. haha But I bought some and went back to Desi's and Mike's and had Desi help me put them in and thankfully they did the trick! Rather immediately actually.

For the past few days Desi and Mike have been getting this notification in their mailbox that there was a parcel waiting for someone with the last name Bainbridge down at the post office. Well the most recent notification said that the parcel was specifically for me. Now, I must say that I'm a little perplexed by this because I haven't ordered anything online recently without having switched the shipping address to my apt. in Provo and even if by some chance I missed switching the address over I just ordered the stuff on Monday so it wouldn't be getting her by now. I can't figure why any member of my family would be sending me something because Desi and Mike had me for Christmas this year and I spent Christmas with them and they already gave me my gift. Also, none of my family members have menthioned anything about sending me a package. But, no one outside of my family would have known to send me a package at this address. So I don't know who/where this package is from, why they're sending it to me, or what it is! I guess the only way to know is to pick it up and find out, but when we went to do that yesterday the post office had already closed early.

Last night Desi and Mike had people over for New Years Eve. Seth and Lexy Ludwig and their little girl Hannah and then Val and Nathan along with Lucas and Bridgette showed up. It was pretty enjoyable. We had burgers for dinner (grilling on New Years Eve!) and then played Would You Rather? I ended up on a challenge space and had a do it challenge, one of my options was go through two full player turn with a spoon in your mouth, it didn't sound too hard so that's what I chose. haha Desi tells me "OK go get your spoon, wait.....I'll get it!" so I'm sitting there waiting for my spoon when Desi walks back in with this huge metal serving spoon. Of course, I can't back down so I have to shove this thing into my mouth and just sit there while they continue to play the game. Everyone was laughing, including myself, but the bad part was that because I'd been laughing so hard and because I had the challenge of forcing something twice the size of my mouth into my mouth I had all this excess saliva that was just pooling in my mouth and then eventually began to dribble out of my mouth and down the handle of the spoon! It was so gross!!! And then to make matters worse, the game practically stopped because someone else hit a challenge space and had to perform their challenge. Fun times right! haha

Today, I've just been trying to figure out how I'm going to get all my stuff back to Provo. Let me tell you what it's looking like it might be a bit of a challenge.

2008-12-29T19:21:00.000-08:00

"I testify that bad days come to an end, that faith always triumphs, and that Heavenly promises are always kept."

-- Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

(Lessons From Liberty Jail, CES Fireside, September 7, 2008)

I just love Elder Holland! That quote really spoke to me and helped me through some hard times these past few months.

I've spent the majority of my life fighting change because I've always associated it with bad things, but I've never been good at remembering that there is opposition in all things and so if I'm experiencing some hard times there is good coming along with it and I'm just choosing to focus on the bad. When I left for BYU I was really nervous and anxious. I was leaving friends and family and a job and a life that I had built here in Denver and I was sure that I was going to hate BYU, and for a while I did, but somewhere along the way all that changed...the funny thing is I'm not even sure when.
It has been refreshing to be home this past week and a half, to be able to go to Church in my Home Ward and see familiar faces, people that I know, who are really interested in me and how my life is going! And I'm reminded of how much and why I missed and still do miss this place. Because in all reality this place is my home. I know that the rest of my family considers me crazy for thinking it such, but this is the place where I feel like most of my growth, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally occured. But I have also come to a realization: each chapter of our lives has a natural beginning and ending, and I was to the point where my time in Denver (at least living here) was at an end.
This morning I was able to see a good friend of mine who I credit, at least in part, for helping me grow during my time in Denver, if only because he was the first person my age that I met who really had a testimony of the gospel. At nearly 17 when I first met him, I guess you could say that I was somewhat disillusioned, it seemed to me that when most people my age bore their testimonies they were saying things that they thought sounded nice, not things that they actually meant, and I think that I had begun to think that it wasn't possible for a person my age to have an actual testimony of the gospel, that it was only something that you gained as you grew up and had more experience. But then I met this friend of mine and there was something different about him. When he bore his testimony, you could tell that he actually believed the things he was saying, he wasn't saying them for show or simply just to say them, and that changed me. He helped me realize that you can have a testimony at any age, and it left me wanting to know and have the same conviction that he did. We have stayed in touch throughout the years, even when he was gone on his mission, but as this last semester progressed we gradually lost touch. But yesterday, as I was leaving Church, this same friend caught up with me and asked me if I wanted to meet him for Breakfast at IHOP, and despite all the crap I've taken from my family when it comes to him and I, and despite all the hurt and confusion our friendship has endured, I still wanted to see him, so I aggreed.
So, this morning at around 8ish I found myself sitting accross from this friend talking and catching up on things that have happened over these past few months since I left for school. It was good to see him and hear about the things going on with him. At one point during the conversation he asked me "So how's the social life at BYU?" When I first moved he received some not so pleasant e-mails from me, venting and whining about how miserable I was, and about all the 'trials' I was enduring. But today it was nice to be able to look at him and report that everything was ok, and that though I had been really nervous and anxious and miserable in the beginning it seemed that the decision I had made to go to BYU was really the best thing for me in the end.
Going to BYU this last semester has been one of the most difficult things I have ever done, and I endured some of the most lonely times in my life. But those times were always tempered with the reassurance that I was never really alone, no matter how much I felt like it, because the Lord was and is always right beside me. It helped me prove to myself, once again, what exactly I'm made of; exhibit my determination. I like to think that when the going got tough I had the grit to get through it. And I have also been given the opportunity to make new friends and renew relationships with old ones, all of whom have in many ways helped me just as much as my first friend has.

