Since it’s been a long while since I have updated my blog I’d thought I’d share about recent events. So first off, I got accepted into the elementary education program at UVU. Yay! So I know what I’ll be doing for the next 2 years. More school… yay...... But at least my life has direction. I was a little worried I wasn’t going to get in. Since I am a transfer student they took my last few credits at SUU to show my GPA (I don’t know why they did that, why not just use all my credits…) which were classes like organic chemistry and calculus two which I failed, hence why I changed my major, and I had to take the praxis test and my scores weren’t in yet. I also had to do a group interview which I hated. I have really bad conversational timing, especially in groups and even more so in groups that I don’t know so the group interview was awful. I had to fight to get a word in the conversation. It went ok but I never want to do it again. But it all worked out and I got in! I really don’t like school at all, and probably would have just stopped going to school if I didn’t get in. Good thing I did get in or I’d end up living in my parent’s basement the rest of my life.

These past 2 months or so I have been doing a lot of driving. I think I have only stayed in Provo for the weekend once, maybe two times since January. In Feb I went to a missionary homecoming, a wedding, 4 wheeling all in St. George, and took a trip to Vegas with my 2 best friends. This month I went to Wedding in Vegas, the Blue Angles air show in St. George and just this past weekend went to the St. George temple where my best friend Mary got here endowments and went to Monster Jam in Vegas. All of it was a lot of fun.  

I am very excited for summer to come! For one, I won’t be in school! I have a job lined up so I won’t be as broke as I am now, I get to do my favorite thing in the world, wake surf, enjoy the good weather, play softball, hang out with the family, see my brother after three years of not seeing each other because we’ve both been on missions, and just live it up every day. I live for summer so I get really excited and want it to be summer right when it first starts to get above 50 degrees. Summer cannot come soon enough but I’ll just have to wait out the next 4 weeks of school and pray that the water in sand hollow warms up sooner than normal this year : )

Monster Jam

 Sand Hollow

 My Birthday Present!

 UVU Baseball 

 Las Vegas Temple

Kenz, Me and Mary

New Years Resolutions

New Year’s Resolutions for 2012:

1.       Be Healthy

2.       Budget

1. I’m certain that many of you, like me, in years past have had the New Year’s resolution to lose weight. As far back as even the 7^th grade, I remember having this as my new year’s resolution. Has it ever happened? No. All who know me know that I’m not grossly obese where I can’t even move and I’d have to be lifted by a crane to leave my house, but, I do have a lot I could lose.  As of late I have been thinking of my health in general. I don’t take very good care of my body. I’ve never been a regular exerciser and have never had a well-balanced diet. (Ramen noodles don’t give you much balance, according to the label anyway…) I just want to live a long and fruitful life. Already at 23, almost 24, I am worried about constant heartburn and swollen ankles. So I want to change my lifestyle. I want to be healthy.

Over the years I have tried many things: more exercise, less carbs, calorie counting, weight watchers (which worked for a while until I stopped doing it), juicing, and the list could go on and on. I do well usually for a couple of weeks then go on back to my bad habits.

I have found that I do not do well with extremes, like juicing, or with strictness in my diet. I find that when I decide to limit let’s say bread, all I want is to eat bread. Or when I say no Dr. Pepper I want it even more than usual, which is quite a bit.

So I have decided to simply be healthy. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas break I did really well. I didn’t have a set diet plan but I just wanted to eat better and it worked. I didn’t buy snacks when I grocery shopped and I tried to eat a home a lot more than I usually do. I hardly exercised during that time but put both exercise and eating better together and it should get me on my way to being healthy. I don’t want it to just be something I do but who I am. I want to BE healthy. It is going to be very difficult to change but I am confident it can happen. So no more crazy antics or yoyo diets, it’s going to be healthy me. Yay : )

2. Not once in my life have I budgeted. You may ask how I have survived this long. Well, my take on finances is to make sure the big bills are taken care of and then use what’s left for what I need and then survive without until the next paycheck comes. Yeah, not really the best way to handle my money but its worked thus far. But now that I am currently jobless things are definitely going to have to change.

