Just Keep Writin

So I have this playlist, I listen to it all the time.  Its my writing playlist, and by writing I mean: blogging, sleeping, driving alone, being sad, wanting peace, Sunday morning playlist.  Sometimes Coralee tells me to put on 'chill' music, this is what I choose, this is what is playing now.

"Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them become what they are capable of becoming." -- Goethe

My senior year of high school I took a teacher cadet class.  (Go Shoffmama.) Hands down, my favorite class, and not only because it was super easy.  First semester we had to learn the ins and outs of teaching, all the boring parts, and how to properly fill out these review sheet...or something like that.  Our very first assignment was to write a letter to a teacher that has influenced our choice to become a teacher. Yes! I love those kinds of things.  I sent mine to my 7th grade math teacher, good ol' Mr. Chappell.  Chapstick was the best teacher I could have asked for, I still visit him whenever i'm around Lakeshore.  If you didn't have Chappell, and you weren't me, you probably would have absolutely no idea why he was my favorite and I don't feel like explaining it right now.  Point of this being - I want to be a teacher.  But no middle school for me, I student taught at Lakeshore, talk about rough.  (Praise you middle school teachers, bless your soul.) I want high school. WHAT? High School? Talk about rough.  You're dumb, have you seen teachers pay in the first place? Actually, I wrote a paper on it - thank you very much. And then you want to put all that effort into trying to convince kids to love something? Well, what do you want to teach? English. ENGLISH?! Few people actually like English though.  I've never had a normal english teacher before, good luck.  Just make sure you're the cool teacher, the one everyone wants. (For the record, I don't necessarily think people walk into this career thinking "you know, I really hope my students hate me and my class from this day till the day I retire because they make my job miserable." But thanks for the support.) I'd hit on your if I was your student. Umm, thanks? Why would you want to teach a subject with so much gray area? That leaves so much more to grade, and analyze.  No! But thats just it! I love analyzing, I love gray areas - all the shades.  I loved writing a paper on "How To Kill A Mocking Bird" and sitting in discussion circles so we could talk about all the different angles of Grendel and then writing a paper on one of the theories in the book and how it applied to our lives.  Thats the stuff that gets me excited about English.  Why wouldn't someone want to figure out all the different things that The Raven could symbolize? Hello, this is my thing. 

Except: I suck at spelling, I think capital letters are ugly, I could never retain all the different grammar rules, I like to use abbreviations and I hate Times New Roman.  <-- But those things don't make me any less excited to do this.

Have I mentioned my sleeping pattern...sucks?  Part of this I blame on myself, the other part I blame on my lovely right knee. I use the term lovely loosely, I really want to cut my leg off right above the knee just so the pain will stop.  Then I stop, think, and realize how completely illogical that solution actually is, pop some more ibuprofen, and heat this baby till it stops hurting enough that i'm actually able to fall asleep.  Apparently it may be a torn meniscus - if it is i'll probs cry a little, only because that means i'll have to eventually have surgery.  If its not that, i'll probs cry a little because that means we still have no idea what going on with it and it just going to hurt till the day that I die. Thanks for letting me complain. 

Me and Lyndsi write letters all the time, real letters, scribbles and all.  It takes about two days for them to get from Utah to California. We started this thing where within every letter we could add a scripture we found that week, or something that helped uplift us.  With her being on a mission we've been talking a lot about sharing the gospel, mostly in ways to do it that aren't going to scare people off. (Cause thats my biggest fear.) I love my church, everything about it, and I just want to be able to share it with the people who are close to me.  This thought has been weighing on my mind a lot.  Right before I came home I taught a lesson in church, it was on one of my favorite talks from conference.  While planning it, and writing Lyndsis letter, I found this scripture.

"But if ye will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree springing up unto everlasting life." Alma 32:41

Talk about an answer springing up and hitting you in the face.

Hi, I love this kinda stuff.

PS: I secretly hope to pick up a southern accent while i'm home so I can take it back to Utah with me. So far, not so good.

PSS: Guess who didn't gain the freshman 15 this first semester from all that beer, munchie food, and partying? This girl. Sucks to be yall.

