Feel Good Music

I was reading Tid Bits of Liv today and she had posted a video by Robert & The Carrolls I was quite impressed with their music so I clicked on their Youtube channel and found this beautiful video. I can't stop playing it! Hope you enjoy!

Finding Who I Am

The last month I have searched long and hard at who I really am. For so long I have felt at a loss to who I really am and I felt I needed to take a period of time to {re}find myself. I have come up with a list in that time that I would like to share with you.

First and foremost:  I am a Daughter of God.

                   I am the kind of girl who...

• puts 210% of my energy into each and every person I meet. No matter how exhausting it may seem, it's the only thing that makes me the happiest is when I am able to help people to the very best of my abilities.

• dances all the time, anytime. Down the stairs, across the floor, in a grocery store or at a mall.

• sings in the car, at the top of my lungs, when no one else is in the car with me or with eight people jammed into my car-- it doesn't matter.

• can't just simply describe something to someone, I have to make sure that when I talk to someone they see exactly what I see in my head. Lots of descriptors :)

• really loves food and creating new dishes. I cook, I bake, I create and I love catering! I have always wanted to open a little suave cafe full of delicious affordable and extremely healthy dishes that are drool worthy.

• loves to read. I always have a book in my purse, backpack, bag, etc! I can never leave the house without one. For any of you asking what kinds I like, my top three are: Fantasy/Fiction, Murder Mystery/Crime Fiction, Holocaust type stories. Wow... You guys probably think I am really dark or depressing ahaha I promise I'm not, they are just the ones that I feel so intrigued and drawn into.

• takes "way to many" (as my sisters point out) pictures. They always ask, "ughhhh... you aren't putting that on instagram are you??" haha I reply with a very defensive,"NO. It's for my blog sillies!"

• never posts anything (or at least feels that way) on my blog but ALWAYS thinks of things I can write about. Sorry, I really do try!

• seems to have this very "confident" air about myself which makes people think I want to be alone all the time when in actuality I hate being left alone.

• (as hard as it is to admit) is a perfectionist. I get it from my beautiful mother :)

• loves beyond anything else, to travel. I dream big on this one and hope one day I will be able to get to see all of it! I love culture, different foods/smells, sightseeing, languages and people.

• isn't phased by dead animals (I cry over them but I'm not creeped out) but can't bring myself to go into a room if there is a spider in it, *forever haunted by spiders, creepy little buggers.*

• can't decide if I want to go into (1)English Creative Writing, (2)Psychology/Sociology, (3)Culinary Arts, or (4)Forensics/Criminology Anthropology. Yup, four very different areas and I want to do them all. I might be in school for a very looooong time :D

• openly admits to being weird. I accepted that fact a very long time ago. The only way to survive sanity it to accept it! Normal people don't know what they are missing out on.

• always writing down things in notebooks. I have the memory of Dory the Fish from the Disney  movie Finding Nemo. Yup, it's that short.

• knows every song title, artist name, movie title/plot. I can tell you what movies an actor has been in as well as what actors are in a movie. I am a walking encyclopedia when it comes to stuff like that.

• loves finding really big fun words. Every time I don't know what a word means, I write it down and look it up!

• loves fall and everything about it. The crackling fires, falling leaves, smore's, pumpkin spice hot cocoa and the heightened thankful feeling that hangs in the autumn air.

• switches from my American to British accent without realizing it and half the time uses American Sign Language, French, Spanish, German, Chinese and Italian interchangeably with my English. *I'm not fluent in any (pretty close in ASL) but english, so no need to ask, I just LOVE language and have picked up a little of each.

• always has music playing. When I'm driving, dancing, cleaning the kitchen, cooking, doing homework, running, or just sitting.

• loves my family, friends, and every person I have had the pleasure of coming into contact with. Those that support me in all my endeavors. I can't thank you enough!

