My Amazing, Brilliant, Awesome Idea!

Hello everybody. Sheesh, it feels like I've blogged a lot in the last couple of weeks, doesn't it? You guys aren't really that interested in my life, are you? Or are you stalkers? Haha. Either way I don't care as long as someone ends up reading this.

So, my amazing, brilliant, awesome idea! It's probably not really that amazing or brilliant, but I think it's pretty awesome. Lately I've been feeling kind of overwhelmed. Lots of you probably know how I've been struggling trying to figure out what to major in and what to do with my life. When I lay down at night I can't help but think about all the things I should have done during the day or things I should have done differently. When I think about all my flaws and things I want to become better at or things I want to change I get pretty discouraged. For reason, I feel like I have to change all those things at once, become better at once. But I realize that's unrealistic. So, in comes my idea.

I'm calling it the 12 month challenge. Basically I'm going to pick one goal to work on every month and focus only on that one thing. This way I'm not feeling horrible for not being able to change and accomplish everything I want to at once. I heard somewhere that it takes three weeks to make something a habit. I figure that by working on one thing for a month and making it a habit, I'll have a better chance of keeping it in the long term. Then I can build and work on another thing for another month and before you know it I'll have changed the things I want!

Does that make any sense at all? It makes sense to me, which I guess is all that really matters. Haha! ;)

So here's the plan. I came up with 10 things I want to work on improving. "But," you say, "That leaves 2 empty months in your 12 month plan!" Why yes my blogging compadres, yes it does. Those 2 extra months are my spillover. There are just some things on my list that I want to spend more than a month working on to get into the habit. And some of the things I think will be hard to accomplish in one month. Hence, the extra 2 months.

That's another good thing about this plan. It could be a 6 month plan, or 3 month plan, or whatever you wanted depending on how many goals you have and how long you want to spend working on it. I'm being ambiitious and picked 10. :)

What? You say you want to know what my goals are? Well, I was getting to that part! Maybe patience should be on your goal list. ;) Haha. I'm just kidding. Here's my list and the months I plan on working on that goal.

-May/June: Being Healthier (I've already started on this one and it's going great. I'm running on the treadmill three times a week and watching what I eat. Yay!)
-July: Morning and evening prayers(I will of course be doing my best to remember my morning and evening prayers before July, but in July I will be focusing and making it a point to say my prayers every day.)
-August: Early to bed, early to rise. (I'm excited for this one because by waking up early I can do a lot of my goals in the morning before school, work, etc. It'll make it easier to do everything.)
-September: Read the whole Book of Mormon (Maybe this is a little ambitious, but I've heard stories of people reading the Book of Mormon in one night. I can do it in one month.)
-October: Being more outgoing(I'm not a social butterfly, but I want to meet more people and make more friends.)
-November: Read the Doctrine and Covenants and the latest general conference issue of the Ensign
-December: Read the whole New Testament (This might be a lot ambitious. But I can do it!)
-January: Be more helpful (My mom will like this one. ;)
-February/March: Read the whole Old Testament (I've never done this, but I really want to. There are so many great stories and examples in the Old Testament for me to learn from.)
-April: Being cleaner (My room will no longer look like a dumping ground. Haha. My mom will like this one too.)

So, that's my plan for the next year. I'm very excited because by breaking it up it makes everything so much more doable! I'll keep the blog updated on my progress. And when I'm not working on my goals I'll be going to school, working, or writing.

Speaking of writing, it's been a while since I said anything about that on here, hasn't it? I guess there was the writers conference in April, but that was like a month ago. There's another conference I'm going to in June. It's actually up at Weber State and is called "The Teen Writers Conference." I wish I would have heard about this sooner. Since I'm 19 I was just barely eligible to go. So it will be my first and last year. I'm excited to go though.

