365 days for you

In my last blog post I talked about enjoying, remembering and relishing the details of your life, this has become more and more real to me through out the summer, because the last year of my life has been one of the greatest blessings I have ever received.     Almost exactly one year ago today I was working in retail in a clothing store called DressBarn, contrary to how it sounds they actually have really cute clothes, and despite everything I did like work there. I also knew there was a lot missing in my life. I had fun coworkers, I had some awesome customers that I loved, but I felt pent up and frustrated a majority of the time.     I have always wanted to be a mother, I am LDS so a huge focus in culture and life is the family. I lived about 125 miles from my family and mostly just saw them over Holidays because I didn't have money for the travel back and forth, and I didn't want my parents to feel like they had to pay for the gas. I wasn't dating anybody or even gettin

    Over the years I tend to focus on lessons, they are reliable and through all the phases of life they are constant. The lessons themselves are not constantly the same, but they are constantly there. So it's an easy focus, it helps me feel like there is something semi controllable, I may not be able to control what happens around me, but I can control to some degree how much I learn from what happens.     So I never write about details in my blog, or journals really for that matter. If you searched my room you wouldn't really find a journal or anywhere that I write down the details of my life. There is not much to be found written about the places I have lived, where I work, or the people that are in my life. I don't ever talk about the men that have broken my heart, with one exception, when I felt that the lessons learned would be more beneficial to other if they knew the cause of the heart ache. There have been rare occasions when I have given insight on Health issues

" Forget what we're told, before we get to old Show me a garden that's bursting into life." ~Snow Patrol      When I was a young girl I remember looking out my bedroom window after a rainstorm at our backyard. It was always so beautiful; rain has a way of accenting color and bringing things to life. Everything always looked richer, the bark on the old apple tree has a deep reddish orange tint after rain, the grass was greener, and even the mountains and clouds in the background looked more brilliant.       There was something so calming in that sight to me; reassuring even. Knowing that after the hard rainstorms, the hailstorms, the thunder and lightening: knowing that after all of that nature could be resilient and beautiful. Maybe it was the knowledge that, that applied to our lives as well, that after the rainstorms your life could be brilliant.      Everyone has a garden, a garden full of hopes and dreams. Weeds of doubts fear and every manner of emotion. W

     I am a hopeless romantic, it's a true story. I love cheesy, but sincere lines, and old couples holding hands, happy endings and slow kisses in the rain. Once when I was about 14 years old my bishop called me up in fireside (probably about dating and relationships) and asked me to tell everybody what my ideal evening with my future spouse would be; he knew I was a hopeless romantic and for some reason thought I would give the perfect answer. I don't know if my answer really was that different than what any other girls would have been, but I do remember my answer.     I said my dream evening with my spouse would be going on a walk while holding hands. The years have changed me: I'm older, my priorities have changed, I'm a little less shallow, my perspective has changed, my faith has grown deeper, my heart has changed. This one thing about me has never changed, I am still a hopeless romantic. I have been warned to be careful and protect my heart, and to be wary. Hone

     What is in the search? What do we find in a search that we do not find in a search engine? The moments of stumbling across a truth you have needed for sometime yet have not known where to look. When you look something up you may find exactly what you wanted, but in not having to search you may never find what you needed. What do you gain in searching? Patience, truth, knowledge and excitement for finding more. In searching for truth in life you find an exuberance, an excitement for life that you may never find if you are just handed the truth; you may never see the beauty that can be found in the journey.

    "These are the times that try men's souls. Tyranny like hell is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain to cheap, we esteem to lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price on it's goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated."     -Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, 1776     Years ago a series of events played out in my life, not all pleasant; but required, I am convinced in the making of the person I am today.     About two and a half years ago, I was hanging out with some of my girl friends after a broadcast fireside one night. They were talking about men, as woman usually do, and their physical interactions with men; probably not with the respect that should be remembered in conversations with others. I was the innocent one in the group as I had never

    I recently saw the new movie Cinderella, a friend of mine had suggested a night out and really wanted to see it. I had seen the trailer and while I remember thinking I would be okay with going and seeing it, another part of me also thought, really do we not have enough Cinderella movies yet? Clearly not because this one had something I somehow had missed.     I cried, when I watched Cinderella for the first time, and in the week since it has been released I have gone back to see it again. Both times I cried, not because it was sad or because I am the type of girl to just bawl through chic flick romances. It was because in this telling of Cinderella I felt more personal understanding to the story than I had ever before felt in my life. Growing up people had always said out of all the Disney princesses I was most like Cinderella, which sadly was my least favorite Disney princess. There's nothing wrong with the original telling, I just never cared for it either, I didn't feel

