And... That's a Wrap!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

ok, so it is a little late, oh well.

I am no longer living with my family, officially on my own. And I have to say, coming up with productive things to do that are not homework is difficult! I feel like all I do is watch movies and tv shows. I am just about ready to stop that.

I have wanted, for quite a while now, to do things other than watch tv. If I stopped I would have so much more time and would get so many more things done! The thing is, TV is an excellent way to procrastinate. And the least boring way. 

But, perhaps if I come up with a different way to procrastinate, maybe read my scriptures, draw, go for a walk (in the freezing cold!) learn a new exercise. something. Anything really.

I did enjoy reading my readings when I got on the elliptical as well, reading while exercising seemed to work well for me! 

"They Cannot Fall"

I am so blessed.

My Father in Heaven keeps sending me blessings, left and right, up and down, sideways and crossways. Even diagonal.

I have a new plan that encompasses everything I have been wanting to do for the past few months. I have an interview for an additional job that I want. I will be starting a new chapter in my life.

Just when I was getting discouraged, starting to give up. And BAM!

Blessings!

With God all things are possible. I can do anything. Because I have God on my side.

27 And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.

Mark 10:27

 

Because what I am going to do, I cannot do on my own. I could try and fail.

Not with God.

 

12 And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind,  yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall. 

Helaman 5:12 

 

Cannot: to be unable to do otherwise than

If you follow Christ, there is no possible way that you can stray or fall away from the path. It is impossible. You CANNOT.

And so I will succeed.



“I’d much rather watch football than football.” -- Jarod Kintz

While I didn't wink at anyone (like I had promised) I did go to a Slip-n-Slide social for the institute on Saturday. I met my friend Miah there and we went down the slid a few times, which was awesome. Then played soccer.
Never before have I been that aggressive in any team sport I have ever played. And I had a BLAST! WE played for 2 hours! I did hurt my ankle, but it was so worth it!
I told Miah to let me know next time he has a co ed soccer game.
Speaking of Soccer, I am reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Hagrid was talking about Soccer. O_o He should be saying Football. I remember when the books were coming out, I had to wait a few extra weeks because they had to go through the book and change some of the words. Then a few years ago I read the British version Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, to me it just seemed more magical. I would love to read all of the books as they were written, none of the words changed.

I started watching Smallville again, picking up where I left off. I am starting to remember why I stopped watching. I have heard that the middle seasons 4 and 5 got a little raunchy. So far... I have heard correctly. I am going to have to start censoring my episodes I watch, reading the synopsis first and then either watching the episode or just sticking with the synopsis. Because some of these, don't seem to have any value to the story... *sigh* at least I have the ability to sensor them myself!

"You Are A Go Getter" "I Did Not Know That!"

I went to Institute last night with the intent of making some friends.

I left with a better picture of what I am doing in my life.

And what I need to keep doing. 

So I am going to be a little bit bored, hey, Jack, that never hurt anyone!

I can find ways to make life interesting til this stage is over. 

I can grow spiritually and mentally . I can improve myself as I work toward my ultimate goal  of:

No more Debt would be best. For everyone. 

But especially for me. 

But I guess,   no good deed goes unpunished. 

But I also need to remember: No good deed goes unblessed. 

God is more powerful than any debt collector. 

More powerful than a locomotive.

Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

And able to give second chances to everyone. 

Our God is a God of second chances. 

Tiptoe Higher

You know, doing things for other people just because you can, feels excellent. 

Sometimes the things people do disgust me.

You can find kindness in the oddest places. 

Drawing is amazing.

Today I feel Roman.

And Bored. 

I wish I lived next to a Forever 21. 

I want to play my Viola. 

And the Piano... and the Cello and my flute.

I want to live near  some friends that I can do things with all the time.

And not have it be just a one-sided friendship. Equal effort on both sides.

Maybe I will get that when Renee comes home. If I can convince her to come live with me!

Probably not.

Imagine Dragons is awesome.

My thoughts are disjointed.

But this is nice to just type what I am thinking without having to put it together.

I like having everything on the right side of the page.

Nice

Time for a nap. 

Hope Burns Bright!

The greatest enemy is not outside.

The greatest enemy is inside. 

The natural man.

Reminds me of a quote by Lemony Snicket.

Many old folktales portray Death as a cloaked figure who knocks on the doors of the souls he has come to whisk away, but that is not always the way of the world.  Sometimes Death may approach the door very slowly and very loudly, so that by the time he knocks everyone in the neighborhood is aware of his approach, or he may prefer to pick the lock of your kitchen until you stroll downstairs in your bathrobe and learn that he has been waiting for you, sitting in your favorite chair and rearranging your silverware when he got bored

Trouble and Death seem to have similar habits. 

