"If I lay here, if I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world?"

For those of you who talked to me last night, you know the exact thoughts that were travelling through my mind. You saw me staring blankly, absolutely shocked, when Obama was announced the next President of the United States. You know that I screamed to my roommates that we lost. You know that I texted my close friends, expressing my frustration in America. I was so upset. I was so mad I could spit and so sad I could cry. Obama winning literally made me feel physically ill. I seriously thought I was going to throw up. These last few days have been absolutely miserable to tell the truth. This election was the cherry on top of these terrible last few days.

My apartment, last night, was so depressing. We were all extremely upset about the election's results. All we were good for last night was bringing each other down farther. It was aweful. Finally, Benjamin came by to cheer me up. He stayed and talked to us for awhile, when I just couldn't handle being in the apartment any longer. I jumped up and told them I was going on a walk. They told me I was crazy. It was snowing outside and absolutely freezing, but I didn't care. I bundled up, and just as I started to open the front door and step out into the chill air, Benjamin hopped off the couch and announced he was coming with me. I really wanted to be by myself, but I decided having him for company wouldn't be bad.

So we set out. All I really wanted to do was get rid of the pit that had been resting in my stomach since Sunday night and had only increased since then. We caught snowflakes with our tongues, swing danced in the snow, told stories, made snow angels, made footprints in the snow, had a snowball fight, and tried to use body heat to warm up after. I wasn't even that cold, but I could literally feel his body shaking and twitching, trying desperately to heat back up. We had a long talk, and by the time I returned home, he had managed to make me feel a thousand times better.

I have really missed Paulo and Garret, just being able to talk to them about anything. Those two have always been there for me, no matter what time of day or night. I feel like Benjamin and I are getting to that friendship and that makes me happier than anything else right now. I desperately need to have that friendship with someone again....

Ben and I talked about Obama a little bit last night before our walk. We talked about how I don't hate him. He seems like a nice enough guy. I just don't like the majority of the issues he stands for. I don't think he's quite good enough to run our country. Benjamin made me laugh when he said that Obama's winning meant the second coming was only that much closer ;)

I hope Blake doesn't mind. I just finished reading his blog before I started writing this one, and I decided I would quote him. I feel almost the same as him, and I like the viewpoint he has on this situation:

"I'm sure most of you have heard that Barack Obama is our next president, as of last night. Now, for those of you who spoke with me about politics knew that I wanted this to happen, even though I couldn't bring myself to vote for him (or anyone for that matter). I'm disgusted with politics, and the apathy of America in general. I didn't like all of either of their "plans" and each had their own list of "why they don't deserve to be President." But, when it all boils down to it, I see inspiration in Obama that McCain could never invoke. Obama makes people want to become different, to become better than themselves and show that America really can be one of the greatest countries in the world. He invokes hope.... I'm just asking you to keep an open mind, and be positive, cheerful and optimistic about the future. It's not going to be that bad." -Blake, http://blakev1.spaces.live.com/default.aspx

I am going to really really try. I can see how Obama is inspiring. I am going to really try and keep this mindset throughout the next 4 years as he guides our beloved country. And Blake's right - It's not going to be that bad.

<3 Me

"i don't want to miss a single autumn evening..."

I thought I would do a little bit of recapping from my weekend, and then go on to explain what the next few days hold in store, as well as what I am thinking right now. I have done a lot of thinking these last few days(as I usually do..) but right now I feel like I should get it all off my chest. Here goes: brace yourself!

On Thursday I left for Utah. I was so excited, I couldn't even stand it!! I raced around my apartment frantically before my last class, packing for the upcoming weekend. I headed off to class with my backpack (completely stuffed) and a mini duffel bag. I felt a little ridiculous as I walked across campus with all my stuff, but it was so worth it! The very thought of being back in Orem was enough to make me scream with excitement. When I arrived in Utah, Jessica, Tyler, Diego, and Rachel came over for Pancake Night!! Grandma thought that the invention of chocolate chip pancakes topped with mint ice cream was incredible, just like when I tried them for the first time. It was so much fun!

Halloween on Friday was amazing. I woke up at 12:00!!!!! Haha that's probably enough to tell you just how great that day was. Jessica and I set up the decorations downstairs for Grandma's Halloween party. The Halloween party she threw was a blast. She had all these fun little games planned. Afterwards, Jessica (my cousin who I love so much!), Talia, Kristilyn, Andrea (all 3 of my roomies!!), Tyler & Tim (boys from my old single's ward), Diego, Sean, Travis, Gabby, Mike & Zach (2 of my fhe brothers + one of Mike's friends), and I all went to the Haunted Forest in American Fork!!! It was amazing! I loved it!

