thankful this time of year

Somedays we forget
To look around us
Somedays we can't see
The joy that surrounds us
So caught up inside ourselves
We take when we should give.

So for tonight we pray for
What we know can be.
And on this day we hope for
What we still can't see.
It's up to us to be the change
And even though we all can still do more
There's so much to be thankful for.

Look beyond ourselves
There's so much sorrow
It's way too late to say
I'll cry tomorrow
Each of us must find our truth
It's so long overdue

So for tonight we pray for
What we know can be
And every day we hope for
What we still can't see
It's up to us to be the change
And even though we all can still do more
There's so much to be thankful for.

Even with our differences
There is a place we're all connected
Each of us can find each other's light

So for tonight we pray for
What we know can be
And on this day we hope for
What we still can't see
It's up to us to be the change
And even though this world needs so much more

There's so much to be thankful for

this time of year it seems that most people try to go out of their way to be nice and to greet other people.

i know that what i have wanted to do i haven't always got.

but i do know that i am on my way to bigger and better things.

i am about to graduate from college in 9 months with a degree in family life.

to some that might sound like a fluffy major.

it's not. it is amazing and it will help me in my life once i become a wife and a mother.

i don't know if i will go to nursing school, i don't know if i will go to Duke but there are some things i do know and for those things i am very thankful.

i am thankful for:

the knowledge that i have of the gospel

the opportunity that i have to be at byu

the roommates that i have

my parents and siblings

temples and the ordinances that are performed there

the chance that i will have to be a wife and a mother

my residence in the USA

trying to figure out what the future holds for me

So Friday, Oct. 30 I heard back from the nursing office. It wasn't a good response. I think I've come to accept that decision. Only because I can kinda see a graduation date in sight. Yes, that's right. I'll be graduating from Brigham Young University in August 2010 hopefully. So technically it's only one semester from my 4 years after high school date. I thought that was pretty good seeing as the major that I'll be graduating in hasn't been offically declared.

Let's go back to Friday.

I woke up after sleeping in. Decided to head to the temple to do baptisms to get my mind off things, spent 2 hours there. Came back and destressed my body with a workout. Took a shower and passed the remaining 2.5 hours with catching up on my weekly t.v. shows. Then 5 pm comes around and I decide to check my email. (At this time no one was home with me.) I open it up and automatically go to the 2nd paragraph where it states "congratulations" or "we're sorry to inform you". Well mine said "we're sorry to inform you". I shout out "YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!!" I didn't know what else to say at the time. So I sent out text messages to my family who I thought would care and sat there. I was fine until it hit me and I started bawling. Then my mom calls and it gets worse. She reminded me that I said that I wouldn't cry. I think I went through all stages of grieve in that one conversation. While talking to my mom, Charlie comes home and sees me crying and comes and sits next to me on the couch. I get off the phone and explain everything for Char and we have a little heart-to-heart chat. I am very thankful for a roommate like her. She made my day better!! She suggested we go to dinner and we go to Olive Garden. We get back from dinner and she goes to study and I start letting things replay in my head and the water works start again. I made myself so sick and my eyes hurt so bad so I just laid down on my bed and actually feel asleep. I slept until Sam got home and told her. And we had table time. Then it was back to bed for me.

Saturday was Stake Conference and I tried so hard to listen for promptings that would help me in this very stressful time. Sunday the same thing. I didn't get any life changing revelations so I was back to my usual prayer and scripture study.

The tears still come and go. But they are not as bad as they were on Friday.

I go to the advisement center on Monday to change my major from pre-nursing to school of family life. Well they tell me that I have to do a petition because I'm a senior and they don't like seniors changing majors. I try to tell them that it's not a real major and they still make me do all the paper work for it. So I do it. And then the guy at the desk tells me that my petition has to go get reviewed by the advisors, the director of the program and the dean of the school and that I should know whether or not my petition has gotten approved next Tuesday.

So if it is approved then I will have 2 semesters left after Christmas. Winter 2010 and Spring 2010 with a graduation date of August 13, 14, 2010. It seems so crazy that it isn't that far away. I don't feel like I should be graduating yet.

Then hopefully it's back to school in the fall for an accelerated nursing program. But if that doesn't work out then I'm still thinking of serving a mission for the church.

I have a lot of things about my future that is unsure and I don't like that. It's faith that I need- in order to step out into the darkness a footstep or two and it is then that the path will be lit again.

I've left out a lot of things about this whole experience but the gist is there. Now I'm trying to figure out what the future holds for me.

Maybe I'll just start traveling the world in August or maybe I'll meet my future husband my last semester here and get married 3 months later... :)... not!

I'll never know until it happens and then I'll look back on my life in several years and wonder why I ever worried as much as I do.