This isn't all that I am, but it's a pretty good list to a glimpse of who I really am. We are always changing and sometimes I feel we don't look and say "is this me?" If we don't every once in a while, we can lose ourselves. 

One thing I will always know about myself is that I can always know who I am through Christ. I am grateful for the knowledge of Him and His love for me. He is always there, wanting the best for me and believing in the potential He gave to me as I came to this earth to live in mortality.

Confession Time *Continued*

PICTURES!

Moving is such messy business!

Skiing Time. Such a gorgeous day!

The process of making Nate's birthday popup card (mind you, this was at 11:30pm)

Nathan's birthday gift. A 250 page book of handwritten uplifting and inspirational quotes. It took me 23 and a half hours of writing to get it done in time to send it to him for his birthday. It takes 3 weeks to get to Brazil. SO annoying, but the letters are well worth it!

(It's the same size as my hand!!)

I am addicted to sugar, I'm not kidding. If there was rehab for choc-o-halics I would be the first to be admitted. It's bad. So my family has this rule where we can have one treat on Sunday evening and the rest of the week is sugar free. For over 2 weeks I have been telling my parents how much I am craving smore's (on a constant basis). They got fed up with how often I talked about them that they made me one and made me eat it. OOH so good!! hehe I feel bad but I liked the smore to care too much :) *I need serious help, though, not kidding whatsoever*

On My Mind: Confession Time

I don't know how many times you have to apologize for not writing often but I definitely couldn't count the times on my hands and feet, but I really do regret everyday that passes without me writing on my blog. I think about all the things that I could tell you guys (if anyone actually reads these) but in a strange sense I'm afraid of what I should write and I end up not writing anything. It's the troubling thing about being a perfectionist and a writer, you want only the best of your writing to be presented, it's a terrible flaw of mine. The time I have spent away from my blog, has helped me rediscover myself and the reasons why I started this blog in the first place.

In all honesty, because we're honest here, I haven't been writing very well lately because I have started to care more about what people would like me to write instead of writing stuff for myself. This brings me to believing I have realized yet another flaw I have (which can sometimes be good and sometimes really bad) which is that I have a great tendency to put everyone and their needs in front of mine until I forget I personally even exist. I work so hard to keep everyone else happy that when everyone is fine and I have time to see where I need improvement, I get stuck in a downward spiral. It's not fun, I know now that I need to practice balance and that everyone needs their "me" time. In relation to my blog, that is exactly what I have done to my writing. I have put other people's opinions about me before myself and I have built walls around me and that scares me.

I feel I'm gradually coming out of it but life is a constant process. We all have days that aren't so great, but if we are able to learn to always be happy and know that we are extremely blessed, even the worst days can't be ruined. A lesson I learned today. Many things went wrong this week, especially at work. There were days where I felt I completely failed. At everything. But I kept going, even when I wanted to run out crying, I stayed. I picked my broken pieces up and carried on and today I looked back at it all and realized I had smiled through all of it , and it made me glad. Life is a way of refining what we have been given because we are stronger than we seem, and smarter than we look.

..............................

A lot has happened since my last post. I moved back into my parents home in Alpine from Provo, I won't say too much about the sitution other than it was really rough on me and it made more sense to move back until I go back to BYU-I for my final semester before I leave on my mission. Which reminds me I am finishing my mission papers this weekend and the Stake President will send them in March 27th!! I was able to go skiing with one of my best friends, Adrianne (I had the opportunity to teach her how to ski, she did an amazing job!) and she leaves for the MTC on March 20th, serving in the Italy Milan mission-- SO PROUD! I sent off a birthday gift to my really good friend Nathan who is serving in Brazil. The project was really intense and my hand will basically be crippled for the rest of my life with how much handwriting and scissor use went into it but I am so excited for him to receive it on his birthday on March 25th. It's actually been really fun since I have moved back. I love my family, they are my best friends, my counselors, my protectors, my court jesters, and most importantly the greatest people I could be blessed to spend eternity with. I hope your week has been wonderful and your weekend even better. I'm off to sleep now with the intention of waking up on a Saturday morning at 5 to go running and then off to Rexburg for the day to show Shaelie a few apartments so she can choose where she is living next Fall :) 

P.s. She's all grown up *tear*, I'm so proud of her *sigh*, she a beauty and a champ *hooray*!