PSSS: ummmm, i like you. BAM.

whats my age again?

No really, because when ever people ask me I ALWAYS want to say 19.
But i'm not...i'm just 18, and barely at that.
whoops.

I'm obsessed with covers, and I know i've mentioned that before on here - but really, check this out.

I think I like this better than Adeles real version, hands down.

********

I'm stuck in a rut.  While in this rut my roommate texts me.  Katelyn. For those of you who don't know her, and if I haven't said it before, Katelyn is the mother of our apartment.  She takes care of us, and cleans, and when you have a problem she asks all the right questions to make you think.  She asks them whether you want to hear them or not.  She knows that to say.  I told her the problem I was having and this is just a snipit of what she sent me.

Katelyn: Do what is best for you, do what you think you will regret less.  You have to live with yourself forever so honestly, be selfish.  Think what will make you most happy, everyone else will get over it. (This women is going to be a GREAT mother)

********

Truth Is...

- I sat in my high schools auditorium the other night to watch my little brother sing his showformance heart out.  I was flooded with memories of my high school years: Looking for that boy who I thought was cute, meeting Rachel in the commons because we never did anything in high school with out each other, hearing the gossip, seeing the hatred, and literally passing out from boredom.  I am so glad I am out of high school.  Out of the drama I threw myself in, forcing myself to be friends with someone because we ate lunch together, and out of the person I was.

- You sat across from me on my couch the other day, it wast the first time we had talked face to face since the summer, I realized I didn't miss you as much as I thought I did.

- You make me feel so unimportant, and you don't even do it on purpose. 

- I want my sister to hurry up and finish her mish.  We have so much to talk about and I'm always afraid i'm going to forget key parts of my life to update her on.

********

Are You Glad To Be Back?

"Yeah, its so cold in Utah, its already snowing!"

"So glad, I took three planes to get here."

"Yes, I don't want to go back."

"Its so warm here!"

"School starts the ninth, but I don't have a ticket back to school yet."

"Classes weren't hard, just different."

"Its 12 degrees when I wake up in the morning...it feels like four."

"GlenHOOD is going good.  My roommate had bedbugs, our dishwasher didn't work, and we have a terrible fruit fly problem, but all that is pretty much fixed.  Its good."

"This is so much better than my western family macaroni..which is 65 cents a box."

Dear Population of North Carolina,

I'm very very happy to be home.

Thank you for asking.

home home home home

I hate planes, with a passion.
I think once upon a time, I loved flying, I use to love the feeling of taking off and landing and that feeling in your stomach when it seems like your stomach fell to your toes.  Now that feeling just makes me want to throw up, I feel old. 

But, I’m on my way home! Therefore I can officially deal with these feelings of hatred towards planes.  I’m flying home with Corey. Gasp! Coreys home?! Aren’t you not supposed to see him till you go home for Christmas?!   Breathe everyone, he came to surprise me.  Yes, I have the best mom, roommates, and big brother ever.  Apparently my mom had been planning this for weeks and mass messaged my roommates to tell them all about it. Also, my mom is bffs with all my roommates, they’re all facebook friends with her.  When they post something it’s not legit until my mom comments on it.  Go mom, you rock.

Anyways, Corey doesn’t have an iPod.  So I’m letting him use mine in exchange for him letting me use his pillow, (I forgot Baxter).  Well, if you were to see Corey right you would see him passed out, listening to my ipod, and using his pillow.  My sleeping medicine wore off already, and he just barely took his, therefore I had no need for the pillow, so he ended up with both.  Lucky.  This is the third plane we’ve been on.  We flew from Salt Lake to Phoenix, to Denver, and now to Charlotte.  Why the planes backtracked, I have no idea.  But I was asleep on both other planes before we even left the ground, but not on this plane.  There is terrible spacing between me and the seat in front of me so I can’t use my tray as a mini bed, also I’m on the outside which is possibly the worst season on an airplane.  My legs keep getting hit by people walking around, and I have nowhere to lay my head, I also spilled my water..everywhere.  Did I mention I hate planes?