Sometimes Trouble will march up,  one-man-band style, guns a blazing. 

Other times, he is a thief in the night, kidnapping all of the good luck that was waiting for you and taking it's place in a crude impersonation of something it can only aspire to be.  

Perhaps I  am thinking of this the wrong way,

Maybe  Trouble is a friend just trying to  give me a fighting chance.

But Death  and Trouble are different. 

Death is a release from this life and your path to the next, where we will get to be with God.

Trouble and Hope should be compared. Like twins, different sides of the same coin. 

Hope can brighten a day like  the first rays of sunshine in the morning. Where Trouble  can plunge everything into darkness, a cloud of ash trying to smother.

But , that same ash brings new life, sweeter life. As it sinks into the ground it become an excellent fertilizer for the hope that begins to break through the dirt.

Paint it Red. Paint it Blue

There are some things in my life that are there because they are convenient. I do them every day because that is what I have been doing and I am content to continue doing them. 

It is easy to not change.

But that doesn't necessarily mean it is right. 

Especially when I am feeling the way I am right now.

I need change in my life. 

I don't want things to stay the same.

I want a little mix up, and if it helps me get my loans paid off faster...

All in a days work.

Having loans is seriously the worst. I want them paid off as fast as I can, then my money I earn will be just that. MINE! 

There was a General Conference talk a while back that talked about debt being like prison. Recently that is all I can think of. How trapped I am because I owe money to someone else. 

There is only one way out that I can see. Pay it off. Do it now. As fast as I can!

If I make the change I am thinking of doing... well, maybe I can get it paid off faster!

Open To The Greatest Change

So far the plan seems to be:

"Stay put and do the same thing every day for the next year."

Well thanks, but that is what I did last year! I am not really looking forward to another year of the same thing every day.

So what am I going to do to shake it up?

Today I hoolahooped for 14:09.1 minutes. 

I have a goal to draw something every day. 

I am going to institute this week to meet some new people. 

I guess I have a discovered a weakness I have.

Well, yes, but in reality it is boredom. 

Being so incredibly bored and having no one around to break it up. No one around me to say 

"Hey, Jack! You're fine! Keep up the good work!"

I have myself. 

And to be honest, pep-talking yourself is no fun.

:P

But what I am feeling is more than boredom. 

My heart is broken.

Not by someone, just -- is.

I Know Where I've Been

I can safely say I have no idea where my life is going. 

Sure, I still have plans, and I am going to stick with them, but that doesn't mean things are going to go the way I plan. 

Probably not, actually.

And I am fine with that. 

My Father in Heaven will not let my life be limited by other people's choices. Perhaps plan A does not work out. He has a plan B, C, D, E, F, maybe even G. I am in good hands. 

A Day Like Any Other

The day started just like every other. Cold bus stop. Warm coat. Noisy bus. Crowded school. Comfortable classes. Great friends.
It was just a normal day for Clarissa.
That is until 7th period, when the events to change her life were set in motion.
Honors Science was the easiest class she and her friends had ever taken. Their teacher was more suited to teach elementary children than Jr. high schoolers. But no one minded the movies they watched or the pictures they drew, 7th period was fun!
Everyone knows that getting to leave class early is the best part of any day, and it is even better if you are authorized by the school to do it!
All the band kids in 7th period honors science left 10 minutes early so they could get to class on time. Walking together to the band room, friendships grew, bonds were made and life was good.
Esther, Alan, David, Hugo and Clarissa .
What a team they made.
"Can you believe we graduate 8th grade next month?" Esther exclaimed skipping backwards to talk to her friends.
"Yeah, then we won't have to walk to the high school anymore. We'll GO to high school!" Wide arms showed David's excitement at the prospect of high school.
"What classes are you taking, Clarissa?" Alan asked her.
"Well, I signed up for band, obviously." She waved her hand as if this were obvious.
"Really, I don't think I am going to play anymore."
"Oh!" A pout formed in Clarissa's lip."what if none of us have any classes together then!" She quickly forgot her pout as Esther pulled her forward to examine her new saxophone case.
"What if You and I don't have a class together." Alan said glumly to himself.

Good Morning!

Happiness, I have found, is not a matter of chance.

2 Nephi 2:25 - "Adam fell that men might be, men are that they might have joy."

Joy is not elusive, not in the slightest.
My friend and I have started a wellness program, of sorts. Once a week we plan out what we are going to do, in a general sense ( it is very open as life sometimes gets in the way). Here is ours.

3 goals a week: these should be something I have been wanting to do but have not found the time.

