It's a Brand New Year.

Welcome to 2017 where everything already seems better. There will be plenty of challenges ahead for me, my family, and the world as a whole. None of the bitter, frustrating things about 2016 are really gone and some will be manifest for the next year (or 4...) but that doesn't mean I can't look forward and be positive about the possibilities 2017 has to offer!

New Years Eve and New Years Day have been my holiday to work this year so last night we had a wonderful little party to celebrate. Some how it ended up as a ladies night and we had fun making an awesome fiesta spread, throwing way too much confetti, and overall just enjoying our time.

Karlie, Shannon, Ashley, Carolyn, Michelle, and Me

As I was thinking about my resolutions for the year I was trying to decide what was important and were some things I could/need to accomplish. This is my list:

1.   Fix up the backyard.  I knew when I bought my house I wanted a backyard, so I may as well do something awesome with it. I always wanted a gypsy feel and an apple tree so we will see what happens.

2.  Embrace unexpected adventures.  I want to continue to step out of my comfort zone, meet new people and do new things. I think in order to do that I need to be flexible and leave a lot of my free time actually free.

3.  Lose at least 10% of body weight.  This one is from my doctor. While my overall health has improved in many ways the past few years, I know that I really need to focus on this part of my well-being.

4.  Dejunk my closets and craft room.  I really want to simplify a lot of things so I can actually enjoy the things I have.

5.  Serve locally. Youthlinc's lifetime humanitarian focus is to serve locally to serve globally. While I have fully embraced the serving globally side (I am heading back to Cambodia this summer), I haven't invested as much time serving locally as I should. I have some awesome friends who aren't afraid to go and do and I am going to make an effort to join them.

6.  Seek and create Magic.  Magic is my One Little Word this year and I am excited to see where it takes me.  I think it fits well with my goals above as a motivating factor.

Welcome 2016.

I am sitting here wrapped up in a blanket because it is too cold to take down my Christmas tree.  It is a toasty 19 degrees in Salt Lake today and so instead I am listening to Hamilton the musical and am eating Shepard's pie while I wait for bread to rise and attempt to make bread for the first time.  I promise I am not ambitious, I am just trying to find valid reasons to keep the oven on because as I may have mentioned it is COLD today.

Last night I gathered with a random assortment of friends and ward members and attended my first ever midsingle's New Years Eve dance. I sure hope it is my last.  It was a lot of fun overall but things got weird after midnight when I danced with a drunk guy and yeah, things just got weird.

I never try to put too many expectations on a New Year.  I do love the feeling of a dedicated new beginning, so I did write some resolutions.

1.  52 books. For years I completed this resolution and then fell of the wagon last year. I watch far too much television and while I love it I want to read more this year.

2.  Travel somewhere exciting.  I got a call last week that Youthlinc needed a medical mentor for Peru.  This was a trip had decided I wanted to take clear back in June, but when I ended up buying a house I didn't think it would be a reality.  I decided to just go for it and I couldn't be happier.

3.  Catch up in scrapbooking.  My definition of catching up is that I am just ahead of being a year behind or closer.  As long as I scrapbook last Christmas before next Christmas I am good to go.

4.  Learn to bake bread.  I am making some right now but I want to learn several different kinds so I won't cross it off quite yet.

5.  Do something you don't want to do but should.  Not quite ready to share what that may be, not quite sure myself.

6.  Live life more sinceriously.

I am also participating in One Little Word again.  This year my word is LIGHT.  I have been obsessed with the word Light since the Logan Institue theme of Let There Be Light in 2002-2003 and then the EFY theme Stand In the Light in 2004. I am super stoked to be diving into the study and reflection of light in my life this year through the One Little Word prompts.  My new favorite quote I am using to jumpstart my project is:

OLW 2015: Glad

I am embarking on another year of One Little Word.  My word for this year is GLAD.  I enjoyed my journey with my 2014 word TRUTH and had fun finishing up the prompts.