I really quite loathed my last job and finally gave my two weeks’ notice two weeks before Christmas. I had wanted to do it for a while but I hadn’t found another job and in all actuality I was getting paid for sitting at my desk for 4 hours a day. So I stuck with it for a few months. One Sunday I was pondering on the subject and decided it needed to be done. I was really nervous to tell my boss but I felt really good about it otherwise. So it is the beginning of a new year and I have no income. Strangely enough I feel fine. I have some $ that I can use to get me through for the next little while but it will only last me a short time. My plan is to try to find some piano students to teach and if that fails I’ll get a job, even fast food if it comes down to that.

So since I won’t have any extra cash with no pay check to count on every other week, I need to tighten down on my finances. I thought that with living in a bigger city I would be spending most of my extra money on shopping since I had more of a selection than Wal-Mart, but that was not the case. Also in a bigger city, there is a wider selection of places to eat. So that is what I did all the time. Eat out. If I would have budgeted I probably would have been able to eat out and shop. But now with my first new year’s resolution to be healthy, I won’t be spending nearly as much on eating out.

So there you have it. My goals for this year, 2012. I’m hoping next year they won’t be the same as they have been for the past umpteen years. Who knows, maybe next year I won’t even have to worry about  a new year’s resolution. The Mayans could be right…

HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!

(Don't worry, its just sparkling cider)

25 Days of Christmas

Why Hello!

My, it has been a while since I have blogged. I've have been swamped with school so I haven't had much time to think about blogging.
But here is a post about Christmas! Yay! So I decided I wanted to do a Christmas count down thing or more like a Christmas bucket list for the 25 days leading up to Christmas! I found a bunch of fun ideas on Pinterest and came up with a few of my own. So here it is!

25 Days of Christmas Countdown!

1.    Write missionaries
2.    Paint nails Christmas colors
3.    Hot coco party/movie
4.    Gingerbread nativity
5.    Send Christmas cards
6.   Make Christmas Mix CD
7.    Bake cookies, take to someone
8.    Make paper snowflakes
9.    Christmas lights drive
10.  Read a Christmas story
11.  Paint pinecones for decoration
12.  Make reindeer droppings (whoppers)
13.  Picnic by Christmas tree lights
14. Scripture chase, scripture paper chain
15.  Fondue feast
16. Caroling
17. Go to the Messiah
18. FHE Attributes of Christ (scategories like game)
19. Sledding
20. Shovel snow/rake leaves of a neighbor
21.  Go to a Movie
22. Watch Joy to the World DVD
23. Game night, minute to win it Christmas style (mash mallows through a wreath, stack cups with one hand, nutstacker game, cookie from your forehead to your mouth w/o using your hands,open present with ski gloves, etc…)
24. Read Luke 2
25. Write testimony of Christ in Journal

The ideas is to do one of these a day for 25 days until Christmas. Hopefully I'll be doing them in this order somewhat but most likely a few will change. Oh I see one already, tomorrow I'm going to the messiah. :)
So I just thought this would be fun thing to do to celebrate Christmas time.
I'm going to figure out how to put pictures on here soon so I can show you all the fun things I'll be doing!

Back to life... Back to reality...

One thig is certain; coming home from vacation is never fun.

I just got back from vacationing in Mexico. I love that place. It is a 15 hour drive from Provo but SO worth the drive. I spent 5 days relaxing, playing in the pool and the beach and soaking up the sun. What could be better? I just don't know. Well if you haven't already check out the photos on fb do, and you can see it all. I am new to this blogging thing so I haven't even tried to figure out how to put pics on here. Anywho, Mexico was fantastic and I did NOT want it to be over. I didn't want to have to come back. Can't a girl just stay in paradise forever?...
Life as of now isn't too exciting. School is well... school. I have never liked it. I did really bad on my last biology test, which is a bummer. I really don't want to retake the class so I'm going to have to study more. Ugh. I felt like I studied just as much on the first test as I did on the second. I did really well on the first test so I felt like I would do ok. But no. All my other classes I though would be ok but I just don't enjoy them. The only class I remotely like is my Children's Lit class. But that class is very demanding. So all in all, school... not my thing but I'm going to keep doing it anyway.
Work. Oh work. I hate work. Well I like working but I don't like my job. Its boring, tedious, repetitious, unfulfilling and full of drama. If you know me at all you know that I don't do drama. And it's not even my drama at work. All my co workers come to me and complain about everyone else in the office. I don't care, just get over it. So I'm going to start looking for a new job. I've seen a few things but it would be a cut in pay so thats not going to happen. I'm barely making it as is.
Social life. Not so great. In my "old age" (haha) I've become a boring person. I hardly have fun anymore and when I try to have fun I just become an awkward person. I feel like all of my social skills have gone out the window. Well I don't know if I had any to begin with. haha. I have a lot of friends up here but not a lot of close friends. Its been a struggle for me to make new friends so I just hang out with people from Cedar and my roomates. Luckily I have awesome roomates or I'd probably be a hermit.
Well that's life as of late. Not too much to come home to after a fun vacation. Hopefully things will start to get better soon. 