Boston in the Fall

Very long post about our trip to Boston... just fyi.

So last Thursday Jennifer and I flew into Boston via the JFK airport. This was my first time in the great state of Massachusetts. We flew out at 11:55pm on Thursday and got into Boston around 10:30am on Friday. It was an insanely long flight on very few hours of sleep. We got into Boston and we decided to drive around a little bit and see the wonderful sights of the Fall. We were both exhausted so we headed back to the hotel and decided to take a little cat nap. This cat nap of ours ended up being a little longer than we intended. Once we got back up we went out driving around again and decided to eat at T.G.I.Fridays. Yes, we ate at a chain restaurant when we were practically in the seafood capitol of the world. The food was still tasty though. Then we again head back to the hotel.

So on Saturday we got up early to have breakfast at the hotel. Then we headed to the Cranberry Harvest. We met some very nice BYU fans while walking to the buses. I was wearing a BYU shirt and they stopped us to talk. (BYU football won Saturday's game- 59-21... just random side note.) We rode a short bus, yes- a short bus, to the bogs! It was so fun to see the bogs. Jennifer was so excited during the entire time. We watched them take cranberry's out of the bog and into a very large semi-truck. We also saw a puppy running through the water filled cranberry bogs. We thought it was very funny. Then we went through and got all the tasty treats that were for sell. We purchased the MOST AMAZING seafood chowder. It seriously had entire lobster claws of meat chunks in it. Along with lobster meat- it had shrimp and scallops. It was SO good. We also got some caramel puffcorn and root beer flavored popcorn. We also got a tie for our dad for Christmas- it has state maps all over it seeing as he loves to travel. It was a very fun start to the day. After that we drove all around Massachusetts. We drove down to the southern end of the state to see if we could see Martha's Vineyard without having to get on to the $70 per person ferry. We saw a little bit of it but I would have liked to see it. We weren't able to see Nantucket. Then we drove out to Cape Cod. It was so pretty and FREEZING!! We decided that if we were on Cape Cod we should have a seafood dinner then. Jennifer got a surf and turf dinner and I got a lobster shore dinner. It was served with drawn butter, clams and a baked potato. Lets just say I had tons of fun with the lobster bib and playing with the lobster itself. Jennifer took lots of pictures of me. I ended up driving part of the way back to the hotel because Jennifer was exhausted. (Yes, I drove the rental car... shhh, don't tell anyone.)

Sunday, we didn't end up going to church but drove around and headed south. We drove around Boston and found Trader Joe's and looked for the one thing that I love from that place- Dark chocolate covered Cashews. They didn't have them. I was so disappointed. We also saw crew people in the river that was by Harvard. I had the biggest smile on my face. Then we headed south on 95 to head to Rhode Island. It was small and it didn't take long for us to drive through it. Then we got to Connecticut and headed to New Haven. We weren't able to see the campus of Yale but it seemed like it was a very nice place. Very pretty. We visited with an old co-worker of Jennifer's and had dinner with her and her roommate. I played with their very cute dog- Tinkerbell. We started to head back to Boston and we drove through Hartford, CT and Springfield, MA. Once again I got to help drive us back. It was so fun.

Monday was our flying back day. We had to be up around 4:30am. Our flight was supposed to be a non-stop flight back to Salt Lake. We got on the flight and I didn't really feel good. I almost immediately fell asleep on the flight and I got woken up by my sister telling a flight attendant that she was a nurse and that she could help. At this time I was kinda freaking out. I had no clue what was going on. Jennifer finally comes back and she explains to me that we were going to be making an emergency landing and that we were about 2 hours out. She told me that they thought that a man in the back of the plane had had a heart attack. So we finally got down on the ground and we are trying to figure our where we were landing. So the EMT's and the police officers came on the plane and I was trying to read their patches to see what city we were in. Finally we figured it out that we were only in Buffalo. That's it. Just Buffalo. 2 hours into the flight and we were in Buffalo. And then we were on the ground for another 2 hours waiting for the EMT's to do their jobs and then the mechanic had to come check out the plane, the emergency equipment had to be replaced. We finally took off again and we had another 4 hour flight to Salt Lake. Let's just say if my stomach hurt before it was 100 times worse at this point. My stomach was cramping. But needless to say we made it back to Salt Lake only about 3 hours later than what we were supposed to do. I missed both my classes on Monday but I was so happy to be back in Provo to see my roommates who had an awesome weekend without me.

Oh and our rental car was a very hot, very bright yellow Eclipse. It was HOT!!

Surprises!!

So on Sunday as my roommates and I walked out of our door to head to ward prayer I looked down and I saw a package of candy corn by our door. We were so confused. So we decided to put them out that night at Linger Longer that we co-hosted for our ward. We were pretty sure it was from someone from the activities committee as a thank you for doing what we were supposed to do that night at ward prayer. So we asked Cait and she said it wasn't done by her but she wished someone had done that for her. So after that we were more confused.