I chose the word GLAD because towards the end of last year I felt that everything and everyone around me had nothing to give but anger, bitterness, and negativity.  I know that isn't true, I have wonderful friends and family, but there the constant negative energy was bringing me down.  I grew up watching Pollyanna and loved the part about the Glad Game.  I decided that I wanted to focus on finding the glad and helping others recognize the glad in their situations.  These are some of the thoughts that went through my head when I chose my word...

Be glad.
Let your hope make you glad.
Spread gladness like glitter. 
Leave a little sparkle wherever you go.

The quote from Pollyanna is,

 

I had a good time choosing my color theme and creating my January prompts.

 



The truth is...

My current facebook profile picture is me sitting on the Game of Thrones throne.  Yeah I have never seen the show.  Or Breaking Bad, Scandal, Lost, and I barely saw the first season of 24 last year. 
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Sometimes there are those days when the guy you used to date calls you and just wanted to check in and make sure your okay, your sister just happens to be in the neighborhood and wants to hang out and do dinner, and an old co-worker calls and says "I am picking you up, we are going to see the fault in our stars in right now".  Then a couple of weeks ago there was that girl you know from church and have talk to a few times who doesn't just ask how you are but "how are you really?"

Sometimes you need these moments because everything is chaotic, friendships are falling apart, and Jesus just wants to let you know he is paying attention.
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Saw The Fault in Our Stars yesterday. Holy.Tears.Batman.  I didn't want to read the book, although I love quotes from it, or see the movie because I knew it was just going to be sad.  And it was sad.  But it was also brilliant, funny, endearing, (warning: there is one f-word, there is a sex scene, and you will cry). 

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I hate major change, I don't want to move, but I probably should.  Decisions, Decisions.
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Reflecting on my OWL TRUTH, I think attempting to live my truth has made me a bit cynical.  At least more openly cynical.  It isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I need to remember that I create my own personal truths, I am not just living truthful circumstances.  Probably doesn't make a lot of sense, but at least I know what I mean (at least I am starting to).
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Other movies I have seen lately:  Million Dollar Arm (great movie about sports that doesn't bore you with sports if you aren't into that kind of thing), Blended (surprisingly fun and funny), X-men: Days of Future Past (probably the best X-men so far, loved the Quicksilver scene).
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Books I've been reading:  Lots of Michael Connelly books, finished the Lincoln Lawyer series and working my way through the Harry Bosch series.  Currently I am reading Public Enemies by Bryan Burrough.  It is a non-fiction account of the crime wave in 1933-34 that ended up creating the FBI.  Gangsters, Tommy Guns, and well written accounts detailing what some of the major gangs were up to during those years. 
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Music I've been listening to:  You Shook Up the World by Puddle of Mudd, the Million Dollar Arm soundtrack, and some Sam Smith.

reality check.

I took one of those online quizzes today.  You know the ones, the "what city should you live in?" or the "what is your spirit animal?" or "what classic X-men character are you?" 

I took a "What Element Are You?" quiz today and my answer was the following:

 

Your element is NOTHING. You are void, numb and worn out. Be it the world has been unfair or you have self sabotaged yourself. You can redeem yourself and come back to be 'you'. But you can't keep making excuses for yourself. And you can't keep letting others hold more value. You need to feel. You need to be self aware. This isn't cute, this isn't funny, this isn't okay. You need to pull yourself out of this void. You NEED to. Find life, find purpose, find YOU.

Um, harsh! and totally true.  Definitely a reality check, I don't take much stock in these types of things but this is exactly what I have been feeling/experiencing lately.  I guess I just didn't think much of it or try to explain it to myself until I read this and thought, BINGO.

It's been a stressful month or so and I am faced with a lot of potentially life altering decisions.  I also am a people pleaser and loyal to a fault.  It's time for me to take care of myself and do what is right for me, not anyone else.  Time to recognize some of my truth that I have been pushing aside, own it, and live it.

print via Etsy.

OLW: Truth in March reflection

March was a really interesting month.  I had a birthday I most definitely was NOT looking forward too, I reconnected with new friends and disconnected with some old.  I learned to stop relying too much on others, well maybe not relying but maybe to stop expecting certain things.  A lot of the month was filled with disappointment as a lot of people didn't do what they said they would do. I thought to myself "I have never been let down so much in my life as I have the first 2 weeks of March." 