17 Secrets

This past week we had a fun lesson in my Institute class. I'm taking Preparing for Celestial Marriage; Dating and Courtship. Thursday night we discussed what we think the opposite sex is looking for in a spouse. So anyway I just wanted to share this list of 17 secrets. It is about the male and female psychology. I thought it was interesting so here it is.

Male
1. Men seek out relationships that make them feel trusted and respected
2. Men love through sacrifice.
3. Good men are largely logical about their relationships and commitment. Thus they do not commit easily to things they have not invested in over a period of time.
4. Men ad driven to succeed, face challenges, compete and conquer.
5. Men like women who like themselves
6. Men love to be heroes.
7. Men like being appreciated.
8. Men like femininity.
9. Men like women who have opinions and assert their needs.
10. Good men pursue women who are approachable and appear to be available.
11. Good men want sex with a woman who feels good about having sex with them and will wait until marriage.
12. Men need to be needed
13. Men are repelled by criticism, nagging and whining.
14. A man experiences anxiety in every conversation a woman initiates until she tells him what she wants him to do.
15. Men bond through doing activities and talking about things more than they do through talking about people, problems, feelings, or ideas.
16. Good men adore women who give them love attention and affection.
17. Good men are often willing to talk openly and honestly when they fell it will help them or another person to do so.

Female
1. Women thrive when they feel safe and secure.
2. Women love through sacrifice. However, women often love and sacrifice in ways that are not good for the male psychology. Thus, a woman needs a man to communicate about his needs. Not only will a woman love him for communicating respectfully with her, but the more she sacrifices to meet his needs, the more deeply her love will grow.
3. Women read into  men's behaviors, get excited, assume commitment, and then get hurt when he pulls away due to the added pressure.
4. Women are critical of their bodies and fear competition from other women,
5. Women are attracted to strength and confidence.
6. women are turned off by men who are too nice.
7. Women often fall in love with friends.
8. Women like to be pursued and to feel wanted.
9. Women enjoy touch, kissing, and affection but feel vulnerable and prone to shame after sexual contact.
10. Women want men who hold off sexually - it makes a woman feel respected and wanted rather than feeling like an object.
11. Women want immediate relationships but trust and value slow progressing relationships.
12. Women long to feel adored.
13. Women are repelled by moping, brooding, and the silent treatment.
14. Women worry. They need to know they are not alone in dealing with the problems of the relationship.
15. Women who don't trust and respect their men, fall out of love, especially if there is no communication.
16. Women like gifts, surprises, reasonable spontaneity, and excitement. The extra effort makes them feel special.
17. Women would rather have open and honest communication about misdeeds than to be protected from the truth.

Well there you have it.

Flirting Tips

I am a terrible blogger. Its just that I have been so busy. By the time I actually have time to think about blogging, I just want to sleep or catch up on one of my many favorite shows.

So this school thing is exactly what I thought it would be. Lots and lots of homework. All last week I feel like that is all I did. And it doesn't help that I'm the worst, or should I say the best procrastinator. I always wait until the last possible second to do things. I could be a better student by not putting off my reading my text books but I'd rather not spend all my waking time reading about biology and ethics, you know my favorite subjects.
I have been enjoying reading for my children's lit class. Who wouldn't want to read books like The Hatchet, The Giver, Harry Potter, Holes. Yeah it takes a lot of my time but its fun and entertaining. I also started my voice lessons. I was a lengthy process to get it all worked out but It finally happened. So my first day my teacher loved me. Haha. Not that I have the best voice but she loved that I was experienced somewhat. I love to sight read so all of the music she had me sing through was way easy. All that is required for this class is to memorize 3 songs. Yep that's it. I'm doing a french piece that is not like anything I've ever sung before. I also am hopefully going to sing Gravity by Sara Bareilles. I am absolutely OBSESSED with this song. I have been listening to it since saturday non-stop. I even bought the sheet music on line. Its pretty hard to play and sing at the same time but with practice it'll come.

