Today is a Happy Day!!!!

After a long, boring, difficult week, the weekend has never been so welcoming.

It's the greatest feeling in the world to be done with two papers and to be done with class!

And...what makes it even better is my sister is on her way here right now!!! She gets to spend the whole week with me and we're gonna have so much fun! I couldn't be more excited :)

Tonight I'm going to Mr. Heritage, which should be very entertaining.

My apartment is clean. Yay! And this is one of my favorite weekends of the year...general conference!

So here's to livin' it up and enjoying this fabulous weather!

I DID IT!!!!

Last night, I accomplished a very daunting task.

My mom probably thinks I'm referring to my 10 page New Testament Paper. Wrong-O.

I have officially listened to every single song in my itunes library...yup all 2,621 of 'em. My computer tells me that if you listened to all of them straight through it would take 6.9 days. However, it took me about 3 months because I am not listening to music at every waking moment and I do like to sleep and I have to go to class.

Why would I do such a thing you might ask? Well I'm not exactly sure but I think the main reason was that I had a ton of music on my computer from other people so I wanted to go through and get rid of songs that
A) I didn't like
B) were inappropriate
and I'm so glad I did! Sometimes it got tedious especially with all those Christmas songs. I can only take so much of Silent Night. And although church songs bring so much peace, how many versions of Abide With Me do you need?

But my music is all cleaned out and I can listen to whatever I want now! And I can also say that I did it. If you can't tell, I'm kind of proud of myself :) Oh and it's also on my bucket list. Another thing checked off!

I Spy

Take a look a the dollar bill. Yes, a very common item that you probably see every day. Can you find anything you've never noticed before? 

It's amazing how there's so many things in this life that we just take for granted and almost don't pay any attention to because we're just so used to them. But if there's one thing I've learned, it's that there is always something more. Everytime you look at something, you can see it in a new way and learn something from it. Some things may not be as they seem and oftentimes there is more than meets the eye. You have to dig a little deeper and do some searching. 

What things are you missing in life? Take time to look a little closer and see things from a new perspective. You never know what you might find!

Today I received the biggest surprise!!! In New Testament we always have announcements before class starts. Today I raised my hand and said how excited I was that my sister was coming on Friday! Brother Smith asked how old she was and then said, "Speaking of sisters..." and walked over to his computer. My only thought was that I had provided the perfect transition into our lesson and that he was going to talk about some relationship that Christ had.

But I was shocked when up on the screen appeared a picture of MY family! Yup, Aunt Jay, Grandma, Alli, Beau, and Uncle Rick with my teacher Brother Smith. When he went to speak at devotional at SVU, he met my family and talked to them. He knew that Beau had just come home from his mission to Brazil and told my class that if they wanted to get set up they could just talk to me haha! And that he's best friends with my grandma now and that she wanted him to tell me that she loves me. Pretty much beset day ever! Amid the laughter and the bright red face, I realized how much family means to me and how cool it is to see those you love and who live across the United States.

I'm so grateful that families can be together forever and that I get to go home in two short weeks and see all of my family! I'm also grateful for Brother Smith and his thoughtfulness. He's pretty much the best and has made my freshman year at BYU one to remember.

It's a new dawn

It's a new day

It's a new life

For me

And I'm feelin good!

I don't know why, but these words popped into my head as I woke up this morning. And even though it was early and I didn't necessarily want to get up, I realized that it is gonna be a great day and a great week!

I was somewhat surprised to have some snow flurries on my way to class this morning (actually I wasn't that surprised because Utah is so unpredictable) and then as soon as I got into class my teacher changed the due date of our paper. Happy Day!

So I hope the rest of the day follows suit and that I continue to feel good!

Weird

I'm not usually one to talk about bodily functions. In fact, I think it's quite gross and very awkward. But I decided that I just can't pass this up especially because the same thoughts have entered my mind more than once. So here we go...

Sometimes on my way home I stop to go to the bathroom in the Wilk. Now this is definitely not your ordinary bathroom. And I'm curious why it's necessary to have EVERYTHING automatic. Is it convenient? Sometimes. Do they not think we can handle ourselves, despite our "adult" age? Doubt it. Is it about controlling supplies? Maybe. Is it kinda cool? Yeah.

It kind of makes me laugh, and I also just can't decide if it's weird or if I should be appreciating it. I suppose it's just because I've never seen anything like it. I mean occasionally you'll see a bathroom that has automatic flushers or sinks, but definitely not everything!

I'm not even kidding you.