So, while Corey was visiting me I tried to make Provo as appealing as possible.  Not that that I don’t love Provo, but you kinda have to let the town grow on you.  We went to jump on it his first night.  For you, non-Mormon and non-Provo kids, jump on it is the best thing you could ever go too.  Its just a warehouse full of trampolines all over the ground and walls, you pay ten dollars for two hours, and go crazy.  We went to school, he took his math placement test and I took my finals.  He looked at apartments and is living in glenwood! He’s going to be in my ward! Cool stuff.  (That means when Lyndsi comes to live with me we would have gone from being a country apart, to literally two seconds) We also went to see the lights at Salt Lake with my ward on Monday night.  Christmas lights is absolutely one of my favorite things about Christmas, I love love love love love lights.  I used to be worried about Corey coming home, how do you talk to someone you haven’t seen in two years? That’s a lot of time to catch up on.  But it didn’t take long for me and corey to fall into the groove we used to have before he life.  I know about his girls, and he knows about my boys.

Watch our reunion at the airport here !

To refer to something said before, finals.  I’M DONE! My first semester of college is over, I can’t believe its flown by like it has.  This morning before I left to take my last final the roommates opened presents.  Katelyn and Adriana had theirs ready, so we opened those.  Katelyn made these ballin picture frames and matched the colors in the back ground with our personality, and then found scriptures to match us.  Adriana made mini chalkboards for all of us since we really really wanted a chalkboard wall but it never worked out.  I promised them I’d bring them back something.  Aren’t my roommates great? We’re such a family.  We’ve only been together for four months and so much has brought us closer together.  The apartment crush we all had on this boy in our ward, and the other boy we all had a crush on (we got over both of those quick), the first Monday where we planned to play volleyball with everyone so we knocked on all the boys doors to ask them to join, they all ended up becoming best friends with each other and we watched, our tally wall, shopping trips, break ups, engagements, first dates, dance parties anxiety attacks, movie nights, being taken over by fruit flies, family problems, you name it, we’ve been through it and conquered it like champs.  They are a part of my family.

death to the fruit flies

This update is for you Katelyn.

I'm officially done with my first semester of college. Yes, it was that fast.

Our final for English is pretty easy, we pick a topic and write an exploratory research paper on it, and then we have to do a 5-10 minute presentation on it for the class.  I'm doing mine of eating disorders because for some reason something about people starving themselves really really interests me.  Anyways, today, this girl in my class did hers on, "Who is to blame in a rape case? The raped, or the rapist?"  Which I thought was awesome because I would have never thought to choose that as a subject.  Said girl showed us this video that has been passed around facebook, it seriously gave me goosebumps. 

Way to go guy, way to go.

 So, if you have ever stepped foot in my apartment the first thing you would have noticed (besides the mess) was the smell, if you would have stood in one place for too long the second thing you would have noticed was the amount of fruit flies that swarmed your head.  Disgusting. we have done everything to try and get rid of them.  (stick rotten fruit in the microwave, hope they land on it, then nuke them to death - opened all the doors and windows - no longer kept fruit out of the fridge - googled ways for them to die) and nothing ever worked! They even started migrating back to our rooms and the showers.  Finally, we had our last cleaning check before we left for break, Coralee did the kitchen and thank goodness she did.  You see, Coralee does everything 100 percent, she was so worried she was going to fail the check so she pretty much did everything on the list, and did it well.  When she went to organize our food shelving area my mom bought (thanks mom) she let out a disgusted yell.  I thought she was being dramatic until I walked over and noticed why she looked like she was about to puke.  Rotten Potatoes, rotten RED ones if that actually makes any difference.  They had been there for forever and then leaked all over the bottom shelf.  It smelled like poop & vomit mixed together, and the smell spread fast.  We opened the doors and windows and yelled like girls until someone cleaned it up.  It was thick, sticky, and it took forever to get out of the cracks - I thought I was going to die.  Adriana lit her cinnamon candle in hopes to get rid of the smell, then Coralee and I just lit matches over and over again and tried to burn up the smell.  We also smashed the remaining fruit flies against our ceilings and walls until our hands were throbbing and we were tired.  (I'm really good at smashing bugs.  As siblings we used to take a tennis racket to all the june bugs that infested our back yard since we never ever bought one of those june bug catching things - I also kept repeating how proud my parents would be of me).  Needless to say, our fruit fly problem is down to a minimum. 