    I want to start off with a story, once upon a time there was a man and a woman in a specific doctors waiting room, they had each been there several times before and many times with the same complaints and struggles. This time the doctor came out to the waiting room evaluated the two patients and looked them in the eyes. "Are you two still struggling with the same health challenges?" He asked in a calm but direct manner. They both nodded and he brought them both back to his room, he gave them both an identical bottle, with vitamin supplements meant for hormone balance.     "You both have come back several times complaining that I am not treating my patients equally, you are angry that I give different treatments to different patients although they sometimes appear to have quite similar problems. You two specifically struggle with similar problems and have been rather upset over my means of treatment."     "You have in your hands identical bottles of hormon

    "So wake me up when it's all over, when I am wiser and I'm older. All this time I was finding myself, and I didn't know I was lost." Avicii     Life has an interesting way of waking us up, waking us up to reality, up to better things, up to life, waking us up to a dream we never knew we had. Sometimes we live our lives in a fog, or mist of acceptance without ever stopping to wonder what else there is out there.     Lately my eyes have started opening to things I didn't know I was missing, I've started realizing that I am where I am in life right now because I'm afraid of most of the things I want. I've be running from things and wondering why things don't work out at the same time. Standing back looking at it, there is a lot that I have been running from, Gods plan for me, my capabilities, loving people, and believing in the power that my life (and living a righteous life) can have on those around me.     It's a big deal, realizing

    Well it has been a week and a half since I made the goal to redefine the way I look at myself and redefine the way I see beauty in people. The biggest perspective I wanted to change was the way I see myself.     What I have found is that in being more compassionate with yourself, you find more compassion for others. In trying to be more understanding of yourself you find more patience with others.      The way you view yourself is often reflected in the way you treat other people. When I have bad days and am filled with anger or frustration most of it can be boiled down to something I have done to make myself mad. Very little of the negative emotion that I feel really ever has to do with someone else, it usually is me.     We are the root and core to our own problems, that is consistent with every person to walk this earth, I feel very strongly that, that much is true. We decide whether the things surrounding us in life are problems or  progressions to something much greater tha

" Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth." -Rumi You will never figure out who you are if you are completely content believing everything everyone else has told you about life. You don't have to take everyone else's word for it. Live your own life, figure out what life means to you. Because other peoples definitions and stories are not enough for you to live life off of. Find your own beauty and your own inspiration, don't let others expectations and doubts limit your view of your life. Unfold life yourself. If you don't live your own experience in life you will never fully figure out who you are. This life is like a mystery for each of us to unfold, and we all have a different story with a different mystery to figure out. For a long time I haven't been sure of who I am, I felt like a lost child in a dark night. No matter where I looked I couldn't seem to find a clue of where to go, or who to be.

     On Monday I called up a very dear friend of mine and we chatted about some fond memories we had about life and fun times we had together. Of course conversation went as it usually does to current concerns and frustrations, and how sometimes in this life we are living we do not know how to approach living it. Sometimes my mind is blown because things lie before me that I desire and want so much in my life but have no idea how to approach embracing them in my life. Well what we both realized was that we both felt the same lack of understanding on how to invite into our lives the things that we want to most      I started to see a light turn on though, I have things in my life already that I want, I just don't know how to take them as my own. Its not a lack of what I want available in my life, its a lack of me taking, or taking opportunities. I saw that it was myself, not lack of opportunity holding me back. So therefore for things to change in my life and in my friends life we

When I was in high school, me and my group of friends used to look for any and every reason to make a wish on something, whether it was the typical shooting star, repeating numbers on a digital clock such as 11:11 or 10:10, the chain clasp on our necklaces slipping to the front, and all sorts of other random things. I think it's something that's easy to pick up on with all the Disney and chic-flic type movies that young girls see growing up. From Pinocchio, to Cinderella, to Freaky Friday, to the classic The Wizard of Oz there are a lot of films that have story lines built on wishes, and wishes coming true. Lets face it we all have wishes deep in our heart, or worn on our sleeves with the rest of our heart. Some of them are hidden so deep we sometimes don't even let ourselves think about them, and some of them shine in our eyes so obviously that anyone with any degree of insight will see them. Everyone has something that their heart aches at least a little ove