Young yin's in Mohawks

To address the first; there is a young man that I went on a few dates with and we both had a great time. In fact, I think he was the first guy in 7 months that I thought that things could work out. He is totally interested in me too. Like, its blatantly obvious and trust me, I don't pick up on these things unless its pretty blunt. Problem: he thinks I'm too young. I'm a freakin' sophomore! Its not like I'm an 18 year old freshy. I don't get it. I think this "too young" thing is going to follow me the rest of my life. Gr. I guess I just think its frustrating when the one thing that I have no control over is what stops a guy from taking me on more dates. My cousin, who is guy, even thinks a dumb excuse. I guess at least its not something like my eyes are too close together or he hates that one day I dress like a wanna-be "punk" and the next I'm just as classy as ever. That would be sad.

Speaking of punks... so my last haircut was really short. Like REALLY short. I like it but I miss my old haircut. Before my hair grows back to its typical length my roommates and I thought it would be fun to put it in a mohawk. I had something like this in mind:

 

Brittney started it off okay...

 

but it turned out like this:

I've never creeped myself out before. It literally disturbed me to look at myself in the mirror. My roommates did it and then they did my make up, but I will NOT show you a better look at my make up. I literally had to scrub it off and the next morning I still had some eye liner that wouldn't come off. Ew.

secret cool mohawk dream = fail

But I think I'm okay with it. :)

Au Revoir

I've discovered in my life that there are people that you come to love and care for dearly, but if they aren't willing to pull their load to make the relationship work it will all fall apart and whoever keeps holding onto what is left is going to be hurt - deeply.

I have had a lot of life changing discussions with a lot of people but in the past six months it has been a lot with my mom as well as an institute instructor. During one of our meetings my institute teacher told me something that helped things click in my mind. He told me that if you're holding onto something your hand is closed, you can't give or receive  unless you let go. I'm ready to progress, receive opportunities to grow.

So this is my poem to goodbye:

September 2nd

Force myself out of bed again.

Soak in the cold shower.

Another bowl of soggy cheerios.

Hike up to music history class.

Spoon half a grapefruit.

Follow my feet to the next grey building to study.

Push open a silver glass doo-

I can see him across the bright commons area.

He’s wearing dark flannel and those well-fit jeans,

just how I left him five weeks ago.

Today his eyes remind me of deep lakes and caramel.

He speaks my name and it gently shakes me inside.

I find myself passing the red flag and I’m sitting next

to him. My hand forgets momentarily and

almost reaches out to caress his calluses.

He leaves to go to his next class

and I curl on the scarlet couch to study.

Black letters on the page begin to swim and I try to follow

them lap the page around and around.

I’m reading prose and memories, I’m in one.

Our winding truck ride to Bear Lake where we

parked off the road to watch the sun rise,

a long awaited embrace after working in separate states,

long evening talks at the bus stop my apartment, and

hiking on the muddy, canyon path in late May.

I can almost feel the soft squeeze of his hand

and then we’re up on his grandfather’s rooftop

surrounded by grapevines,

and singi-

Stop!

Lecture on a bloody civil war.

Daze the way home.

Last baked potato.

Corner myself in homework.

Hide under cool covers.

He didn’t even look back.

Au revoir, my dear J. Au revoir.

Finally a ring!

Just to clarify, I am NOT engaged. I know this isn't really about my life, but Brittney is my roommate and I love her dearly so I think I have a right to write about her a little bit. On Valentine's day she finally got officially engaged (yes she did buy the dress before she got the ring). Today she had me take some pictures of the ring to send to her family. If she didn't have to leave I would have kept taking them.

Pretty huh? :)

Running = Happiness

Okay, so we all know that true and everlasting happiness is from being righteous and having true conversion to the Gospel, but that's not what I wanted to touch on today (though it is extremely important).

Today I want to talk about my new favorite thing. Running. I'll admit, in 7th grade I was that girl that took her precious time running the mile and probably only broke 11 minutes on accident. It was the same in 8th grade, but I think I started to feel like I wanted to improve. 9th grade is what really brought on change. I was still young so I didn't have a very...uh...lasting motivation to run my best. To be honest I ran my hardest to impress a boy in my gym class. I can say though that I was always the first girl to finish running the mile (luckily I didn't have any girl athletes in my class so it wasn't too hard to do). Well it turns out that this didn't impress him (figures) but I learned that I loved the thrill of knowing that I improved, even if it was just by a couple seconds.