On Saturday Grandma took me shopping for my birthday. She bought me lots of cute clothes and a super cute hat (She bought Tal a hat, too!!). Talia and I went to the Creamery where we met up with one of my best friends from Rio this summer (Stephanie), and some of Kristilyn's friends, and Kristilyn's brother David. (I wish BYU-I had a creamery!!!! We are going to start a petition to get one *wink*) Grandma took me and Stephanie to "Nights in Rodanthe" and then we went to a graveyard with a bunch of friends and watched a movie.

Sunday was perfectly relaxing. We went to church at my old single's ward, then came home and took a nap while watching "Beauty and the Beast". The weekend seriously flew by! I was so sad when it came time to leave for Rexburg.

Today was a sad day. I'm not really sure why. I just woke up and felt so grumpy and depressed; all I wanted to do was crawl back under the covers and sleep some more. I went to my english class and started writing an essay that really depressed me. It brought back all these feelings and that for years I have tried to suppress. I guess I still feel like it was all my fault-I am the one to blame for the event I am writing about. It breaks my heart each and every time it is brought up. I almost started crying in class, but managed to hold it until I reached my apartment where the tears flooded. I came home from child development and felt so tired. I wanted to take a nap so badly, but I knew it wasn't going to happen. I discovered after my roomies came home from cross country that Talia was in a lot of pain. I saw her eyes filling with tears. When I asked her what was wrong, she wouldn't tell me. Finally, she explained how her back and neck had been hurting all day and she didn't want to tell me. Whiplash. (Yesterday, after church, we were driving home from church. We reached a roundabout. Jessica tried to brake, but the car wouldn't stop. It wasn't that bad of a crash. We only jolted their car from rear-ending them, however, Talia isn't doing so good today. She is suffering the effects that come after a wreck and it broke my heart to see her so sad. It then absolutely broke my heart later talking to Jessica on the phone. I don't think it was her fault, not really. The weather conditions caused the accident. Without hydroplaning, there is no way we would have ran into the other car. Anyway, Andrea didn't feel that great tonight either. It seems our whole apartment was just down in the dumps today. Hopefully it will cheer up tomorrow...

On a happier note, tonight I asked Colin to the Preferance Dance on Saturday. My roommates and I made up a song to ask him:

(To the tune of "Jingle Bells")
"Colin Stong, Colin Stong
Colin all the way - Roomies singing

Will you go to Preferance
With me on Saturday? - Me singing

HEY!! :)"

Anyway, he said yes and I am really excited :D

Election Day is tomorrow!!!! I am really nervous/excited to see who the new President of the United States will be......VOTE YES ON PROP 8!!!!!!!!!

I think I will quickly go over my goals from last month and make some new ones....

OCTOBER GOALS:
1. Keep up on homework and reading assignments-
PASS!! Hasn’t even been a problem ;)

2. Morning & Nightly Prayer & Daily Personal Scripture Study-
FAIL. While I say my nightly prayers daily, I always forget morning prayers. I also tend to think of “roomie scriptures/prayer” as a cover for the days I don’t do my own personal study. That needs to change.

3. Get back into a good sleeping schedule-
Fail. I still go to bed around 3 am. This month I am going to aim for a 2:00 am max. We’ll see how it goes…

4. EAT HEALTHY-ER!
Fail. As I started out eating healthier, it is so hard to when Ben keeps making us yummy desserts and we always have ice cream in the freezer. This goal is still on.

5. Go running every Monday, Wednesday, Friday morning-
Complete FAIL. I am so embarrassed to admit that most of these goals were unsuccessful…..

6. Make more friends & remember their names-
SUCCESS!! I am getting much better at meeting people and remembering their names.

7. Make the Fall Formal the hit dance of the semester!!
SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Enough said 

8. Keep up with writing missionary letters-
Successful. I have a routine down! I just need to get some more postage stamps…..

NOVEMBER GOALS:

1. Morning Prayer & Daily "Personal" Scripture Study
2. Be in bed lights out no later than 2 am. HAHA how sad...
3. Eat Healthier/Exercise: I think I'm going to get one of those funny exercise tapes.....hehe
4. Keep up on cleaning my bedroom and the kitchen
5. Spend an hour a week taking pictures/Playing with them on photoshop to add to my porfolio
6. Decide on a major: ElEd, 2+2, Child Development....

I will report back on these at the beginning of December.

I love you all. I hope you are well. I hope you are happy. May your lives be filled with laughter, smiles, and singing. Have an amazing day <3

-Me

life is a highway...i want to ride it all night long!

So updating is needed!!