1 hour of something new: this can just be something different, and it needs to happen every day.

20 minutes of scripture study, meditation, and exercise.

3 conscience random acts of kindness: every day

1 positive journaling experience

1 note to someone thanking or praising them.

I have done all of these things in the past without realizing I was doing them, and it makes me so proud to realize with hindsight that I have been pursuing the same course for so long.

My God is wonderful, he has blessed me with this knowledge and the ability to see the silver lining on the storm clouds of the hurricane that has surrounded me and my family. He has given me some perspective. No matter what happens today, in 10 hours it will be time for dinner, in 14 hours time for bed and tomorrow at 6 I'll wake up tomorrow knowing I did my best today and I can do my best tomorrow.
You can only make a mistake once, the second time it is a choice.
Choose to be happy.
Find joy in the journey.

Oh yeah!

Joe and I finished Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief last night!

On to Sea of Monsters!

Goal: to finish before the movie comes out!

The Joys of Hospital Living

Wow... what a week.
Last week I was sick and stayed home from work for 3 days, then it was the weekend. Yay!
So I go back to work on Monday. It felt good be back into a regular schedule.  And then around 3 my mom sends me a text:

"Back in hospital going into surgery right away"

Great.
At first I thought she was joking, no such luck.

So after work I go in and stay the night, slept for 3 hours and watched George of the Jungle and started the 5 hour Pride and Prejudice. She almost fainted while going to the bathroom. Did you know you can fit 5 people into a bathroom? Well they can and thankfully that night she was made a priority, which was saying something as that floor was full of patients.  Rough night. 

Next Day:

The surgeon comes an puts an antibiotic into her sack around her lung through her chest tube. The purpose of this is to inflame the outside of the lung and the sack around the lung to create scar tissue that will act kind of like flue, keeping the lung open so it doesn't collapse anymore.  After 2 shots of morphine, toradol, and a numbing agents provided by the doctor, her pain, on a scale from 1 to 10, was a 20.... for 45 minutes straight then it slowly, ever so slowly, went down to an 8 over the next 4 hours. 

Longest 5 hours of my life. Before bed she did go on a walk, obviously feeling much better than a few hours before. Good news is that night we both got 8 hours of sleep and we had a SUPER nice (and cute) CNA named Trinity.

The 3rd day was pretty good, she was able to go to the bathroom by herself and she went on a a few walks. The Pulminologist did order a test, which she was super afraid of because the way he described it... well it was scary.
"We are going to blow albuterol directly into your lungs and inflate them as much as they can go." He told us.  "Will I need 1 or 2 shots of morphine?" My mother asked.
After pausing he answered "Anything we do right now is going to hurt."
Way to get her excited! *eyes roll*
She asked several nurses what it was going to feel like and the one who gave her a real and truthful answer, Matt, she didn't believe. Probably because he was the one who tricked her into walking ALL THE WAY to the window her first time staying in the hospital. ;) She finally did believe the nurse from respiratory who explained it like this: "First we are going to do a nebulizer, which just is an oxygenated form of albuterol to help your lungs function better. Then we will blow air into your lungs to expand then and you will suck in and then blow out, against the air that is blowing in." And that is exactly what happened. Thankfully that didn't hurt at all, in fact she said she felt extremely good after that, like she had just got off the tredmill. Now she just has to do that 4 times a day so her lung scars in the right places. 

Today her chest tube came out and she might be able to come home! I came home this morning and slept for a few hours then went grocery shopping.

She had an x-ray but they still don't know if she will be coming home tonight or not. 

I am glad my work is being so kind. They said I could take as much time as I needed. If she has to stay in the hospital, I'll probably sleep with her tonight and then go to work in the morning, if she comes home then I'll stay and take care of her. Last time she said home was a lot harder than the hospital because everything was so much farther away. 

Lisa (our Realtor) gave me a ride home today, she commented that someone my age shouldn't have to do what I am doing for my mom, at least not yet. But here I am, having done it 3 times in the last year. I think that is ok, life experience. I am glad I have the ability to be there for my family and to help them with what ever they need. 

Overall....

Today's adventures?

They consist of :

Doctor Who

Disapointment

Extreem temperatures

and

Pizza Rolls (which make me think of my friend Kaitlen)

Overall....

Not a day I would care to re-live (except for the Doctor Who and Pizza Rolls part)

Oh well.

A New day tomorrow!

Courage and Success

Success often requires courage. Courage often leads to success.

The problem is gaining the courage and deciding what exactly it is you want to be successful in.

This can be difficult. If everything you want to be successful in is put on a list and considered achievable, all at the same time, you will very quickly become overwhelmed. Or perhaps just whelmed. Either way you have a problem.