Thursday I met with my bishop to say hi I'm in your ward. He asked me a few questions about where I was from and if I'm working or going to school then he asked me if I was dating anyone. I said no and then he goes off on a tangent of how to flirt. HAHA. I was trying so hard not to laugh out loud when he  was giving his monologue. He was telling me that a persons favorite subject is themselves and if things are going well to lightly touch their arm. My bishop is like the classic singles ward Bishop. All he ever talks about is dating and marriage. Haha. He looks like Steve Martin and talks like a radio announcer. Pretty funny but you've got to love the guy.

Last night was our ward talent show featuring my roommate Nellie and I on guitar singing White Horse by Taylor Swift. My ward, the 217th ward, is very talented. Almost like 2/3rd of the talents were guitar/singing. Every sunday when we sing hymns in sacrament meeting, it is sooo loud. I can't even hear myself. And we always have 2 musical numbers in each sacrament. Love it.

Once again I am a member of Gold's Gym.  It's only 10 bucks a month with no contract. And its a way nice gym.  There is a Cardio Cinema where its a big theater with the lights off and treadmills everywhere. Legit!

Well my battery on my laptop is about to die so that'll be it for this time.

Till next time :)

5 Things

It's been a while since I have blogged. I'll explain why later in this blog so you'll just have to wait for it.
I have been thinking about things I'd like to blog about, things I have an opinion about. Since my memory is not the greatest I started making a list of things to blog about in my phone, the only thing I know I'll always have on me.
(Not in any particular order)
1. Sweats and flip flops. When I think of these two things I can't help but smile. But on the other hand when I think of not being able to wear them I get a little bit upset. I don't like being told what to do. Today after I got home from class I changed into my comfortable sweats and a t-shirt. I had a full day ahead of studying and wanted to be content. While I was working on assignments I received an e-mail from my teacher that said I had to drop my current voice class and register for a different one. Being the 2nd week of school this required that I get an add card signed by my professor. I found that I needed to go to campus to obtain an add card before that office closed. So I just hurried and found some flip-flops and ran out the door to make it in time. As I was walking to the building from the parking lot I thought how grateful I was that I was at a school where I wouldn't get in trouble for wearing my sweats and flip flops.  Not to point any fingers at any of the fine institutions we have out there but I just don't like being told what to do, especially about things that I love; sweats and flip flops.
Also in my Children's literature class we were discussing books we read when we were in elementary school. I couldn't remember any of them. I do remember that in middle school we were required to read the Hobbit. I hated it. Not because of the content but because it was required. Later in high school I read it again an absolutely loved it! It was because it was my decision to read it and mine alone. I have somewhat adapted seeing that I know that usually required texts will spark a little interest.
2. Is she or is she not? My ethics professor is someone who I have been studying very carefully these past two weeks. First off she is an ethics teacher so she doesn't exactly come off as 'cool'. She is quite the quirky woman so she didn't give off the motherly vibe. When she introduced herself she said that she "escaped" from Utah when she was 19 and has traveled and is currently writing her thesis on Mormonism. You may now see why I have been studying her. I wanted to know if she was of the LDS faith or not. She didn't seem the typical mormon but you never know do you. I listened for her opions about religion since we are able to talk about it in class, I looked for signs like, drinking coffee or immodest clothing to give it away. Not to say that all Mormons are perfect but you usually can tell if someone is not in this culture. She is not unfortunately. It's not a proven fact but I am pretty sure she either isn't LDS or just isn't active. Now to find that out... Was she?
3. Working part time is fabulous. So I have come to the conclusion that working part time is like playing infield in softball/baseball.  When the ball is hit in your direction if you don't get it, the outfielder will. When I don't get something fully finished at work because I'm waiting for a call back or a e-mail to confirm a go ahead, I just tell my co-workers about it and when I leave at lunch I give them a piece of paper of what I still have to accomplish for the day and then it is their responsibility. I love it. Ha.. Not really a good thing but its something I am appreciating at this moment in time for this next reason.
4. No Time. I am a full time student and working part time. I don't think some professors think that their students have other things to do. My children's literature class is a prime example of this kind of thinking from a professor. Lets start out with reading. Of course we will be reading in a  children's literature class so I expect that. We have the assigned reading from the text book and oh lets say 8 novels that we have to read in the semester. I thoroughly enjoy reading novels but its such a time consuming task. Not only on top of the 8 novels we have to read we have to do a bajillon assignments to go along with each book. We have group assignments, papers, activities we have to plan, poetry to read, and on top of it we have tutoring hours we have to do as well. There are many things I have left out but if it has to do with children's literature, we will be doing it. And last week I said I liked school. How quickly it all can change.