Friday was Fall Formal! My roommates and I went as a group with our fhe family. It was a blast! The girls all wore poodle skirts that Talia's mom made and sent to us. The boys were dressed like they came straight out of Grease. Moral of the story: We were looking hot ;) I spent that night right before the dance getting it all set up, and making sure that everything was going as planned. The whole week had been crazy with advertisements and planning, decorating and shopping for refreshments. I got so many phone calls from people wondering where they could buy tickets at, etc. It was a little stressful, but overall a great experience that I would take on again in a heartbeat. After the dance was in motion, I went back to my apartment to rest for a little bit. The boys were already over, and we sat around taking pictures for a good hour before heading to the dance. The dance was AMAZING! I absolutely loved it! The live jazz band was incredible - the swing dancing made the dance just perfect. I am a terrible dancer too, but it was so much fun to just let myself out of my shell and dance and have fun! Benjamin was an amazing swing dancer. I was so stunned by how well he could dance. Zach was just crazy. He is funny. We would try to do these funny moves and it was a lot of fun. My favorite though was dancing with Colin. He and I kept trying new swing dance techniques, usually resulting in minor injuries. There was this one time he whacked me right in the face - completely on accident - but it was hilarious! We laughed so hard. About every minute we would have to stop dancing and have a good laugh at ourselves. I'm sure we looked totally ridiculous but I don't care. It was a perfect night.



Saturday was pretty busy. Kristilyn's brother came into town Friday just before the dance, so we spent all of the weekend with him. We went to watch my roomies and Colin run in their cross-country meet. It was so much fun! I really wish I would have done XC with them, but next year I will for sure. They all did great in the race. I'm so proud :)





We came back just in time to get all our laundry done and go to the ward talent show. Our ward has some of the funniest, most outgoing people. I LOVE IT! haha.



Sunday we went to church, came home, napped, and had a picnic! We went to the gardens with Talia's laundry basket full of food: pizza, pasta, marshmallow popcorn, koolade, cookies, broccoli... It was delicious! Talia and I did the stadium singing that night with Jason and Zach :)

Today, Mark woke me up at 6:30 to tell me happy birthday! My mom had Josh and Samantha call me before the left for school at 7:45 to tell me happy birthday. The rest of the day I continued to get phone calls, texts, emails, etc. from people telling me happy birthday. The neat thing was that a lot of them I haven't talked to since high school, but they remembered my birthday :)

Andrea would not let me in the kitchen today. She made me my breakfast and lunch. Then, she, Kristilyn, and Talia all chipped in for stuffed crust pizza tonight. YUMM! I wasn't allowed to do any cleaning whatsoever.

I went down the hall after waking up this morning and found that Kristilyn had left me all these signs wishing me a happy birthday. I picked up my package from my family, and when I came home, I saw that Talia had made a banner over my bed.

My family sent me lots of clothes, scarves, gloves, chocolate, cute cards, etc. They are amazing <3

Zach brought me a cupcake tonight. haha cute :)

For fhe, my family surprised me with a party. We were supposed to go make 72 hour kits tonight, but all along they had been planning on throwing me a party. I was so happy :) We had our cake, rolled down a BIG grassy hill (YAY!), and played the traditional Keele birthday games (candy bar game & squirt gun game). All in all, today was great!

Only 2 more days until I get to go back to Orem and see my grandma and Jessica!!!!! I am SO excited! I love you all! Have a fantastic day!

the answer to my prayers...

For the last few weeks, I have been pleading, begging to God for help. There is an area in my life that I feel is missing. I prayed every night for the last few weeks for guidance and instruction. I'm not really sure what I was looking for, maybe a light up arrow sign that fell from the sky and implied a way I should go. Maybe even a "DO NOT ENTER" or "YIELD" would be very appreciated. Well, of course none of that happened. The Father speaks through a still, small voice. I was reminded this week that rather than praying and quickly slipping into a deep sleep, I should kneel a little longer to ponder and listen for the Holy Ghost's promptings. Well, this is just now kicking in. In addition, my roommates and I read Proverbs 3 tonight for our nightly roomie scripture study/prayer. Two verses REALLY stuck out to me:

5- Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
6- In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

I know that I need to trust in the Lord. I have always felt like I do trust Him, but it hit me tonight. All of a sudden, I realized that I need to put all of my faith in Him. 100%. Not 80%. Not even 99.9999%. 100% needs to be dedicated to Christ. Why this took me so long to realize, I have no idea. But then I realized, that maybe my prayer had already been answered and I missed it, or, my Heavenly Father has something different planned for me than I have planned for myself. Maybe I need to ponder longer after I pray to be more apt to hearing the Spirit. OR MAYBE He hasn't answered yet! Why did I think that this answer would come so quickly?

