Quick Post

It's been a long time since I've blogged, and my life's been pretty crazy.  Here's a quick recap of the past month or so.

• EFY prep has been really cool.  I've learned a lot.  I'm a little overwhelmed at the thought of being a counselor, especially because I've never really done anything like it before.  It's another one of the many "first's" I've experienced this past year.
• I've got a new job.  I will no longer be calling U of U alumni asking them to donate money to the U.  Instead I will be working with special needs people helping them to get jobs or to work effectively in the job they already have.  I'm excited and nervous for this opportunity as well.  It's going to be another learning experience because I also have never done anything like this before.
• I've started volunteering with a hospice.  The little lady I help is so adorable and funny.  The hour that I spend with her on Sunday's is probably the highlight of my whole week, every week.
• I got a scholarship!  (woot woot!)  Yay for free money for school.
• I got to visit my family over spring break.  :)
• Community is back on NBC!!  :)
• Other than that my life has just been lots of school, homework, visiting teaching, volunteering at Primary's, vampire's stealing my blood (blood draws), roommate drama, and more homework.

30 Day Challenge Take 3

No Chocolate

This is an ambitious one, especially seeing how December is Christmas time and I have two weddings to go to this month and I have finals week.  But I'm going to do it.  If you see me wandering around muttering under my breath "I can do hard things" or "I think I can, I think I can" now you know why.

Home

I have been listening to this song all week.




I feel like Dorthy from the Wizard of Oz, clicking her heals "There's no place like home. There's no place like home."

I guess I'm ready to come home for a little while.  :)

Opportunities

What do you do when an opportunity comes up that you weren't expecting and you're not sure if you want to take it or not?  There is always the possibility of something better coming up if you take the opportunity.  Or you could turn down the opportunity and nothing better could come up.  Or you could take the opportunity and nothing better could come up.  Or you could turn down the opportunity and something better could turn up.  But at this point you just don't know.  It's times like these that make you wish that you could see the future in a crystal ball.  Not even all of it, just enough of a glimpse to help you to know what you should do. 

I think I've got a lot of praying, fasting, thinking, and deciding to do.

It's gonna be a long week.

To Do List:

•  Take Test
• Go to class
• Sing to the elderly
• Speak in Shakespearean/Jane Austen English
• Go to the library
• Get on facebook, like a million times
• Work on a little homework
• Blog
• Eat chocolate
• Day Dream
• Read text books
• Finish assignments
• Write a lesson plan
• Go to the gym
• Go visiting teaching
• Clean
• Go to Relief Society Activity
• Accentuate the Positive
• Count Blessings
• Pray
• Smile

"Let’s be honest; it’s rather easy to be busy. We all can think up a list of tasks that will overwhelm our schedules. Some might even think that their self-worth depends on the length of their to-do list. They flood the open spaces in their time with lists of meetings and minutia—even during times of stress and fatigue. Because they unnecessarily complicate their lives, they often feel increased frustration, diminished joy, and too little sense of meaning in their lives." - President Dieter F. Uchtdorf (to read the rest of the article go here.

Growing Up

As I start a new year and a new semester quickly approaches, I have never felt so much like I don't want to grow up.  I really wish I had found Peter Pan when I was younger and escaped to Neverland.  I spent my whole childhood wishing I was grown up, in college with my own car and my own place to live away from my parents, with my own rules doing whatever I wanted to do.  Now I just want to go back to naptimes, toys, and the carefreeness of childhood.  Everyone told me when I was little to appreciate my childhood and I couldn't understand then.  But now I do. 

But I guess instead of living in the past I should be enjoying the present.  All of the "real adults" (and I say that because I don't feel like a real adult yet) talk about how much they miss college and seem envious of all the experiences I'm having now.  I can't understand that right now, but I probably will at some other point in my life. 

When I get really stressed I have a tendancy to resort back to my childhood, blankets, chocolate, comfort food, The Lion King, and other classic movies.

I guess that's the trick to life isn't it, not living in the past or the future but just enjoying the present. 

It's amazing how fast time flies and how slow time goes.

I don't really want school to start up again, but I know it needs to because I've been extremely lazy this week.  It's time for me to do something other than mindlessly watch tv or surf the internet.  Seriously, how many times can a girl check facebook in one day?  I've done pretty good most of Christmas vacation, I've been busy quilting, reading Jane Austen, working, exercising, hanging out with friends and family, and doing everything else I told myself I would do when I actually had free time again.  But as much as I don't want to go back to school and to have to start paying for all my own food again, do homework, search for a job, and go to class, I need the structure back.  It'll be interesting to see how long it takes to get my work ethic back.  Let's just be honest, I've been checked out of school since before Thanksgiving break.  And I am excited to get back up there so I can hang out with all of my awesome roommates and all my friends up there.