Automatic flusher
Automatic toilet paper dispenser
Automatic sink
Automatic soap dispenser
Automatic hand dryer

Check it out sometime. I guess it's nice that they do everything for you haha!

I feel like nothing noteworthy has really been happening recently. But the good news is that after next week I will have NO more tests or papers until finals! And in 27 days I will be on a plane back home to the 253! Happy Day!!! Life is pretty great and as usual, I'm just tryin' to live it up and also focus on school a lil bit :) haha jk! I would have to say that this semester is going a lot better than fall. But I'm still counting down the days....to summer, to no more GE's, to a break, and to being a sophomore in college!

Wishing I was at the Hunger Games premiere tonight...

 

May the odds be ever in your favor!

sick

Cough drops. Chapstick. Tissues Galore. Apple Juice. Advil. Blanket.

'Nuff Said. I do not like being sick and it's miserable to say the least. But hopefully I will be better soon! I've been lucky to not be sick all school year so I suppose my time has come, but I'm not happy about it!

Rainmakers!

I somehow forgot to mention my intramural basketball team! We just ended our season last week and it was a blast. We had 12 girls on our team and all but two are from Washington, hence the name: RAINMAKERS! We all love and miss that Washington rain and whenever any of us made a sweet shot we were makin' in rain! We ended our season 3-2 and had some really intense games with some close scores. Unfortunately we lost our first tournament game but we had tons of fun and enjoyed playing with each other. Maybe the beloved intramural t-shirts will await us next year :)

Everyone seemed to pull off the serious look except for me haha!

We make it rain!

Believe In Yourself!

I've decided that YouTube is a pretty cool thing and has a lot of uses. I didn't just come to this realization but I just thought I would share. A while ago I saw this video...

SO cute right?! And it's definitely an inspiration to everyone. Such great words of wisdom.

You can do anything you put your mind to!

Just recently, my friends showed me this lovely song created to go along with the video. I'm pretty sure Emily and I have listened to it over 100 times.

Do YOU feel happy of yourself?? :)

March Madness is Here!

I'm working on filling out my brackets and I'm so excited. I'm doing one with my family, one with my ward, and one with physical science. Last night, BYU had a play-in game against Iona. I was at a review when the game started, but my TA is obsessed with the team so we were getting updates about the game. Let's just say it wasn't pretty. We were getting killed! In fact, it was so bad we kind of just gave up on them winning. The review got over at 9:30 and as soon as I got home I got on my computer to check the score. With three minutes left, we were only down by 2! How did this happen?! We were down by 25 at half time. My internet stopped working and I frantically tried to find some way to find out about the rest of the game. With 14 seconds left, we were up by 2. So exciting! I headed back to my room, confident that we were going to win and a couple minutes later, I hear tons of yelling and screaming in the hallway, "BYU WON!" It was quite the game and definitely the talk around campus today. Noah Hartsock led the team and scored 17 of his 23 points in the second half to help us win! Like I said in an earlier post, Noah is definitely my favorite player and is such a beast! We play Marquette tomorrow so we'll see how the rest of the tournament plays out! I love this time of year so much!

 

If you haven't heard of the BYU memes page, it's taking over facebook! Here's the article in BYU's newpapaer, the Daily Universe, about the boys who created the page. They happen to be in Greta's ward!

http://universe.byu.edu/index.php/2012/02/14/byu-memes-page-goes-viral-and-survives-attack/ 

Happy Pi Day!

For those who are unaware, pi is a math term. You would think that after 14 years of school I would know exactly what it means, but I don't. However I do know how to use it!

 

Pi is used as a constant and can be rounded to 3.14, hence March 14 is Pi Day!

In school, we always celebrated by eating pie of course and having pi competitions.
If you're not a math person this probably won't make sense, but pi is an irrational number which means its value is not exactly even. This means that the decimals go on forever! So having a pi competition means seeing who can memorize the most decimals of pi. It's really tricky but I know it starts like this...
3.14159265

Here's a video of a 6th grader who memorized 251 decimals!

Ultimate Spoons

I have been deprived of games and I miss them so much! Yesterday for FHE, I joined another group and we played ultimate spoons. I forgot how much I loved this game and how good I am at it! There were a lot of us so we played with partners. When a group got 4 of a kind, we all ran to go find the spoons but the twist was that our partner had to be "blind". So they closed their eyes and the other partner had to drag them along as they looked for a spoon. Sometimes they were in really tricky places and were all over the building which included stairs! Nobody got injured, thank goodness! I had a great partner, Becca, and we worked really well together and had a ton of fun! She was definitely better at being blind than I was. We made it to the final round. We were playing in Horne but for this last one, we decided to hide the spoon in Broadbent, probably 50 yards away. As soon as we got our 4 cards, we sprinted over to Broadbent and frantically searched for the winning spoon. We didn't end up wining but we did a great job and it was such a fun night! It was also quite the workout and everyone was hot and sweaty afterwards.

