Winter Rears Her White Head

>Rexburg weather is a girl that can't make up her mind. One week she likes the sun and the next she dumps so much white in the sky that you can't see anything. A blizzard is an interesting thing, because while you fear the strong winds and the biting ice, you also can't help but to see the awesomeness of it all.

The fury of snow slicing sideways through the air and the white haze that blankets the sky so much so that shapes are barely discernible. Just the outrageousness of it all is kind of cool. One second it is only wind shaking the trees back and forth, back and forth, and the next all hell is breaking loose with minuscule pieces of ice that feel like shards as they hit your leg and the flakes that melt when they hit your skin causing your mascara to run until you look like a raccoon.

Nature is pretty cool thing when you think about it. It's all powerful and it can do good and bad things. I'm just glad that I was inside for most of the blizzard, and that it wasn't during the school week, because this chick would be staying home.

This video is a little snippet of what the blizzard was like, except ours was worse. Watch it on mute because the dudes are a little annoying and may or may not have said a swear word. :)

Black Hole of Doom

We're going to play a little number game to catch you up on what's been happening in my life in the last 10 days.

0 - the number of posts I made to my blog :(
2- the number of batches of names I indexed for Family Search (It's pretty cool!)
7- the number of hours I have slept in the past 3 days
8- the number of hours I wasted watching episodes of Grey's Anatomy online.
12- the number of hours spent straight up writing( It's probably more)
14- the number of days until the end of the semester
16- the number of days until I am home
22- the number of pages I wrote for essays(this was in the last 2 days)
50- the number of times I have cursed William Shakespeare and William Faulkner. What is it about the name William?
3456745690- the number of tissues I have used.
100050 x 123678- the number of times I have coughed

AND

INFINITY- the number of times I have thought about coming home and seeing my family. :)

Hopes

“ It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life does not lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy of life lies in having no goal to reach"
-Benjamin E. Mays

I found this quote and it really made me think. I haven't really had anything to work towards lately. I talk about all this stuff I want to do and be, and I never do anything about it. I am making a list so I can literally look and see what I want to accomplish. I may comeback to this from time to time to cross a goal off or to add another one on. In no particular order...

1. Do at least one load of a laundry a week to keep things from piling up too much.
2. Try and find at least an hour a day to just write.
3. Keep room clean.
4. Read 3 General Conference talks a week to keep me in tune with the spirit.
5. Try and do at least 2 physically active things a week. I'm starting small...
6. Read my scriptures regularly.
7. Call my parents at least 2 times a week to keep in touch and let them know I love them.
8.Try and read 1 literary classic a month.
9. Update my journal regularly.
10. Eat less junk food.
11. Be better about keeping in contact with friends in San Jose.

New Fave!

Juke Box Love Song

I could take the Harlem night
and wrap around you,
Take the neon lights and make a crown,
Take the Lenox Avenue busses,
Taxis, subways,
And for your love song tone their rumble down.
Take Harlem's heartbeat,
Make a drumbeat,
Put it on a record, let it whirl,
And while we listen to it play,
Dance with you till day--
Dance with you, my sweet brown Harlem girl.

Langston Hughes

Lesson Learned

I always hated Young Women in Excellence growing up. A night where we had free reign to display our talents and awe everyone with our awesomeness. My fellow girls always had things to show off. Basketball trophies, clothes they had sewn, pictures they had drawn, videos they had made, and dance routines they had choreographed. I don't remember what I put on display. I remember feeling talentless because I wasn't good at stuff like that. I walk down the stairs and I get winded, stitching a small tear makes me super impatient, my drawing skills consist of stick figures, a line with a skirt for a girl, a line for a guy, and my dad's video savvy skipped right over me.

It was always a hard time for me. There was no real way to put my talents on display. I could make people laugh kind of, but didn't want to be retarded and get up and tell jokes. I could eat half a pizza in like 6 minutes, but didn't want t0 cast myself as the fat chick. I thought I could write decently, but didn't think people would take the time to read anything I submitted for display. I was a pathetic little child, moping because my genius was going unrecognized.

It's taken me a long time to come to grips that my talents aren't outward ones, they're not ones people can necessarily point to and say, " Daaayyyng, that girl's got mad skills." Mine are more subtle. I can make people laugh, either with me or at me :) . I can pad any paper to make it longer. I can BS a presentation with the best of them, (thanks Mom). I can read super fast, and sleep almost anywhere, in the car, in a hotel, at somebody's house. That may seem like a strange talent, but I've heard many people cannot.

I'm thankful for a mom who always believed I had talents even when I couldn't see them. I want to make sure that I can do the same thing for my kids, whenever that happens.

You may wonder what brought this retrospective look at my angst years. Watch the video . I was drooling in envy, wishing that I too, could be like them.

WATCH ME!

It's way cooler in person...

Hello Again!

Hiya to my peeps in the blogoshpere! Sorry about the hiatus, but my laptop power cord broke last week and I am still awaiting the arrival of the new one I ordered, it should be here today. I managed to wrestle Katie's laptop away from her while she slept, so here I am.

Recap of the past weeks events
1. Made it half-way through the semester
2. Started my second block computer basics class online
3. Did my laundry.
4. Went grocery shopping
5. Was asked to be a bridesmaid :)
6. Went to dinner with some Condie's and the Bush's for Kellene and Aubrey's b-days.
7. Watched The Bachelor finale and was thoroughly disappointed in Jason.
8. Oh, and had a mud fight!!


It was epic to say the least. The weather in Rexburg has actually been pretty mild as of late and a lot of the snow has started to melt, thus creating big puddles.

These puddles inspired us to have the mud fight. So we gathered a big group of people, bought a ton of bags of soil and water to make mud. It was way fun, and the actual fight part only lasted like 10 minutes if that.

But we did buy really cool sweatshirts from DI. You can't tell, but my sweatshirt says I'm a one in a million flake with a picture of a snowflake next to it.

Katie is smiling creepily in the picture because she managed to hit all of us in the face when our mouths were open, that and she's just creepy.