But you know what? It was okay.  It taught me a lot about myself and others.

Our One Little Word prompt this month was to make a vision board.  I struggled with this a lot more than I thought I would.  I love to scrapbook and I can doodle a tiny but, but I am not very artistic otherwise.  I wasn't really feeling it as far as a large collage or mishmash of words.  One day I was flipping through my new Soul Pancake book "Chew on Life's Big Questions" by Rainn Wilson.  The first chapter is asking what truth is (which is my word of the year) and on the first page is a poem by Saul Williams.  This poem just screamed at me and I knew it was going to be the soul of my vision board.  My symbol for truth is clouds and I was thinking about the last few lines of the poem and decided to create a vision board of clouds floating in the sky.  I pulled out some old National Geographic magazines and cut out pictures that represented dreams of mine, peace, wanderlust, and whatnot and then I printed a couple of clouds with some of my mantras, "No Day But Today," "Live Your Truth," and "We Are All Stardust."  A statue of Aphrodite is at the bottom dreaming...

Where the Skies are Buried Deep

 

Deep in me there is an answer.

Deep in me there is a cure.

Deep in me I found a gentler self

that washed upon a shore.

And the children slowly gathered.

None of them had ever seen.

None of them had dared imagine

how their lives looked from a dream.

There’s no other way around this,

it’s internal buried deep.

Beneath labyrinthine thought tunnels

where the questions pile in heaps.

Heaped upon that is a mystery.

Heaped upon that is a plan.

Heaped upon that the simplicity

of a river through the land.

And the cows around that river

do not graze until the sea.

They are inland bred and treasured

through their own complicity.

And the answers are apparent.

Difference is all the same.

I’m a whale of deepest regions

where the ocean floor’s aflame.

And the source of this great fire

is internal buried deep

where the blood of stars configure

in volcanic memory. 

And they push beyond the surface.

And they push upward and out.

From the depths of our great sorrows

to the pucker of a mouth:

Kiss kiss kiss another century.

Kiss kiss kiss another year.

Kiss kiss kiss another species.

Kiss kiss kissed to disappear.

And we kiss to cross the threshold

to our present state of mind

where our feelings fly from memories

that rest behind the eye.

And our dreams are deep polluted

by such tragedies as wealth

And the fish forget they’re swimming

and their fins morph into tails

and the truth like evolution

is evolving as it fails

to keep up with the demands

of this modern space and sea

and the skyline of this city

are the whales we used to be.

And I feel these kids around me

as I’m perched on sandy shore

and they’re touching me

and asking me if I’d like some water

or if I am already dead.  

So I open up my eye and I’m staring

through an arid wind of white whales in the sky.

And I notice how they’re floating.

And I wonder if they see

distant cousins in the world beneath

where skies are buried deep. 

Saul Williams

Listen on.

A lot of people have been talking about creating playlists of music to represent their One Little Word for the year.  Many of you know that I love creating playlists.  I was one of those mixed tape kids that graduated into a mixed CD teen and now I am a playlist creating person.  I create lots of playlists for lots of things and my favorite part it putting the songs into order so I feel like the mix flows correctly and represents what I need it to.

 

So I was pretty excited at the idea of making a playlist for my word [TRUTH} but in the end I wasn't finding the songs I wanted and was having a rough time with it.  Last year Toni and I had a good time creating the Playlist of our Life which I blogged about here.  I decided that list playlist represents a lot of my truths so I expanded this playlist with a sequel.  These songs represent me to my fullest truth right now.  A lot of people have been asking what the list is so I will post it here along with some explanations of why certain songs are on it.

 

Playlist of my life Side A:



 

1.  Pour Some Sugar On Me by Def Leppard -This song became my "insta-happiness" song in College.  We had an awesome 80's butt-rock cover band called Final Warning that my roommates and I were obsessed with and I have now been to 3 Def Leppard concerts and loved them all.