This week has been a stressful week, but a good week.  I had so much to do this week, but somehow  I was also able to find time to give some amazing service.  My friend, Adrianna, got in a car accident on Sunday night on her way back up to Cedar from Las Vegas, and she ended up in the hospital. Hours later she ended up getting the flu and was right back in the hospital all over again.  Once she got out of the hospital, I was able to go with some really good friends and go visit her.  I know that when I'm sick I love visitors, because it makes me feel loved, so I hope I was able to give her some comfort. 
Wednesday was one of my craziest days, I had three important tests coming up on Thursday and Friday, and I had room inspections the next day, and I had to go to our stakes weeknight Relief Society meeting and rap in front of the whole stake, plus my prescriptions ran out that day so I knew that I had to find time to go refill them, and I was in need to do some grocery shopping.  I didn't know how I would be able to fit it all in.  Somehow I did though, plus a little extra.  Just as I got to the grocery store, I saw this shopping cart filled with food roll off the curb by a car.  It fell and all of the food fell out.  A little old lady stepped around the car and started to pick up all of the fallen items.  I helped her pick them all up.  I was glad that I was in the right place at the right time to give some small service.  Right after Relief Society one of the girls in our ward was very stressed out and upset.  I was able to spend some time with her and let her know that I was thinking about her.  Again, it wasn't much, but it was the best I could give.  I didn't get much studying done for any of my tests done that day.
I spent Thursday cleaning and studying and helping my friend clean and study as well.  I was able to get out of my lab about 45 minutes early and so I had extra time to study for my two tests on Friday.  I was able to go to bed earlier than I expected I would be able to, and somehow, I got everything done that I needed too.  It was an absolute miracle.
Today I totally rocked both of my tests!!  What a great way to start the weekend!!  Now I get to study for my two midterms on Tuesday and Wednesday. But right now I'm just grateful that this week was able to go well.  I'll deal with next week as it comes!!

The Weekend!!

I guess all of my stress paid off in at least one of my classes!!  I got a 93% on my first anatomy test in my anatomy lecture.  I couldn't be more stoked!!
This weekend has been really good.  I got to go home!!  I'm a homebody so I love going home for the weekend.  It wasn't exactly a stress free weekend, but it was definetely stress reduced.  :)  I worked for ten hours this weekend at my job at Sand Hollow Aquatics Center (Shac).  It was great to see my work friends  and I was able to get a lot of homework done, while earning money.  It was a win-win-win situation!! The only bad thing was that we had lots and lots of irresponsible parents and their wild children at the pool.  But that's a whole other post for another day. 
I'm hoping this week will be a really good one.  It's missionary week at Institute so I'm going to be on a media fast.  I only have an hour left before I have to stop the media for the rest of the week.  It'll probably be a really good thing, and I'll probably be able to get more homework done.  I'll be doing other missionary-ish things as well this week.  I'll let you know how it went, next week.  :)

Stress Relief?

I'm a stresser.  There's no other way around it.  I stress over everything.  Big things, little things, you name it, and I stress over it.  This has become increasingly worse as I've entered college.  In high school I was pretty much a home-body most of the time and enjoyed spending most of my time relaxing with family.  I only had one priority, one thing to worry about, and that was school.  So if I had hours worth of homework, it was ok, because at most during high school I only worked a few hours a week and I didn't have really have much of a social life to balance or any other responsibilities.  College, on the other hand, has been an extremely different experience for me. I'm constantly going somewhere or doing something.  I use my planner like crazy (it helps me keep what little sanity i have left) and it is absolutely filled with classes, meetings, study groups, homework assignments, reminders to study for upcoming tests, reminders to clean my room, make time for exercising, due dates, and everything I need to do and remember to keep track of all of my new responsibilities.  From classes to RHS to RHA to Relief Society responsibilites, to the little favors I am asked to do for people every day to everything else that I have to do to keep my life running (somewhat) smoothly, I just feel overwhelmed and stressed almost constantly.  I'm exhausted.  I really don't know how to deal with all of this.  I guess I need to learn better time management and stress relief skills. Any suggestions?