2008-12-20T14:43:00.000-08:00

It has been a really long time since I posted. I just got weighed down with a bunch of school things and never really got caught up. I got to go home for Thanksgiving! It was soo good to go back and see Desi, Mike, Emily, Mordecai, and Mom & Dad. Desi had some more issues with kidney stones on the day after Thanksgiving, and so that was sad, but on the bright side I got to have lots-o-fun chillin' with Emily and making Sugar Cookies which we decorated! It was fun!! Going back to Provo after Thanksgiving was a little easier than it had been in October, I was starting to feel a little more settled there.

In the beginning of December I went on a date with my good friend Matthew (Matty) Moses (I know, best last name ever, right?!) or as my roomate Jessica calls him "The Running Man!" haha He took me to hike the 'Y'. On the way there I noticed he had a backpack with him and when I asked him what it was for he said it was an extra jacket in case he got cold. I was a little suspicious because if you know him, he is like a human heater! I knew something must be up but I wasn't sure what. But when we got to the top of the 'Y' he opened the backpack and pulled out a thermos of hot water, two cups, plastic spoons, and two packages of hot cocoa mix for us. It was so cute! Then we went out to dinner. I have to admit that at first I was a little worried that it might be strange just because it meant that things were likely going to change (which I hate), but that was stupid and I ended up having a really good time. After that we went back to my apt. and I made him a cake and we helped my roomate Aurie make some wraps while we waited for Flora, who was coming down from Rexburg to take the LSATs, to arrive. Flora finally got there and we all ended up watching Singin' in the Rain because I told Matty he had to see it, A) because it's the greatest tap dancing movie known to man (he's taking tap dance with me next semester) and B) because they do the "Moses" dance! haha That Sunday our apt. got asked to introduce ourselves at ward prayer, we each gave our major, fav. color, # of siblings, and fav. Disney princess and everyone else had to guess who went with what. After we were matched up with the appropriate facts we each introduced ourselves and gave a hobby. Mine was tap dancing, and when some of the people shouted "Let's see it!" I actually gave them a demonstration right there in my heels! haha

That following week was the week before finals and I had two teachers decide that that was the perfect time to give tests! Who does that?! Beyond that I basically spent a lot of time in the library trying to get ready for finals the upcoming week.

The weekend after that was pretty much awesome! As Matt and I have been becoming better friends I've noticed that I've been seeing more of him and less of my roomates, but that weekend he went up to Rexburg to see Flora graduate from BYU-I so I spent the entire weekend just goofing off with Jessica and Michelle. We went to our ward Christmas party that Friday which was fun, we got to watch Jessica be a nerd and demonstrate all these crazy dance moves like the 'bobble-head' and the 'can-opener' and the 'maseuse'! haha After that we went and ran some errands and then went back to the apt and watched youtube videos for who knows why. The next day, Saturday, I hit some calculus reviews for the final, and tried to study for my World Religions final. That night though, we had a girls night, Jessica, Michelle, Kaela, and I all got in our pj's and got some pizza's from Little Caesar's and then went back to the apt. and watched Back to the Future. We even had a Root Beer Keg! haha Later that night we did Avacado masks!