Today, Sam gets home today and there was a box of popcorn in front of our door.

So our curiosity grows even more. We want to know who is putting these wonderful little snacks in front of our door, for what reason and if it is for one person or for all of us.

So we are going to be looking more closely at our front door and see if we can figure out who this person is.

Do we have a secret admirer? And if so, who does the secret admirer like? Or is it just a nice person in the ward?

Conference

This past weekend was General Conference.

I feel so blessed to be out here because I have had the chance to go to the conference center at least once for every conference.

This past weekend I was able to go to the Saturday afternoon session, I always like going to that one in particular because that's when all the Brethern and officers of the church get sustained and I get to be apart of that and hear one of the counselors tell the Prophet that from what he can see in the Conference Center it is an affirmative. It's such a cool experience to be that close to the Prophet and the Apostles and to feel of their wonderful spirit.

I was able to go with my 2 roommates, Charlie and Sam and my sister. It was Sam's first time and I am so happy that she was finally able to go. I hope it was a special experience that she will remember for the rest of her life. I always find it funny that as soon as you walk out of the conference center there are tons of protesters. Sam got a kick out of one of them that was talking about sharing your husband with your mother. (A guy and about 10 girls were dressed up in pioneer clothes and had signs around their necks saying that he was Joseph Smith and the girls were wife #1- #23 or something like that.) She laughed out loud... it was pretty funny. If only people gave our religion a chance they would see how true it really is and how we believe in normal things just like everyone else.

I love conference because it seems like it rejuvenates me and makes me want to be better at everything.

My favorite talk given, by far, was Elder Jeffery R. Holland's talk. He is so powerful and he doesn't leave anything out and he tells you how it is and doesn't hold anything back. I always look forward to hearing him speak.

During conference I was still anticipating hearing Elder Wirthlin's name. And it saddened me when it was never spoken. How I miss that man. He always had such a sweet spirit about him and very inspirational stories.

A new Florida temple was announced!!! It is going to be in Ft. Lauderdale. It will be amazing to see Florida with 2 temples now! That was a very cool and surprising announcement. I am happy for those that this temple will serve.

I just love General Conference. Charlie tivo-ed it so we can watch it as much as we want now. And with that we will have to wait another 6 months before it comes around again.

Oh, and Charlie and Sam's brother Adison got his mission call on Friday!! I was able to be apart of the family 5-way phone call. It was amazing to hear him read his letter. He will be serving in the Cordoba Argentina Mission and will be reporting to the Provo MTC on January 27th. From what I know about him- he will be an excellent missionary and will serve those people in the best way he knows how!! So my congratulations goes out to him!!! Serve well and return with honor!!

20/20

Everyone always wants 20/20 vision.

However, I know that most if not all people don't have 20/20 vision about events in their lives until after the fact. When you can look back and say to yourself or others I know why that took place, what lessons were learned and why the outcome was what it was. I know that there are times in my life that I would like to know what is going to happen and when and have that 20/20 vision. I know however, that I will not have it. There are so many things that are up in the air right now in my life. There is a new school year, new tests to take, new professors to get used to, the possibility of boys or a boy, the possibility of new majors and new friends and roommates.

I know that 5 years from now I'll look back and ask myself why I was so concerned about the little stuff that doesn't matter. I keep telling myself that my life will be fabulous in the future and that I need to stop sweating the small stuff.

It's like that saying... I wish I had known then what I know now. I'm sure that's what I'll be saying in a couple of years. I want to know the future and how it turns out for me. But I can't know that now. It would ruin the opportunity for me to have my agency. I know it wouldn't change anything if I knew how things ended up but at times I feel like it would make decisions easier.

So the point in this blog is, that 20/20 vision I'm sure is a great thing. As nice as that might be at times I know that I truly don't want it. I like the fact that I have my agency to make my own choices and I know that I'm always being watched over. Nothing will go terribly wrong in my life as long as I do what I know is right.

Application part 3

Nursing Application has been turned in.

I can now check that off the list of things to do!!!!!

:D

random find of the day

I decided to look up my horoscope tonight even though I don't find anything that it says helpful in any way. And this is what my Chinese sign said about me.

Positives:

Amicable, unpretentious, reliable, persistent, resourceful, generous, honest.

Negatives:

Worrier, stubborn, introverted, nosy, anxious, pessimistic, cynical.

There are some on both that are dead on. While others are not so much me. Over all, I think they are both very good lists.

i'm new...

at this.

So it may take me some time to get this going. This will a look into my life that will include everything.

I chose the title "one step at a time" because I love to cook.

Happy Blogging!!!