To sum it up, I love games, I love my ward, I love FHE, and I love having fun!

March Past the Madness

When I found out we were having Wellness Week, I was really excited! I think it's important for everyone to take a step back and re-evaluate how our lives are going every once in a while, and if necessary, restore balance. Because March Madness starts this week, that's the theme. So there are lots of activities going on this week and we have the opportunity to get points for the things we participate in.

If we earn 450 pts we get an automatic pass on our cleaning checks this month!
If we earn 300 pts we get free ice cream from the Creamery
If we earn 150 pts we get a basketball stress reliever ball
Doesn't that sound like fun?!

There are 6 categories: spiritual, emotional, intellectual, physical, financial, and social.
Some examples of the things we can do are:
-scripture study with our hall
-write in your journal/blog :) 3 times this week
-create a summer reading list
-get 7-8 hours of sleep at least 4 nights
-create a budget
-have an apartment dinner where you focus on meeting your roommates in a new way

In addition, there is a 5 Day Wellness Challenge
Day 1: Gratitude Day - write 10 things you are grateful for your body can accomplish
Day 2: Awareness Day - write 10 things you like about yourself, physical or otherwise
Day 3: Physical Day - Be kind to your body by taking a walk, exercise, take a nap :), eat a good meal, schedule and plan your day
Day 4: Tune-in Day: Tune out of technology and appreciate something about nature
Day 5: Pensive Day - Think and write down about your thoughts. How does how you think make you feel?

I'm really excited to participate and get as much out of this week as possible!

BEST DAY EVER!!!

I seriously couldn't have asked for a better day. It started with the weather of course. It was SO beautiful! The sun was shining, it was warm, I didn't need a jacket, and I got to wear sandals!

I headed to the testing center, which normally would not be on a best day post, but it was happy because I was taking an enjoyable test...New Testament. It is definitely my favorite class and what can you not love about being tested about the Savior?

I came home and picked up a package from my mom. I LOVED it! They are always decorated so cute and with St. Patrick's Day coming up it was all decked out! The guy at the desk asked if I liked St. Patrick's Day. I said yes and he responded, "You better like St.Patrick's Day if you got a package decorated like that!" haha! It was pretty great. I love my mom :)

Next, Greta, Emily, and I finished our delicious lemon poppy seed pound cake. It is delightful!

You can find the recipe here ! We decided it would be perfect for a lady luncheon :)

We hung out and then walked in the gorgeous weather to the movie theater to see We Bought A Zoo. I absolutely love this movie and was so glad I got to watch it again! It's definitely a keeper.

Right across the street is Cold Stone and I had a coupon for buy one, get one free. $1.50 ice cream sounds like a deal to me! Which means we had dessert before our dinner...

But we went to my favorite restaurant, Zupa's! And it's pretty healthy too! I had the Shanghai Chicken Salad. I've tried quite a few of their salads and love them all. One of the best parts is the slice of bread and chocolate-dipped strawberry that comes with every meal! We also ran into Matt, Mikelle, and the kids which was fun! I love seeing family. 

We made our way home and even though it was dark, it was nice not to be freezing. Emily and I made some no bake cookies real fast and then went up to New Heritage to visit our friends Ben and Bryan from our summer ward. We surprised them and it was so much fun to catch up. We ended up talking for almost 4 hours! 

We ended the night watching Princess and the Frog. It was so cute and I'm glad I finally watched it :)

Seriously what a wonderful day! I couldn't have asked for anything more perfect. The weekend is here and I am happy!!!

Mind Over Matter

That is what I am thinking today. Seriously attitude is everything and it is the drive behind our decisions and what makes our life what it is.

This all came to mind because this morning I woke up at 6:45 to go to a New Testament review. And it wasn't even hard to get up. There's only one reason for this...I enjoy going. Seriously, it makes my life happy and I just learn so much!

So using this fabulous brain of mine, I'm going to change my attitude and try and feel the same way about all my other classes as I do about New Testament. If it's not hard for me to wake up at 6:45, it should definitely not be hard for me to drag myself out of bed at 8:30 for my 9:00 class. No big deal, I got this.

I think this starts my re-commitment to do the best I can and finish out the semester strong! I can do this!

I have a Home!