Finals week was pretty stressful! I basically spent all week sitting inside the Tanner Building with Matt and Flora studying. Tuesday night Flora, Nena, Jessica, and I all went out to dinner at Noodles & Co. They have the most amazing cookies and it was a lot of fun just hanging out with the girls. After dinner I went back to campus with Flora to study and at like 12:45 (so i guess it was technically wednesday), I got a text from Matty asking me what I was up to. when I responded I said " I just want t sled but I know that I need to study. You're probably pick of my whining...." I was really tired that night and I meant to say that I just wanted to sleep but I must have left off the 'p' when I typed it in so quick words took it as 'sled' . I was still thinking that I had said sleep when Matty responded with "Let's go! I'll put on some warm clothes!" haha I was a little weirded out at first and asked "Where?" and he was like "By the Marriott Center." at that point I had the common sense to look through my sent messages and I noticed my error. I showed Flora, and at that point Matt was so excited we couldn't say "No" so we dragged our happy selves over to the Marriott Center to meet Matt and his friend Cole for some late night sledding. Wednesday Matty took me out on a lunch date and then I headed up to Jessica's School in Riverton to be an 'expert' so that her class could play Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? (she actually teaches 5th grade! haha) Thursday I took my Calculus final, which is the only one that I was really nervous about. I got a 73% which I'm hoping is enough to pull me at least a 'B' since the course is being curved and all. We shall see. Thursday, Flora and I went Christmas shopping! It was fun, and I got some of the stuff done that I needed. That afternoon we were supposed to chill with Nena but we put it off for a little bit cause she had something come up. Flora and I ended up texting Matt to see if he wanted to eat lunch with us, and then right after that Nena called and said she was done and could now come play with us. Matt had to be to work at 6 pm though so Flora and I ended up going and getting food and then picking up Nena and taking everything over to Matt's work and eating there with him and Cole. While eating we decided that we wanted to make a snowman, hence there was another late night excursion, with Michelle, Nena, Flora, Matt, Cole and myself, to the Marriott Center for some snowman building and more sledding. The snow wasn't exactly right for building a snowman but we sure as heck tried, we got sort of a horizontal one on the ground though, haha! Yesterday, I went up to Grandpa's to say goodbye before heading home for the Holidays and to give him his Christmas gift but he wasn't there. I was a little worried but I left the present and a note on his chair. I drove back to Provo and had to do some stuff on campus before going to pick up Flora and do a bit more last minute Christmas shopping. By the time we started back to my apt. it had started to snow pretty heavily, I hurriedly packed the last of my bags and flew out the door to drop off Nena's Christmas present and say goodbye to Matty. Brian had told me I should be to his house sometime around 5:45 pm in order to get the airport in time for my flight out so I left Provo at around 4:00 to give myself time to get there with the weather and all! It took me nearly 45 min just to get out of Provo, and I don't remember how long to get up to South Jordan, what normally takes me 30 min in normal conditions took 2 hours! Brian and Laurie are so sweet for braving the weather to take me to the Airport. I got to the airport at 7 pm and my flight which was scheduled to leave at 9 was delayed until midnight. :( The line to check my bag was forever long though, so I said goodbye and thanks to Brian and Laurie and resigned myself to waiting. I finally got my bag all checked and was headed through security when they stopped me and asked me to take my laptop out of my backpack, which I did, problem solved....I think not. They brought it over to me a second time and were like "Do you have any water in this?" and I was like "No." The guy then pulls out Matt's Christmas gift to me and was like "Is there anything in this?" He opened up the gift and pulled out a bottle of lotion, so he said I either had to check it, leave it with someone, or throw it away. Long story short I had to go all the way back to the ticket counter and ask them to root through the checked bags for my flight and bring my bag back out so that I could slip the lotion in there. I finally made it through security and got myself some food because I hadn't eaten since noon and was starving, but the concourse was jam packed with people because so many flights had been delayed or cancelled. I ate and bought myself a book to keep myself occupied. Matty called me a few times too after nine to keep me company, which was nice of him. My flight kep getting even more delayed until finally we weren't leaving until 1:30 am when we'd initially been scheduled to depart at 8:55 pm, some delay right? Right before my flight boarded I was talking to Matt on the phone and he was telling me about how part of the reason it takes so long to get the planes ready for take off in the winter is because they have to de-ice the wings and stuff, and then as I was lining up to board, I heard the attendant call into his walkie-talkie to skip de-icing on my flight. Well, as we were approaching Denver we hit some turbulance and I had a little freak out in my head about how they hadn't de-iced the plane and we were going to crash! haha We landed fine though. I got into Denver and it took forever to get from the concourse to baggage claim because the stupid little train was 10 min behind or something. I finally made it to baggage claim, and there are just bags stacked everywhere and there is no order. I asked an attendant and he said that the luggage that just came in from SLC was going to be on carousel 9. I wait through all the bags on that carousel to come out and my bag isn't there so I go over to the attendants and I tell them that my bag hadn't shown up on with the other luggage from my flight and right then I see my bag lying stacked under three other massive duffels and sitting behind two huge rolly suitcases. Mike was out waiting for me curbside, we didn't get back to their house until nearly 5 am! I was so tired but Emily came into my room at 8 and put her cold hands in my bed and asked me to read her stories. That crazy kid! haha Desi came and ushered her out and I slept a little more but I eventurally got up for the day, had BK for breakfast with Desi and Mike, went and did some Christmas shopping with Desi and then went and had lunch at McD's with Desi and Mike and their friends the Ludwigs. After that I came back and took a nap! Right now Emily just asked Mike to turn on the Work and the Glory. haha I love that kid! I LOVE all my nieces ad nephews and wish that they could be here with me!
Sorry this is such a long post, it's been a while, I'll try and write more regularly so they aren't so long! haha