__________________________________________________________________________

Guess who is getting married!

Clue: Its not me.

Clue: Its Katelyn.

Clue: Shes marrying Damon.

I didn't know how I felt about Damon at first. Katelyn NEVER brought him around, EVER.  We assumed that either meant he was weird, or we were weird, and we ALL knew we weren't weird, so it had to be him.  (Just kidding Damon...maybe)  Anyways, they're getting married! In the Salt Lake Temple! And pretty much once all the roommates got over the shock (not shock that it happened, we all knew it was going too, just more of when) we all banned together in parts that we're taking charge of.

Coralee is planning and all the pictures.

Jenna is making a slideshow to show at the reception.

I..don't have any awesome talents or programs to bring to the table...but i'm really good at sharing, so i'll make that fit in there somewhere, somehow. (I said I could cut the cakes, i'm pretty much a pro at that by now)

Things we love about Damon

1. He loves Katelyn.

2. Sometimes he lets us use his TV.

3. He helps Katelyn clean our kitchen.

4. He comes around a lot.

5. He knows all about our lives, and asks us about him.

6. We can turn his name into fun sounding foods. (Damonroni)

7. He takes care of Katelyn, and Katelyn is one of us.

Go Damon.

Go Katelyn.

Go Love.

"What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility. - Leo Tolstoy"

Festival Of Trees

So, Utah does this super cool thing called Festival of Trees.
Pretty much people donate all their time, money, and resources to deck out these trees/wreaths/center pieces, a price is put on them and they're sold.  All the money made that night goes to the Primary Childrens Hospital. Same for the money that is made from the concessions, little gift store, and the tickets.  But these aren't normal trees that you decorate with your family, these trees are sold for prices up to 18,000 dollars! WHAT, CRAZY.  And the people that buy these trees just put them in their home so they can look super pretty.  And each tree has a theme, one tree was made out of tires, another was a barbie doll theme, and beach theme, anything you could think of.  Coralee has been helping out at this festival for...forever, so this year we came to help. We got there a little before 10, looked around real quick, and then waited to be assigned jobs.  We were going to be taking down the trees.  And by taking down I mean, bagging them, then saran wrapping them, and everything that surrounded the base of the tree.  (Honestly Saran Wrapping was the best part, you just went around and around with these GIANT rolls of wrap until the tree was nice and tight.)  The set up lasts three days.  Friday, Saturday, and Monday.  Coralee's Aunt Connie say people stay from 7AM to 7PM setting up their tree to make sure its perfect for when the festival opens. If you want to know more about it, look here!

It was such a cool thing to do, honestly.  I know people always say you feel better when you're helping others, and I always blow that saying off.  But I loved this, and I loved doing it with my friends. When I left my apartment I asked Coralee if I needed to bring money, and she said only if I wanted to donate.  I made a snide remark with something along the lines of, "I'm too poor to help myself, how am I going to help someone else?" Dropped my purse on the floor and walked out the door.  I just wanted to buy all the trees while I was there, and all the candy, and all the everything.  It was such a cool concept that everything, EVERYTHING is given to the hospital.  The had giant delivery trucks that would bring your tree to you after it was wrapped up, people running everywhere, but I didn't see anyone in a bad mood, and everyone was so willing to help the people next to them.  AND, Aunt Connie even scored us some scones, milk duds, soda in cans, AND soda in bottles that they had left over.

This is Us! Aren't we so good lookin?

(Damon, Katelyn, Me, Coralee, Sam)

And you best believe those skirts/dresses/tights didn't stop us from getting on the ground and wrappin those trees.  And those are our legit name tags, with out not so legit made up names.

(Mr. Clean, Rachel, Lucy, Mariah De Carmen, and Felipe)

Lets talk about the weather..

First of all Utah, what the crap is with all this wind?

