Summer!

So lately I've been in a bit of a summery mood, which is weird because we just had a snow storm two days ago. haha Anyways, for some reason I've been thinking a lot about summer and I'm so excited for this summer because I get to spend it at home! For the past two years I have spent summer in Idaho, so I'm excited to go back to Prescott this year :)

This is why I love summer in Prescott.

Beautiful Sunsets

Swimming with Timmy :)

Eating food like this

And homemade birthday cakes from mom!

(21 this year! Crazy)

Ah, I can't wait! Also, something that's a little weird for me, because I normally hate swimsuits, I'm excited to wear a swim suit! haha But that would mean that I need to find a cute swim suit to wear! I've been seeing some on pinterest and I think that's what did it. Look at this one!

Ahhh...CoLoR. I love summer colors! These just make me so happy :)

Late Spring, Early Summer :)

Lastly, Monsoon Season! I can't wait! I LOVE Arizona monsoon season!

Well, there you go. SuMmEr. It's coming! :) But don't get too excited, Rexburg might snow a few more times before then.

Making Changes

Alright, I'm making a decision. I don't want to be the owner of a depressing blog anymore. So, from now on, this is a happy blog :) Starting.... NOW!

This girl is my inspiration :) I love Felish <3

This is life.

Do you ever feel trapped? Or weak? Or just plain tired? I do. This semester, school isn't bad. It really isn't. My schedule is pretty light and I've had an unbelievable amount of free time, but in ways, this semester has already been harder than others. I guess I'm in that time of my life when things are just hard. I mean there are hard times no matter where you are in life, but now is.... just different.

College is my life. It's everything right now, and all the things that come with it: dating, making money any way you can, roommates, school work, wondering if I'm gonna get that internship I so desperately need this summer, trying to stay healthy, and so on and so forth. It gets to be a lot. Donating plasma twice a week doesn't help either. It's draining. I love the fact that I am helping to save lives, and I'm getting money for it (back to that "any way you can" concept), but it really is draining. Physically and mentally. Sitting with a needle in my arm getting my blood pumped in and out of me for an hour and a half every week isn't my favorite thing to do in the whole world. Also, I haven't had the best experiences with it, so that makes it harder to go back. But I keep going. And after it's over for the day, it's worth it, but it gets tiring. My arm always aches, and my fingers are always bruised, but I know it's worth it. After all the plasma I have donated in the past year or so, I wonder where it all is right now. I wonder if MY plasma has saved a precious life. I wish there was some way to know. But, I have no idea. My hope is that I have saved many lives by doing this, and that's why I keep going (and it doesn't hurt that I get paid haha).

Anyway, I think I'm getting off track. The whole point of this blog post is that I feel.....tired. In a weird way. I get more than enough sleep every night and school work is light compared to past semesters. But there is something about this semester that's just hard. I've felt sad, heart broken, forgotten, alone, nervous and angry. But I've also been extremely happy and content and ready to face a new adventure. But facing new adventures is hard for me. Especially when I have to break out of my shell and be something I'm not naturally. That too is draining. It's hard to be something you're not. I AM a happy person and I like being social, but putting myself out there and meeting new people everyday and trying to give them the impression that I'm a really outgoing person and am always happy, is not me. But I see all these couples everywhere and I wonder, how am I going to be one of those couples if I don't put myself out there? I mean, he's not just gonna come to me while I sit in my apartment watching chick flicks and eating ice cream, just wishing I was in love. I guess I'm just sick of actually putting myself out there and getting nothing out of it. So far it's been, not a complete failure, but close (haha), but one day, it won't be a failure! I just wonder when that "one day" will be here.

Last semester, I got used to having someone there, and being one of those couples, but when it ended, I thought it would be easier than it's actually been. I'm not someone who has done a whole lot of dating. I'm pretty used to being single. But the past month, I've had a hard time with it. I liked not being single for a while, and although the relationship wasn't going to work out, and I knew that, it didn't mean that I wanted to be single again (haha funny how that works), and for some reason, it's been hard. Well, harder than I thought it would be. So, I've found ways to get my mind off of it, like running and biking 4 hours every week and pushing myself to make and keep these goals. Not only does exercising get my mind off of this stuff, but it makes me feel better about myself. Ya... I feel sad sometimes. I'm going through some trials, but who isn't? Everyone is fighting a hard battle. I feel tired and sometimes I just want to give up and throw in the towel, but where is that gonna get me? It's never really over, no matter how badly you want to give up. So, it's up to me how I wanna do this thing.

People, Places and Airplanes

I think it's fascinating how you can be in the same place as someone, and an hour later, you can be hundreds of miles apart. Right now I'm sitting at the Airport, waiting for my flight back to Salt Lake City so I can be on my way back to school in Idaho. There's a flight boarding for San Diego, and as I watch all of these people walk on to the plane, I think about how in a few hours, they will be in California, and I'll be in Idaho but right now, we are face to face. So many different people from different backgrounds all going to different places. It's so interesting to think about how these people have come into your life for a minute or even 20 minutes, but like that, they're gone. Where could all these people be going? And why? What brought them here at this time, the same time as me? Why has God put them in my path at this time? Is there really a reason? I once heard someone say to think about how many millions of people there are in this world that you will never come in contact with, so don't you think that those that are put in your path are put there for a reason? I would think so. Maybe they are just there for your entertainment, maybe there is something you're supposed to learn from them, or maybe they are just there to make you think about why they're there. I just think it's a pretty thought provoking subject. So, one of my new years goals is to pay more attention to the people around me and figure out why God has put them in my life. If there's a reason, I intend to know what it is :)

Time Flies....