I've been working a lot on Light vs. Dark. Also, I got a new story outlined and am excited to work on it. I'm trying to force myself to do edits on The Elements. But editing is no fun and I have a lot of work to do on that story before it's ready to send out to publishers. I suppose maybe The Elements can be my next 12 month challenge. Haha! ;)

So yeah. That's about all I've got. I am making some headway on deciding what to major in. And just between you and me, I'm leaning towards the English Teaching major. But more on that at a later time. :)

St. George

Hi all! It's been kind of a crazy week (I worked every day this week at work, one day from 9-7:30), but as promised here is a post on my trip to St. George! :)

I went to St. George with my friends Ashley and Megan. We had a sleepover on Tuesday night and giggled over goats and other funny things before going to bed. Then we left Wednesday at about 9 in the morning to go to St. George.

Megan was very brave and drove.



Ashley and I were very brave and were passengers.


(P.S. I'm just kidding. Megan is a great driver.)

So, after about 5 hours on the road and a quick stop in Beaver to say hello to Ashley's grandma Gater (who was nice and took us out to lunch) we arrived at our hotel.

We were exhausted.



The next day we went to lunch with my Mom and Sister who were down in St. George with my Dad for a treasurer's conference. After that we headed for the outlet stores. :)



We found the chocolate store. I was very excited. Haha! ;)



We also found this cool store called Del Sol. Everything they sell changes colors in the sun. I got a necklace and a headband.



After shopping we went and took a tour of the St. George Tabernacle. Where we posed out front, pretended to speak at the pulpit, and where I pretended to play the organ! (P.S. I really can play the organ and Allison says if I'd asked they would have let me play it for realsies.)







After our tour we walked across the street to this cute little store called Judd's where they sell all kinds of old fashioned candy and pop.



Megan and I used our bottles of Fanta to harmonize. :)



So, refreshed from our yummy drinks we went and took a tour of Brigham Young's winter home.



The grounds were in bloom and we found this cute arch, so of course we had to take a picture. :)



After Brigham Young's house we were all pretty tired from our exciting day. So we went back to the hotel and watched family feud and NCIS and other awesome shows!

The next day we went to the St. George temple to do baptisms for the dead. It's been a long time since I've gotten to do baptisms and go to the temple, so it was so nice to be able to go with my friends. It was so peaceful and calming. I love the temple. :)





After baptisms we spent most of the day in the hotel. But we did leave long enough to grab some In-N-Out burger. Megan was excited because she was the only one who'd ever eaten there before. I was excited because there were cute boys working in the kitchen. Haha. We'd been on the lookout for boys and hadn't seen any until In-N-Out. :D



That night we swam in the pool, which we later realized was very, very chlorinated and killed our hair. But we got some fun pics.



The next day we left for home, but of course we had to stop by Judd's for one last soda.



After I took that picture I accidentaly deleted all of the pictures off of my camera. Yeah. It was not so fun. I felt like crying because ALL the pictures of St. George and my writer's conference were gone. But when we got home (thanks to google and a program called Art Plus Digital Photo Recovery 3.1)I was able to recover all of the pictures. Phew!

So, that is my trip to St. George in a nutshell. Did anybody actually end up making it this far in reading? Haha.

But stay tuned because in my next post I reveal my amazing, fantastic idea! :D

Amazing Tea Party Birthday Surprise

Hi everyone! I know I promised this post a few weeks ago, and now I'm really behind on telling you all about my exciting (ahem) life!. ;)

So, birthday party. Since I was out of town on my real birthday, my friends threw me a special party the weekend after.

First they blindfolded me.



While blindfolded I attempted to take pictures. . .



Then, after getting some help out of the car and up some stairs I walked into this:



It was a Princess-themed Tea Party! My friends are great. :D



Everything was miniaturized.



Then I opened presents. My friends spoil me so much. Here are just a few of the amazing presents I got.







My friends said I was really easy to shop for since I just like toys and sparkly things. I'm really a 7 year old trapped in a 19 year olds body.

Then I insisted on some group photos, since I don't think there are enough of the four of us together.



And since it was a princess party (and we are, of course, princesses) we had to swoon.



After our swooning and pretty picture taking was done we watched a movie. I chose Beauty and the Beast, since that's one of my favorite Disney movies of all time. Overall it was a really great birthday party with really great friends. :)

In my next post: St. George!

In my next to next post: My amazing, brilliant, awesome idea!

Stay tuned! :)