The solution is to pick one thing you need success in, one dream you want to follow, and to find the courage to take one step toward that dream. But don't stop there. After that first step the process becomes a tiny bit easier as well has harder. Now all you have to do is continue to walk forward with your end goal in mind.

Unfortunately, life is difficult and messy, and there is someone who does not want you to succeed in anything.

Your goal now has become two goals, two things on your list to accomplish.

1) keep walking to attain the end goal

2) keep walking despite the whelming urge to stop

As you walk toward your goal, it may become necessary to sprint a few stretches, just to kick start your courage again.

Our courage start us out on a path, then it tends to fade away. But every so often, at a checkpoint, we have to reignite it in order to continue on in our journey.

I recommend sprinting to the finish line. As soon as you can see the end, do everything possible in your power to get there as fast as you can.

Once you have passed that crucial line, achieved your goal, attained success... It is possible that nothing obvious will happen. No fanfare. No horn. No roaring crowd. But, that is not why you started out on this journey.

You began because you had a dream that you wanted to accomplish.

Along the way, you learned things about yourself that will help you for eternity. You became more of the person you want to be. You accomplished something for yourself.

You have success.

I will make you one promise.

When you reach a goal. You will be better. But, that is not the promise. When you cross that finish line, you may see no one there. You might not hear any cheering, but someone is there. His chest is swelling with pride at the thing you have accomplished. He is so happy for you he has tears running down his face.

This man is you Heavenly Father.

And he was with you every step of the way. Now that you have made it, he is the proud parent of a winner.

Melting

It is so HOT!

Literally.

Perhaps it was just because I was cleaning out the inside of the car.

Perhaps.

Well This is going to be a fun weekend!

And tomorrow I am going to wake up early to go running...

I do love running. It is the getting up part and getting ready I don't like.

guess I should take that to heart.

Wish me luck!

3

Buried Treasure

Day 2

I am going through the boxes of stuff that my grandma gave me.

Most of it I am so amazed that she would give it to me. So thankful that I will have a such beautiful things in my home.

And tucked in the actual treasures are some personal treasures. Like a small red glass bird. It sat on my grandma's piano. I remember looking at it as the sun hit it while my mom played the piano an grandma worked in the kitchen.

:)

I do wish I had someone to share these with. Soon enough.

A Good Thing

So I have this friend who is amazing. But I haven't talked to them in a while. But talk to them is the only thing I want to do. But then, like always, I over think things.

Lucky for me I have other good friends and I wrote in my journal a lot in high school!

I read some of my entry's to Cherstan and she loved everyone. Probably because the friend they were about is so amazing.

I need to be more observant.

Oh yeah, speaking of observant... Just found two bugs in my room. One of which was in my hair. Gross.

The Booger...

                           2 days?!?!?!?!

Time goes by so quickly! 

Life Changing Events....

Weird.

How cryptic. 

Don't worry.

Everything will happen as it should.

I'll keep you updated.

Everything Happens in August

Well... I can honestly say I have not felt this way since high school.

Seriously? Waking up at 5 instead of 6 and wondering why my alarm didn't go off. But I probably am more rested now than I would have been if I had stayed in bed and gone back to sleep. Funny how that works.

Tomorrow is August. Everything happens in August. Or at least it seems that way. And tomorrow it is finally here! To think I was counting down from 50 and now I am almost done!

It is amazing how time flies.

It never used to fly, it just went along, doing it's own thing, sometimes quickly sometimes so slow I thought I would die. But since my birthday, I feel time going, slipping by. I just want to be productive and make each moment count. That is probably why I get so frustrated with myself. I don't always participate in productive activities. Unless sitting on my bum watching the boob tube counts as productive ( it rarely does).

Since I'm up early I guess I could get my food ready for the day, very productive.

"Happiness is Two Kinds of Ice Cream"

How did my life get away from me and become so wonderful?

I don't deserve the happiness I feel.

Yet I have it.

It is mine.

And I am going to keep it!

I have had happiness before and here is what I have done with it:

- thrown it away

- taken it for granted

- gotten angry at it

- ignored it

- thought I was better than it.

A few times I have accepted it.

But today? Today is different.

Today I embrace it. I praise my happiness and the God who gave it to me!

Never again will I take the happiness given to me for granted.

Especially when I don't deserve it.

I am thankful for blessings.

I am thankful for knowledge.

I am thankful that I have the complete gospel of Jesus Christ in my life.

I am thankful for missionaries.

I am thankful for my friends.

I am thankful for my family.

I am thankful for my future family.

What are you thankful for?