2. All I Really Want by Alanis Morisette-Jagged Little Pill was the first album I ever owned and I heard this song and thought every single lyric represented me and my personality.  My favorite line is, "I have no concept of time other than it is flying."

3. What You Own from RENT-I could talk about this song and show for a long time but I have already blogged about this specific song here.

4. The World I Know by Collective Soul- This song was the song that helped me deal with 9/11.

5. Radioactive by Imagine Dragons-The second I heard this song I was obsessed with it.  Something about the drums, the power behind it, and the movies it has been linked with made me love it even more.  Seeing Imagine Dragons hanging from the ceiling in concert performing this song made me realize that I would never get tired of it.

6. Supremacy by Muse-My sister Laura is probably Muse's biggest fan.  Their concerts are explosive and this song in particular is crazy awesome live. 

7. Outside by Stained-My last year at USU was a fun by emotionally chaotic one.  When I moved back to SLC I quickly learned who my real friends were and I went through an emo mood that this song played a big part of.

8.  6 Underground by The Sneaker Pimps- The first time I heard this song was on the movie "The Saint", remember that one with Val Kilmer?  I was a dramatic, alternative loving young teen and this song had the kind of drama I that made me love "William Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet" with Leo and all of the dramatic angst music in that.

9.  My Own Prison by Creed-Another throwback to my Alt days in Jr. High that also was the only album I listened to while I was in Kenya.  This song just kept running through my head as we worked in the hospital.

10. Seven Devils by Florence and the Machine-We are obviously in the angst-drama section of the playlist.  I discovered this song on a flight to Washington DC and it became my go-to song when I was dealing with the aftermath of drama that always reminds me of Washington DC.

11. Little Black Submarine by The Black Keys-I really just like this song because I love music that crosses genres and this song starts out slow and chill and then explodes with rock.

12. Counting Stars by One Republic-This is my current favorite song.  After feeling lost and out of place last year I met a boy who gave me hope.  We spent a night looking at stars and I discovered this song the next day. 

13. The Beautiful Letdown by Switchfoot-I just liked this song and then one year my cousin hung herself.  Listening to this whole album on the way to the funeral realizing it was an interesting type of mourning and this song just stuck out.  Every time something seems to go bad in life I remember that I need to take what I learned from the situation and appreciate that instead because of this song.

14. Breathe (2 A.M.) by Anna Nalick- The song of the Summer in 2006 or 07, can't quite remember which but we all loved this song and the lyrics.

15. Don't Let Me Fall by B.o.B. -B.o.B. is my resident go to when I am feeling overwhelmed.

16. Gangsta's Paradise by Coolio -I remember when I first heard this song in 7th grade.  I ended up focusing on Gangs and criminology in college and I like to think this song had something to do with it.  I still haven't seen the movie "Dangerous Minds" ironically enough.

17. Don't Stop Believin' by the Journey (I used the Glee Cast version) -I chose the Glee version because Glee had a major influence on my life the year it premiered and I can't think of this song without thinking of Glee.

18. The Scotsman (Utah State unofficial fight song) -Had to include my favorite part of USU.  I have probably sung this song a million times.

 

 

Playlist of my Life Side B:

 

1.  Age of Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In by Fifth Dimension -I love the musical Hair and the 70's and the photo journalism and learning about the Vietnam War.  This mix by Fifth Dimension was the best way to include both of my favorite songs from the show.

2. Sweet Child of Mine by Guns n Roses-This is my most favorite 80's song ever.

3. Burn It Down by Linkin Park -Choosing what Linkin Park song to include was hard but this has been one I always like to listen to.

4. All Around the World by Justin Bieber feat. Ludacris -I love the Biebs (well the original one) and this song was a big part of our trip to Cambodia in 2012.

5. Bad Romance by Lady Gaga (I used the Glee Cast version) -I just really like this song and this version is clean and fun.  It is also one of the few songs I have completely memorized.