5. The spirit. Oh I love the spirit. I have missed him dearly. Earlier tonight I was studying and my roommate invited me to come along to institute with her. Desperately needing a break I decided to go along. The institute class she is taking is Dating, Courtship and Eternal Marriage. I was terrified to go but I decided to be brave a just do it. We get to class and there are not many there. A few weird looking people and couples of course. I thought of course the usual institute group especially for this class. Well we were a few minutes early and when the hour came people just started rushing into the room. When it was about 5 min after the hour the classroom was so full people there weren't room enough for everyone. I was pleasantly surprised. As our teacher started the class I was a little weary as to what was going to be required of us to do in class or what she would even teach about. I also though she was trying a bit hard to be funny before class started. She stared off the class with a funny story about herself going to the eye doctor and how she couldn't even see the big E at the top of the reading chart. Well her story turned out to be very funny and I fell in love with her teaching right off the bat. Anyway she related the story to our perspective. There was nothing wrong with the chart but from her prospective all she could see was a blob. Heavenly Fathers prospective is so much larger than ours because he can see past present and future. If we can start to open our prospective we wont compare ourselves to others. So as in marriage we wont think EVERYONE else is getting married. Not everyone is. But our perspective is so focused on the present that that is all we see. So our teacher told us a story of how she had tumor that inabled her to have children. She is not married. Just like most of us it was one of her greatest desires to have children. She was 37 at the time that this happened and now she is 46. She said the only reason she made it through this time in her life is that she changed her perspective to be more like God's perspective. She knew that if God knew it was best for her to have children she wouldn't have had the complication in the surgery. He could have even made so that she never had the tumor. She knew that her Heavenly Father loved her more than she loved herself, that he wanted her to have children more than she wanted to have children, that he wanted her to have her greatest desires more than she wanted her greatest desires. All the things we go through are for a reason. Our Heavenly Father knows us and he knows what will make us into who we have the potential to be. We might want to plan when we want to be Married but the Lord knows whats best. We watched a video of Elder Oaks who talked about how his plans were not what ended up happening as good as his plans were. He and his wife planned to serve a mission together after he retired. Well Elder Oaks was called to the quorum of the 12. Sometime later his wife passed away and he remarried. He knew that this was the lord plan because he had done what was asked of him. Elder Oaks put it this way. If I put the Lord first in my life and keep his commandments everything will be ok. Faith and trust in the Lord gives us strength to accept and persevere through whatever comes our way. The woman he married had been single all of her life until she married Elder oaks in her 50's. She had filled her life with service and had done the best she could and the lord blessed her with a husband. An apostle :) Our teacher said theses are all extreme cases but we can learn from them. If we do what the Lord asks of us and trust in him, he has promised us an eternal marriage.
Just a side note. All of my friends including me, excluding the ones already married, all want to get married, to be loved and cared about and to have a family of our own. This has always been one of my biggest worries in life. That I won't ever get married. It seems to be a worry for a lot of us. I was so grateful for this lesson because I was feeling it again. I was worried it was never going to happen for me. When I first moved up to Provo I was excited. A new start, new friends, new boys... But none of that has happened yet. I know it has only been 2 weeks but I was expecting a little more. I am still my same shy self, who is not the best at making new friends. We'll heavenly father knows me so well that he inspired my roommate to invite me to this wonderful lesson to give me comfort about this whole marriage stuff. I felt the spirit testify to me through this whole hour and a half. I was crying, I was laughing and I was so grateful. Sister Oaks said, Come what may and keep going, fill your life with service, if your busy doing good things you don't have time to sin. My teacher said that every relationship has to fail until it its right. I hope my eventually is coming soon, even though I might have to fail a few more times it will be worth it.

Well that is my 5 things for this week. WOW that was long. Sorry.