2008-11-15T11:49:00.000-08:00

So yesterday, mom left! :( I drove up to SLC after I got out of my Latin class so that I could take her to the airport. When I was up there Grandpa gave me the first three books in the Children of the Promise series by Dean Hughes in hardback. They are all in practically mint condition, including the third one which is like hard to find and uber expensive when you can, and the first two were signed for Gma and Gpa by Dean Hughes! That practically made my day! I've decided that I'm going to go up there at least once a week and see him, I mean who knows how much longer he's got and it's not like I live that far away. I decided that I wanted to take a picture of Mom and Grandpa together before Mom left so we did that and then threw all of Mom's stuff into the back of the car and I drove her to the Airport. It was sad to see her go, but I think I'm getting better....

After that I went back down to Provo for my last class of the day, Intro to Calc. We usually have homework due everyday, but yesterday, for whatever reason we didn't and we were all kinda curious about what exactly we'd be going over in class, turns out my teacher is awesome and since we were a bit ahead of schedule, he took yesterday as an opportunity to review everything we've covered thus far this semester.

Last night Michelle, and Jessica and I went to this sketch comedy show called the Divine Comedy. You gotta love it right there just for the play on Dante! haha Anyway it is this I way funny sketch comedy troupe that put's a on a show every month or so. A lot of it is Mormon/BYU Humor but some of it is just downright funny....like this...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJaN_F4tCrs! Makes me laugh every time.

Michelle has this mystery dinner party thing that she is going to tonight and so I told her that I'd help her make her hair all curly and pretty for it, so last night after the Divine Comedy she and I went out in search of one those special curling irons with the cooling coil around it designed specially for spiral curls. We checked Target and Wal-mart and couldn't find one, sad day! :(

Looks like we'll have to settle for using a regular curling iron. But she and I did have a bunch of fun driving around in my car last night belting out disney tunes at the top of our lungs! haha After our shopping trip was a bust we went to Blockbuster to rent That Thing You Do! but they didn't carry it so we rented Baby Mama instead which wasn't as funny as I was expecting.

This morning I rolled my happy bum out of bed at 6 and went running with Matt again and this time Zach joined us. 6 am on a Saturday! Why so early you ask? Long story Jessica had a test at 7:30 she had to take and I told her I'd go with her to campus and the boys had other stuff they had to do. Short answer we're masochists and decided to go at 6 instead of just not going! haha It was probably way funny for people driving cars to see me running flanked by these two gihugmously tall dudes. One of their steps was like five of mine. At one point they got ahead of me and they actually had to stop so that I could catch up with them! haha They're good guys for putting up with me. Today Jessica and I spent the morning on campus, I had a quiz to take and tried to get some other studying done (which I should be doing now) while Jessica took her Praxis exam (basically a test that tests her competency in the subjects she is teaching students). After that we bought a piece of German Chocolate Fudge from the bookstore which is really good but very rich. And that puts me here. This evening Jessica and I are headed back to campus to watch Zach do the Tango in a ballroom dance competition that he is in for class and I'm helping Michelle curl her hair. Other than that lots of studying...hopefully....if I don't get distracted. haha