6. Love Me Dead by Ludo-My favorite music video ever and super fun to sing along to.

7. Grace Kelly by Mika-This reminds me of a super fun summer of bear lake, boys, movies, and fun.

8. Hurricane by MSMR-I had a weird end of 2013 with some interesting dating adventures.  This song represents that.

9. Lose Yourself by Eminem-  Love Eminem and this song was my favorite.

10.  My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light It Up) by Fall Out Boy-Love all songs about Light and this one is just a super fun song.

11. Say it Ain't So by Weezer- Hello freshman year of college.

12. These Days by the Foo Fighters-The song for when I was tired of people trying to tell me how to feel and how to deal with heartbreak.

13.  Dirty Paws by Of Monsters and Men-Started liking this song when I saw the movie "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and now it just makes me think of adventure and escape.

14. Heroes by David Bowie (I used the Glee Cast version)- I used the glee version because it was shorter but I love this song and I loved the use of it in the movie "The Perks of Being A Wallflower". 2011 was the year of the Hero for me.

15.  Carry On by F.U.N.-Great message of going on even when things seem dark plus it is fun to listen to and sing along to.

16. It's Your Day (Bronson's Song) by Blessid Union Of Souls-Blessid Union represents my Senior year of High School and it always represented forgiveness to me.  My favorite verse says: Gotta learn to keep those ghosts away; Buy'em all a one way ticket on a flight to Neverland; God'll help you keep those ghosts away; It took a little while but I'm free again

17. The World I Know from Newsies-Newsies was my first favorite musical, I still get hot and bothered by guys with their sleeves rolled up, and Christian Bale singing this song just makes me happy.

18. Arise and Shine Forth by Michael McLean and Katie Thompson-This song was an addition to the The Forgotten Carols for its 10th anniversary.  I sang in the show that year and this song just gives me chills every time.  Another one about lights too.

 

So there you go folks, my playlist and the truths behind it.

OLW January Reflecions

Truth.  I haven't necessarily found my truth, but there are several things that have resonated with me this month.  It has been an interesting month of up and downs.  Highs and lows.  I rediscovered how frustrating dating, friends, and even family can be at times. I have also found and remembered a lot about joy.

A thought:

 

 

Some songs:

 

 

 

 

 

 



So far this year...

So far this year....

I have worked 5 night shifts.
I have lost 3 lbs.
I have completed 2 quizzes and 5 discussion posts for school.
I have been to one Aggie Basketball game.
I have completed 1 week of Move More Eat Well jumpstart class.
I have read my scriptures everyday.
I have completed my January prompts for One Little Word class.
I have read 2 books:  "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and "The Black Box" by Michael Connelly.
I haven't taken any pictures except of my projects.
I haven't gone to the movies yet.
I haven't gone grocery shopping.
I haven't baked anything.
I haven't kissed a boy yet.
(All of the haven'ts need to be remedied asap)

 

 

 

 Here are my January pages for One Little Word.  I chose clouds as my symbol to represent truth.  That may seem weird but I decided that clouds do several things...they bring rain that washes the dirt and grime away helping everything be clearer and when you look past the clouds you can see the light.  I love this paper set called "Here and Now" (also perfect for the theme of living your truth) by Lori Whitlock.  Excited to see what the rest of the year brings.

One Little Word.

I decided to take a couple of online classes for fun this year.  The first is Move More Eat Well Jumpstart by Cathy Zielske through Big Picture Classes.  This class is a 31 day class that focuses on self improvement and discovery, especially in a physical way.  The focus the first couple of days is to find your intention and be honest in telling your story, taking your measurements, photographing those hard pictures of your true, not sucked in, not covered up, self. 

The second class is One Little Word by Ali Edwards.  I decided to sign up for this year-long class about taking ownership over a word and applying it through all aspects of your life.  For me I see it as a type of self discovery and direction.  I have chosen words on my own before, to focus on during my spiritual study or even just for fun.  Last year I focused on Shine and in particular stars. 

I decided that my one little word for this year will be TRUTH.  I am excited to discover what the word truth can represent and mean to me.  I want to live my personal truths more fully and learn what they all are.  This year I am going to focus on:  Live Your Truth.