So, recently I've been thinking about how quickly time goes by. People always say to "take advantage of this time in your life because it'll be gone before you know it." Well, I'm starting to realize that those are very true words of wisdom. I am halfway done with college already and it still feels like I'm in high school sometimes. College is one of those things you look up to all of your teen years. Should I go to college? Which college should I go to? What should I major in? How am I going to live on my own, without my parents? All of these questions run through your mind, and it feels like it's never going to come, and then you look now and realize that you've already been in college for 2 years and that you'll be done and out of college in just 2 MORE years. And if that time comes as fast as the past 2 years have gone, you're basically already done with college! Wow. Right now in my life, I can't wait to get married and be a mom. And then that time will come and go and I won't be able to wait for my kids to go off to college so that my husband and I can be alone again and just grow old together and then be grandparents. It all seems so far off, but right now, thinking back to elementary school, it feels like it was 5 years ago. So if that's the case, where I will be in five more years? I'll be a 40 year old mom with 4 kids and wrinkles forming all over my face. It all just blows my mind. I tend to be very impatient about the future, but I need to realize that it will all come in time and probably too fast, and then everything that I looked forward to will be in the past and I won't even notice it was there because I was too busy focusing on the future.

20 Years Later...

Well... since I'm in the last few hours of being a teenager, I guess I'll share some of my last 19 year old thoughts. The past year has been one of smiles and frowns, laughs and tears, excitement and disappointment, and love and hate. It's been a struggle and an experience in trying to find out who I am and who I'm supposed to be. It's crazy to think that I've been on this earth for 20 years now and I still don't know who I am sometimes. This past year has made me realize that I REALLY still have a lot to learn about love, happiness, kindness, patience and life in general. I think sometimes we don't realize how much there really is to learn and experience in this life until we are caught in a situation where we need knowledge we don't have. We may not be able to learn and experience everything in this world but we need to learn all that we CAN. There are certain lessons that everyone needs to learn and other lessons that are more important for certain people. In my opinion, everyone needs to learn how to love. Truly, sincerely love. Whether it is love for a person or an object or a sport or a profession, you have to love something and have a passion for something. Without love, what is there to be excited about?

Next, I think everyone needs to learn how to have true happiness. Even if some people never achieve it, they at least need to learn HOW it's achieved. Happiness comes from loving the people and things around you. It comes from being grateful for what you have, not constantly wanting more. No one can have everything and YOU have a whole lot more than a lot of people in this world. Happiness comes from recognizing the blessings God has given you and acting upon them in the way he intended you to.

The last important thing I think everyone needs to learn, and one that I have a lot of work to do on, is patience. Patience for other people, patience for yourself, patience for the future, patience for better things to come, patience for love, patience for LIFE. In order to get through this life, it takes a lot of patience, and I've learned that without it, life really is going to be harder. Keep your goals in mind, keep your head up and keep moving forward, but live in the present. If you're always living in the future, you'll never have a past. And one day you'll look back and not know where your life went.

So, I guess I'm just saying that what I've learned in my 20 years is that life is hard and there are plenty of lessons to learn, but have fun along the way and don't get caught up in anything. Yes, you need priorities, but they need to be kept in perspective. After all, no one makes it out of here alive.

Pity Parties and Expecting the Unexpected

It has been a REALLY long time... so I thought it was about time I say something. How about a nice little LiFe UpDaTe :) So, spring semester started about 2 1/2 weeks ago and it feels like it's been AT LEAST a month. Time is going slow. Yuck. Butttttt.... things aren't bad, so it's ok. Anyways, I'm expecting something amazing to happen this semester, which means it's not going to happen. Eventually I'll learn that the good stuff happens when you're least expecting it. So I guess I'm expecting the unexpected? Or I'm unexpecting the expected?...I heard recently that expecting the unexpected makes the unexpected the expected? So really...... I don't know. None of it makes sense to me. Bottom line, I just want something exciting to happen. In any case, life is pretty good these days. On a scale of 1-10... It's about a 7 I guess. I've been working on keeping a positive attitude and not making a fuss about little, insignificant things. It's um... going. I still have work to do :) But, I'm staying busy and keeping my mind occupied with school, school and more school. I'm also dancing a little this semester! I made it into the collegiate dance company and I have rehearsal about 3-4 hours a week. It's so great to not be dance-deprived. So, in addition to schoolwork and tests and interior design projects coming out of my ears, I am dancing!! Which makes a grand total of 18 credits I am taking. Sheesh. And then yesterday, I went to an opening social/interview thing for becoming an I-team leader for fall semester, which should be super fun... I'm hoping :) Something to get next semester started out well! Let's see, anything else I can add to my easy, breezy schedule, Oh ya, I'm also going to try to continue to donate plasma this semester, if I can find the time! But $50 a week can always help a poor little college student. So, with all that said, I'm also going to TRY to have somewhat of a social life. I'm turning 20 years old (that's 1/5 of a century :)) next month and the last thing I want to do is spend my last few weeks as a teenager doing NOTHING but busy stuff! Sooo, maybe I will actually make some new friends and maybe just maybe meet some boys for a change. Preferably boys who actually take a second look at me hahaha. Miracles do happen. Sometimes. :) Anyways, enough of the pity party because that's something else I'm trying to work on and because I hate other people's pity parties so what would make me think that other people enjoy my pity parties? I'm pretty sure no one enjoys other people's pity parties. Phew. I'm out of breath and out of energy. It's about time for me to hit the hay. Happy Cinco De Mayo!! :) Goodnight!