Not only do I freeze easily, but this new college diet has made me small and easy to be knocked over - especially by wind.  According to handy weather.com the wind is blowing at an average of 27 miles per hour. 

That may not sound like a lot, but let me tell you, it is.

This is not only kind of wind that blows your hair all around until it looks teased, but its the kind of winds that prevents you from opening doors, and once the door is open you have to jump super fast through the small crack so you can make it inside the building where it is now a thousand degrees hotter and must start stripping off your layers.  Which is another thing i've always sucked at, and probably always will, dressing to fit the weather.  My concept is, "I only have to make it till the bus comes, and then into the building and to class.  But I always end up standing at the bus stop much longer than planned, thus freezing.  When we were little i'm pretty sure my family was known for having the kids that never dressed right for the weather.  We would go to the bus stop in tiny jackets, if jackets at all.  (Not that this was result of bad parenting, cause it wasn't.  It was more of a result that we were stubborn kids and were more worried about being the first one on the bus then being warm.)  But by the time we would actually wear jackets and be warm..it stopped being cold. We were never on the same time schedule as the weather.

Another thing I used to do...and not understand was wear flip flops in the winter.

This was the cool thing to do in middle school.  So there is me, in the 8th grade, thinking I was cooler than I actually was, wearing flip flops while it was: raining, 'snowing', or just plain freezing.  Why? Because I thought I was the shiz and that I must follow the same things that the other girls were doing.  Little did they know, I hated it.  I couldn't feel my feet by the time I got to school, and then I would slip all the way down the hall ways because we all know that no sandals will ever have super awesome traction when the ground is wet. 

(Once upon the time I was also the girl who hated showering, and brushing my hair, so I refused too. My mom put up with a lot of tomboyish things I did. But we're not going to talk anymore about that.)

Speaking of my mom, I love her a whole lot.

Last night we were talking, (like we do everyday, seriously.)

Side story: While she was in Nicaragua getting Corey from his mission we weren't able to talk for three days. I honestly started thinking the worst.  "Oh my gosh, my family was shot down by snipers hiding in the mountains and i'm never going to see them again. I'm not going to go to college next semester, I need to cancel my classes. Good thing Jesse and Brad like me, cause i'm gonna take care of them. I wonder if mamaw has heard from them, how will I know if they're alive?!  Who is going to tell Lyndsi?! How do you plan a funeral? I need to get a job.  Crap, im parentless."
No joke, this was my thought process.  I didn't tell anyone, except for Adriana who now makes fun of me for blowing things way out of proportion. Gay.

Anyways.  These are key phrases from our conversation last night.

"Make her your friend, and change your profile picture, I bet shes creepin you all the time."

"I don't exactly remember our conversation last night, I was ambiened up, but I do remember your dad having his ear next to mine so he could hear, he's so cute."
"Your package came! I think we picked the right size.   ...on second thought, it looks a little big, crap."
And of course I get sent millions of pictures of Bradley who is beyond adorable on a daily basis.

Mostly the part I loved was over conversation ending like this.

"Goodnight, I love you! Do you need money?"

Do I need money? Yes.  Am I stubborn and promised you that I could live off this financial aid money for a full semester? Yes.  Me and Coralee figured it out, I have about 40 dollars, and two weeks left, therefore I can totally make that work with groceries.  I caved anyways.

"Money would be great mom, but I don't need a lot."

"I'll put some in at lunch time tomorrow, 50?!"

My eyes lit up, and I filled with happiness.

I love my mom, and we're pretty much best friends.

Ken came over the other day, he told me my apartment smelled, and then he helped me fix it.

(we opened windows, doors, and sprayed that mess down.)

I told him about our fruit fly problem, we tried to look for the main source of the food that they were multiplying in, it was no where to be found -therefore Ken decided they're probably living in our walls.

welcome to glenhood. He said if we set out a bowl of alcohol that the smell would pretty much stun the fruit flies into death - he should know, they used to do it in science class and then examine the flies.  I laughed at him.

I hate utah weather.

I love my family.

I over react.

I'm greatful for jackets

&& boys who know how to kill fruit flies.

that is all.