Anyway, moral of the story is that I need to have absolute faith in my Savior. He is the way, the truth, the life, and the light! He is my Shepard.

Goals:
-Ponder for a few minutes after praying. Listen for an answer.
-Read my patriarchal blessing every week.

Have a fantastic day everyone! I love you! Have faith in Christ <3

gonna rock around the clock tonight...

Tonight is my big Fall Formal Dance: Dancing Through the Decades!! I am seriously freaking out right now..... Tickets need to keep selling and my costume still needs to get here!! I will be so happy tonight when everyone is there - dancing at the event I planned :)

Tomorrow is going to be my relax, lay-around-the-house, stress-free day!

Gravity

I'm not really sure why, but Gravity is another song that has a connotation for me. I don't even remember the story or anything behind it. It always makes me think of late nights driving in Orem. Maybe it was after just a long exhausting day of work or just "issues" with the boys in my life. I can remember always crying to this song though. It's like every time I sing it, I sing it with every bit of strength left in my whole body. By the end of the last verse, I am worn out with red eyes, blotchy cheeks, and tears running down my face.

I had a really good day today too. Why I feel like listening to that song on repeat right now, I don't even know. A good cry just feels nice....

Song lyrics Gravity lyrics

Today I reconnected with a friend I haven’t seen or talked to in almost a year and a half. I learned some new things (not good) about a boy I dated my junior year of high school. I had one of those “relationship talks”. I also conquered my fear of talking to a boy in one of my classes who I think is so cute, but have always been way too scared to talk to. I went to the Disney College Program presentation today and have an interview set up for tomorrow. Today was a good day :]

I am currently sitting on my couch, hiccupping uncontrollably and reflecting back on the day. What made today so great? You know, I’m not sure. I just know that I feel like I found missing pieces to a puzzle today. I am slowly trying to make sense of my past and how it is affecting my future.

I have been thinking a lot today about memories. How is it that when you listen to a certain song, memories will flood back into your mind? Here are some that come to mind immediately:
1. “Science of Selling Yourself Short”
o This song ALWAYS reminds me of a boy named Zane Dees. It doesn’t matter where I am or what I am doing when I hear this song, I ALWAYS think of him. I think of all those nights we would stay up for hours talking on the phone. I would sneak into the basement and talk to him, so my parents wouldn’t know I was still awake. He was one of the sweetest boys I’ve ever known. This song makes me remember Halloween that year. He told Carissa he thought I was really cute. The whole night I kept trying to get Derek’s attention, and he kept trying to get mine….
2. “Hey Santa!”
o My mom and I LOVE singing Christmas songs. “Hey Santa!” was our favorite by far; we sang it all day long every day. Each time I hear it, I think of putting up our Christmas tree with the family – the boys were always asking us to turn it off and mom and I would just sing right over the top of them. It makes me think of doing the dishes with her in the kitchen, watching the snow fall…
3. “Bubbly”
o PAULO!! I will never forget the day that Paulo and I were driving in his car singing this song. It was before he and Jamie started dating. He was frustrated with her because he loved her sooo much, and he couldn’t make her see it. He told me that if she ever sang this song to him, he would be the happiest man in the world. Sure enough, only a few months later when they finally became a couple, this became their song. CUTE!
4. “Sugar, We’re Going Down”
o Garret was trying to impress me by singing to me. This was the first song he turned on, and we sang it again and again on our way to the movies. It was like our theme song…
5. “Big Girls Don’t Cry”
o I always sang this song after Carter and I broke up. I would often burst into tears midway. Haha. Ironic.
6. “Hold My Hand”
o Homecoming with Gunnar! He played me this song, and I’m not sure why, but its just always stuck. I hear this song, I think of him.
7. Jack’s Mannequin/Skillet/The Starting Line
o These ALL make me think immediately of Blake. He introduced me to so many of my favorite artists. I would often sing these songs on the days we didn’t talk, when I felt like I really needed to talk to him. Blake and I used to be so close – we would talk just about every day. I miss that…
8. “Time of Your Life”
o Jessica tried to teach me this song on the guitar because it is one of my favorites. She played it for me a lot over the last 2 summers. She has such a pretty voice and is so good at playing the chords, I actually think her version is way better.
9. “Milk & Cereal”
o Devyn is just kind of a crazy cool kid that I love being with. This is our song J
10. Nickelback & Hinder
o These all belong to Lance. It is impossible to listen to either group without thinking of Lance…
11. Disney Duets
o Mark and I would always sing these together at home. I miss that…
12. “Curse of Curves”
o Summer 2007 in Utah with Jamie, Jessica, Jordan, David, Trevor, Paulo, Garrett. Life in “the sac”.