After searching for an apartment and find a complex that wasn't already full, I finally found one! Next year I'll be living in Moon Apartments and I'm super excited about it! South of campus is definitely new territory, but I know it will be a fun adventure even if it means I'm growing up. Moon is super close to campus, the apartments are nice, the laundry is the building right next to mine, and it basically fit all my criteria. I'm so glad to have that taken care of and checked off my list. 45 days till I come home! :)

Cinnamon Challenge

The "impossible" challenge. We had a great time at Matt and Mikelle's last night with dinner, basketball, games, and chatting. I don't know how it came up but we decided to try the cinnamon challenge. Simply swallow a spoonful of cinnamon. Matt went first and he pretty much died haha! It kind of came spewing out and then he started to gag. It was gross. I went next and Emily gave me a tip. She told me not to breathe, essentially don't open your mouth and just immediately swallow. So with 3 people trying to video tape me, I put it in and then tried to swallow. Except it got caught on my tongue and got mixed in with my saliva and got stuck. I didn't choke like Matt but it wouldn't go down! So it was all over my teeth (sick!) and I ended up having to chew it to get it down. So I did it! But it could have been more smooth/more entertaining for everyone else to watch haha! I don't recommend it, but it's fun to do at parties. Here's an extreme version...

Freshman Dorms

People always make fun of freshman or have tons of stories to tell about them. What can I say? We like to have a lot of fun :) That included a lot of late nights and randomness. This event might take the cake though...
It was Friday night and normally I would be out partying but as you also learn as a freshman, studying is important and it needs to get done sometime. So when I was asked to hang out, logically my response was "Sorry I'm studying!" Well apparently "that's lame". Anyways, I did some studying, almost fell asleep, and then went over to Emily's to watch Music Man. Such a great movie! I loved it! Emily and I made a list of classic, wholesome movies we want to watch again/have never seen. So far we've watched The King and I, Music Man, and we have Savannah Smiles checked out right now. Great Friday night activities!
Anyways, I went back to my room to grab something only to find a note.

I was thinking, "you've got to be kidding me?!" Who would do this? There is no way someone would steal a microwave. Well I walked in...

and the microwave was definitely gone! My next reaction was "I need to get it back!" followed by "there is no way I'm making any brownies unless they bring me the mix!" I knew who it was so I texted them. They acted oblivious to the whole situation. Of course. After the movie was over I went to my room to grab some shoes so I could retrieve my missing microwave to find another surprise.

I brought it back to Emily and said, "Looks like we're making brownies!" We attempted to write "microwave?" in frosting but it kind of failed and we ended up just covering them in green frosting haha! We went to deliver them and got the microwave back even though the mastermind behind the madness wasn't even home! 

Emily was roving that night and she had to write an incident report for it, thinking the whole time how ridiculous and random it was! I still can't believe it happened! I must say it was very creative though!

One other random item....

On her way home, Emily looked up on the roof and saw a vacuum. Yes, you read that right, a vacuum. Kids these days...

Experiment

If you've never had funfetti cookies,  you need to try them! I was going to make them for Chloe for her birthday but followed the cake recipe instead of the cookie recipe. Oops! I decided to try a couple and see what they would look like. They turned into cake cookies haha!

Interesting concept and they still tasted fine but I decided to just make cupcakes instead :)

Birthday Fun!

The last of the foursome. Chloe turned 19!!!! I still can't believe how old we're getting. But it is very exciting! We went to dinner at Station 22, downtown Provo. It was SO good! I ordered a basil chicken sandwich and I loved it! We then decided to go to a movie. We saw This Means War which was a great romantic comedy minus a couple inappropriate parts :/ It had Reese Witherspoon, who is one of my favorite actresses! It was a great Thursday night and a perfect way to start the weekend! Happy Birthday Chloe! I'm so glad she's one of my best friends and for all the memories we've made!

Winter Waltz

Remember the lovely M&M invitation I received last week?

Well the dance was last week and it was so much fun! It was semi-formal so we got to dress up and look cute and all the jazz. It was in the wilk and it looked beautiful! I was surprised with how much effort was put into it and was so glad that I went! First, we had dinner at the boys' dorm. There were 5 couples and a few of the girls I didn't know. We had pasta and asparagus. It was really good! Yes, some boys can cook haha! When we first got to the dance, we got our tickets to get charactertures done and a horse drawn carriage ride! We then stood in line to take pictures which we're still waiting on getting back. The carriage ride was all I hoped it would be :) I loved it! 

There were also fabulous desserts!

And here's our lovely characterture:

We spent the rest of the evening dancing! I hadn't been to a dance in a long time so I had a blast! Thanks for a fun night Alan :)