2008-11-13T20:38:00.000-08:00

So I mentioned in my first blog that I got into an accident in the beginnning of October that totaled my car. Well, these are the pics of the damage. Doesn't it just look loverly? The guy who hit me was literally picking pieces of my car out of his grill! So I've been a pedestrian for a while but this last week mom got here and brought me her car! I still miss the RIO like crazy....it was my first real car....I mean I had the hobo-mobile before that but that thing was falling apart before we even got it. I don't know why, but for some reason I was really attached to the RIO maybe because with moving and such it was the only thing that stayed constant and it gave me a bit of independence so that I could get away. I don't know....but Mom's car is good, it runs well and it isn't too shabbby, and at the end of the day it is still a car (one that I didn't really deserve seeing as how the accident was my fault) so I'm not going to knock it.
Everything else is fine here in the bubble....today I had my bowling class and we're split up into teams of three, neither of my teamates showed today so I was all by myself, thankfully we had a bye this week because we are out of the class tournament after losing on Tuesday. I got some great practice in today, my high score was a 131! That made me happy. I've decided that I want to start posting at least one picture a day so that you guys can sort of get a feel for what my life has been/is like since moving to Provo, so I've started carrying my camera with me almost everywhere I go. Today as I was walking through Brigham Square they were doing an ROTC demonstration with the Army and the Air Force and I was totally going to take a pic but my camera was dead and hence why you're seeing pictures from a month ago of my old busted up car. The new Taylor Swift cd came out Tuesday and I bought it and have totally been rocking out to it all week. I had it blaring in the car this afternoon as I drove up to SLC to spend some time with Mom and Gpa. It was good to see them. That was 'bout it for today. Love to you all!

2008-11-12T20:46:00.000-08:00

Pics (L-R): My freakin' sweet dinosaur that I drew at Enrichment tonight, The Obama Joke board we started last week after the election, The poster we made about a month ago for the noisy apt. above us.

So, I should start this blog by saying that I loathe the way that BYU does testing. Like for my Calculus class, the tests aren't given by individual professors, they are given by all the instructors of Intro to Calculus collectively so it's the same test for each student no matter who their professor is, and each professor gets a crack at writing one of the 4 tests administered throughout the semester (I don't know how they work the final). Can I just say how gay that is! Different teachers emphasize different things. Then you have to go to the testing center, which even sounds formidable and strikes fear into the hearts of every student at BYU, and is basically this giant room filled with desks where almost every student goes to take their tests, and is usually jam packed with people so you're sitting on top of each other, and there is always people coming and going, shuffling in and out, and people coughing and sneezing all over you, and the desks are so close together that whenever someone shifts in the slightest it causes trouble.

So Monday, I had to go and take my Calculus test and I walk into the testing center and try and find a desk that had enough space around it, well it took some searching but I found one, with really only one other person sitting across the aisle from me. But with my luck that was too easy, wouldn't you know it, the kid sitting across from me was...a sniffler. You know that kind, heck, I use to be one. The kind that don't blow their nose but sniff it! And the worst part about it was that this kid had it like timed, I swear, every thirty seconds without fail he would sniffle! It was soo distracting, and sickening. I finally had to get up and find another suitable desk. The test was difficult but I finally emerged nearly three hours later having received an 80% on it. I wasn't sure how that measured up, one kid I talked to said that 80% was the highest he'd heard anyone get, but some other guy said he got an 85%, and I overheard this other guy say that he guessed on two or three of the questions and got a 90% (how is that even fair)! So I was a little nervous, but today when I went to lecture my teacher informed us that the average for all the sections was a 64% and that the average for just our class was a 62% so I'm feeling a little better about my 80%. That was really the hightlight of my day, my Latin class is getting to be a bit more difficult and I'm beginning to worry a tad about my translations but I just plan on hitting the books pretty hard this weekend. Friday night Michelle and Jessica and I are going to this BYU sketch thing called the Divine Comedy which is really funny! And then Saturday we're going to a dance competition to see Zach. So it sounds like my weekend will have some fun mixed in. Tonight we had Enrichment night and we had one of the members of the Bishropic's wives come and talk to us about budgeting and such. It was interesting, although I mainly doodled while I listened, the product was my dinosaur drawing which you can see above, and which is now mounted on the wall above my bed! haha

2008-11-11T19:44:00.000-08:00

So, over the summer, my sisters told me that I needed to start a blog so as to make it easier to stay in touch. At the time I laughed and didn't think much of it, I mean I thought that Mom would keep me informed. Well, apparently I was wrong and so therefore, I have decided to start a blog, because I really am missing the fam!