Last year I decided that I wanted to get more serious about running. I wanted to be fit and energized. I had this mental plan of when I would run and work out at our on campus gym, but I didn't really get anywhere with it. This year I thought long and hard about that. I mean the desire to be fit was a good one, so why wasn't it motivating me enough to go exercise even for just 30 minutes? It's because the goal wasn't measurable. I don't believe that you sure measure fitness by weight and inches and measuring how I felt after working out didn't work either. So this year I decided I wanted to run a half marathon. A 5k is a little over 3 miles so that wouldn't require that I have a lot of training, to run a 10k would maybe use a little bit of preparation, but I wanted more. I found a race in May and a 12 week plan online to help me build up to 13.1 miles. This is a goal that has definitely kicked in the motivation I have been looking for. I have only started off at 3 mile runs but that's okay. You have to start somewhere. The exciting thing is how much I have improved. Yesterday I beat my PR by 4 minutes from my time last week! 4 solid minutes! I was ecstatic! Today I beat yesterdays PR by about 54 seconds, almost another minute. Though my overall time isn't impressive, I still get excited. It was really hard to contain myself today after  running my 3 miles. I couldn't stop from smiling and I had to control myself from jumping up and down. I was, no doubt, excited :) Now I realize that there is going to be a point where I will only be improving by seconds if at all, but for now I am letting my excitment build my motivation to continue running and pushing myself. Gah!!!

Oh, and as a side note, yesterday didn't turn out bad at all. I am definitely receiving extra help to keep me from loneliness and I thank Him tremendously. But my favorite part of the day definitely was beating my PR, cheesy as that is, especially on Valentine's day.

valentines...love...bleh

Well I'm back! Well what I mean is I am finally beginning to act like myself again. Its nice to be back.

Anyway, back to the blog post thing. So Valentine's Day is like...oh...tomorrow. As always, I have no plans at all. Well I have work which is going to be just great. I get to seat all the cute couples holding hands, cuddling in a corner booth, sharing cheesecake and maybe a little kiss. Its going to be great especially after working four or five maybe even six hours (that will probably feel like 12 hours) to go home and realize that I still have no special plan for the most romantic holiday of the year. Maybe I'll even write myself a little note and leave it on my bed for me to read when I get home. Maybe I'll cut out some paper flowers too, at least they will last forever right?

Ha. Well don't worry, love may not be anywhere near me, but it's still here. Two of my roommates from last year are getting married! One Friday and the other possibly...this MAY! Ah! Oh and as you know my other roommate (one from my current residence) is getting married in May as well! We went wedding dress shopping on Friday and it was so, so, so much fun! I even cried a little. Do not worry, it was a happy cry.

After trying on 17 dresses she found the one and we (my other roommates and I) all loved it.

Congrats Brittney you have the dress. :)

So Valentine's Day may not be the most exciting day for me, again, this year, but it will be some day it will be. Until that day comes I don't mind helping my dear friends prepare for their special day. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Weekends of Epic Proportions

So lately I've just been having some epic adventures. I mean epic! On one adventure my roommates and I all "stole" ice blocks that were melting outside the Performance Hall and went ice blocking down Old Main Hill. It was super fun! The snow had all melted and there wasn't even any ice on it, the grass was just muddy, as you will observe in the photos. :)

 My wonderful roommates :) Jess, Brit, and Cede.

Yes, that is me sticking my tongue out if you couldn't tell. Our neighbor was kind enough to take this picture for us and didn't make fun of us. Well actually, I think he did laugh a little.

Another adventure was watching Brit and her boyfriend make ad decorate mini-mini cupcakes. They were super small!

They are so cute together and will be getting married this summer :)

This week, on a ward group date activity, we went rollerblading! It was so fun and thankfully I didn't have to take any time getting used to; it was just like getting back on a bike. I forgot how much fun rollerblading is. Also I went bowling twice and then on Saturday some friends of mine from my old ward went snowshoeing! I have never been snowshoeing but I highly recommend it! Snowshoes don't attack to your heals so to me they were like flip-flops on steroids! Loved every minute of it!

 Dallin and I before we started climbing the mountain.

 Glen, Kristen, and I taking a break. We attempted  making snow angels but there was a hard layer of snow on top so it didn't work so well.

 This is Dallin just being Dallin. :)

The canyon was so beautiful covered in snow. The valley is just dead right now. No snow and its kinda sad.


I am a firm believer that life is as beautiful and fun as you make it. We were given agency for a reason. So my challenge for everyone this month is to go out and do something new that you've never done before. It doesn't have to be big, you could just try a new cookie recipe or go on a jog (if the weather permits) on a route you've been on. Mix things up a little bit.

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."
-Helen Keller

Dear Boys,

 So one of my friends has a dear boys blog post on her blog every so often and I still don't think I've figured it out, but I'm going to see if this works. If not I'll ask about it later and just vent for now :)

Dear Prince Philip,

I will always be your Sleeping Beauty. It was so good to hear from you on Sunday. I hope you call again very soon, I've missed you tremendously.

Yours forever,

Al

Dear Dancing Cowboy,

Saturday is going to be interesting, but you seem nice enough so I'll give it a shot.

Sincerely,

Sorry but my heart belongs to another

Dear Friend's ex,

I told her that you asked for my number and everything is a-ok. I still feel like I need to tell you whats up though. 

Sincerely,

I still feel weird about this

Dear Past-Wardie-Crush,

Like I told Dancing Cowboy, my heart already belongs to another, but I think out of all the others you have the most potential. All I have to say though, is you have a lot to live up to if you want this chicka!

Sincerely,

It might be too late

Dear Gorgeous Blonde Aggies,

Why must you all have wives?! 

Love,

The girl that just checked out your left hand