It's March Already?

Spring is around the corner and I honestly cannot believe that it is already March. I can't even tell you how fast time has come and gone. I still am trying to grasp onto the time that has just flown by. But I can't wait for what the rest of my today's hold. My advice, don't take the time you have right now for granted, it may be all you have left. Also, believe in yourself, no one holds your happiness other than yourself. Smile, dance, laugh, and love what you are given!

Till next time! Loves and hugs!

Fortune Cookies

I believe in fortune cookies. Sometimes they tell you what you need to hear at just the right moment. That is why I believe in them. This past week I actually received two of them and both held answers and comforts that no one else would have known I would have needed to hear.

The first was on tuesday after I had come out of my Chiropractor's office:

"You will obtain your goal if you maintain your course."

The second was with my family at dinner on Valentine's Day:

"People find it difficult to resist your persuasive manner."

I don't know about you but I connected the two to my mission. Have I mentioned I'm going on a mission? Hopefully I haven't or I'm going to start sounding like a broken record. But, I most definitely am going on a mission.

I've known for a long time that I would be going. But being the eldest daughter of a family of girls, it's taken a lot of convincing to get my parents on board. And even now they still don't really want to let go. My mom actually expressed to me that the only reason why she "seems" to be okay with it is because she knows that this is a decision that can not be deterred. I have prayed to my Father in Heaven long and hard about the decision and with everything that I have gone through in the last year, it seemed like the perfect thing to do. A mission change had quite impeccable timing in my book.

I would love if you would follow my mission blog that I've made. But you don't need to-- it just will have all my updates while I'm out serving during those 18 months.

Mission blog: http://mymissionisnow.blogspot.com  (Dear Sister Wood)

There is also a link in my side bar under "My Other Blogs" if you want to find my mission blog 6 months from now or whenever :)

How I (single) feel on V.Day

The Saturday Six

Last thing you listened to:

Try- Jillian Edwards

Her voice is so sweet and the lyrics are wonderful. A new favorite.

~What are the words, all the words that you're saying
I wish I knew all the prayers that you're praying
Everywhere you go I wish, That I could stand next to you~






Latest blog you've found:

M A I E D A E - Savannah K. Wallace

I LOVE her stuff, She's a graphic designer and blogger. I love the personality that comes out of her writing and she has some really inspiring stuff there. You should check her out.

I don't even know how I found her website but I'm definitely glad I tripped over it because it's so good.











Last movie you watched:

Beware of Christians- Documentary

I was pretty skeptical going into this, not really knowing what this was about and came out not only wanting to be a better Mormon but a better Christian.

A four Christian college boys take spiritual and physical journey across Europe, searching for the true meaning of what being a true Christian is. They ask people different topics about the lifestyle and religious beliefs of Christians where ever they go. It was actually inspiring. You might find it a little weird, but by the end, it's worth watching. If you have Netflix, go watch it. Right now.






This week's favorite quote:

~You must learn a new way to think before you can master a new way to be.~

Marianne Williamson

Last thing you read:

Book of Mormon: 1 Nephi 5-7

I started the Book of Mormon over again and I just love it!

These chapters talked about how there was complaining and rebelling and yet Nephi  and Lehi were faithful and how the Lord was present and blessed them with safety.

It just shows me how much the Lord can do for us if we stay faithful and obedient to him.

~...the Lord is able to do all things according to his will.... if it  so be that they exercise faith in him.... let us be faithful.~ 

1 Nephi 7:12

One wish I have:

REALLY LONG HAIR. yep.

The Saturday Six: On Sunday