I'm not going to lie, my first two months here have pretty much been some of the most dreadful ones of my life. There was all the stress of moving out on my own, and starting classes at BYU, and then some other stuff that happened at that point that I don't want to get into, and I was homesick, and then to top it all off I got into a car accident in the beginning of October that totaled my car and just left me feeling hopeless. But thankfully, I was able to ask for a blessing and got confirmation that all of the bad things were going to pass, and that I wasn't alone, that the Lord is always with me! I still had some hard times after that and continue to have them but I really am doing a lot better!
My roomates are pretty much amazing and I honestly don't think I could have been given better ones for my first year away from home! Jessica, my friend from CO and my room roomate, is so much like me sometimes it's like we have the same brain. I'm so glad that I made the decision to move in with her. My roomates Kaela and Michelle are pretty awesome too! We laugh so much it's ridonkulous, and we are always doing fun things! Friday, I had a craving for Chipotle, and Jessica and her friend Ben (who is also from CO) know what amazing food that is, so myself, Jessica, Ben, Michelle, and Zach all piled into my car and drove half an hour to Sandy to get some Chipotle because that's where the closest one is! Then Saturday Michelle, Jessica, my friend Matt, and Michelle's friend Austin and I all went Ice Skating! It's so much fun, unfortunately though it doesn't lead to much studying! haha Nena is also living in Provo (just across the street in fact), and it has been so great to live close to her again, she really has been a fantastic support to me, a friend to lean on, and an ear to listen to me whine about how crappy things were! I have also had the privelage to see Flora a few times since moving, even though she lives in Rexburg she is closer and she has family that lives in Provo.

The pictures that you are viewing, are of what myself and my roomates have come to call the stairs of DEATH! Hiking up and down these stairs constitutes a large portion of my life here at BYU. Look steep? Believe me, they are even more daunting in person, especially when you have to face walking up them at least twice a week with what feels like 40lbs of books strapped to your back! haha Lately my friend Matt and I have been going running in the mornings, and when we do we usually run up these stairs....(ok, so he runs them, I more like power walk them...I have to take each step individually because two at a time just feels like too much of a stretch and I'm worried about falling on my face! haha) Suffice it to say, because of this I have been going up these stairs even on days when I don't have a class that meets at the top of them.

To be quite honest when I first started classes at BYU it weirded me out a little, I had never been to a school where they pray and sing a hymn at the beginning of each class! The spirit really is amazing though! The devotionals every week are exceptional (except when the hijack it for junk like "The Opening Ceremonies of BYU's Homecoming Week" Give me a break!) and it feels like there is always some fireside with a GA of somesort being held. Two weeks ago we got to hear from Bishop Burton and two months before that it was Elder Holland!

I learn so much from all of my classes and I feel like I'm doing well in all of my classes (of course two of my classes are bowling and ice skating), the only possible exception to that would be my Calculus class, though I got two 80%'s and a 90% on the tests we've taken so far which, from what I understand is better than most. I think my favorite class so far this semester is a 3-way tie between Survey of World Religions, Book of Mormon, and Bowling. Bowling is just really fun, I've seen my game improve and my 'teamates' Sydney and Rob crack me up! And then I just feel like I've learned so much from Survey of World Religion and BOM. The semester is almost over though, we only have a few more weeks till Thanksgiving (which I get to go home for :) and then after that there is a week or two more of classes and then finals! I'm so excited for my classes next semester! I'm taking Latin 102, the 2nd Half of the BOM, Family History, World Civ. pt I, History of the Middle Ages, Tap Dancing, and Piano! So I think I just may make it through! The other day I was reading in 2nd Nephi, and it's the part where Lehi was teaching about the importance of the Fall of Adam and Eve and in one verse he said that if they hadn't fallen that Adam and Eve would have had no joy for they would have known no misery and I had this epiphany: In the long run it really is our trials and the hard times, the moments when we feel most miserable, that make us happy, because if we didn't know what that was like we wouldn't have that contrast between sorrow and happiness, and we wouldn't know what joy felt like.

"I testify that the bad days come to an end, that faith always triumphs, and that heavenly promises are always kept." --Jeffrey R. Holland, CES Fireside, Sept. 2008