Working on me

The start of school always causes me to do a little self reflection. Sometimes I don't even want to think about all the things I need to work on, but with a new beginning, I can't help it. One of my favorite classes this semester is a class that teaches me how to teach writing to elementary school kids. I love to write, and I actually write every single day but my professor challenged us to follow 7 rules as we write.

Rule #1: Keep your hand (or your fingers) moving.

Rule #2: Lose control

Rule #3: Be specific

Rule #4: Don't think

Rule #5: Don't worry about punctuation, spelling, grammar

Rule #6: You are free to write the worst junk in America

Rule #7: Go for the jugular

I love my professor! Obviously, these are rules for just free writing, but if you follow them, they make such a difference. So, that's what I'm going to do with this post. I'm going write whatever is in my head. Sorry if it doesn't make sense, sorry if it's the worst junk in America, sorry if it's boring....feel free to stop reading if it is....

Happies:

-Believe it or not, I LOVE school this semester. My professors are great, the classes are actually interesting and useful. I'm pretty sure this is the first semester of my college career that I've enjoyed every single class...it's pretty great.

-There was a talk in sacrament meeting this past week that talked about studying the scriptures and I've been trying to get better at that. I usually just read them and I always get something out of the time that I spend doing that, but Sunday evening I was looking back through some of the things that I wrote down at church and I decided that I was really going to STUDY. So I started with a prayer and did my best, and it was AMAZING. That's all I have to say about that. :)

-My sister is getting married in 45 days! It's pretty exciting. Speaking of my sister, I saved a pretty good bit of money at Target today thanks to her.

-I get to babysit Caiden on Friday. I haven't seen him in so long. It actually hasn't been that long, but it feels like it's been forever. I miss little Caidy-butt.

-I have a really cute apartment thanks to Rebecca.

-Willie has been gone for a year...well, actually just 11 months, but that's close enough.

-There are more happies, I just can't think of them right now.

Crappies:

-I'm really bad at parking my car, and backing it up.

-On Monday's I'm in class for 9 hours.

-I can't find a good planner anywhere. I'm so lost without one.

-Thankfully, I don't have very many crappies.

So let's go back to the whole, Willie's almost been gone for a year thing. That's crazy! I can't believe how fast time has gone. He LOVES everything about what he is doing. He's still in his second area, he has been there FOR-EV-ER. I guess it's a good thing he likes it. His birthday is coming up and I have NO IDEA what to get him....no idea. Seriously, I got nothing. I think my favorite thing about this whole experience is reading his letters and e-mails and seeing how much he has changed and how much his testimony has grown. It's not very often that a person changes that drastically in such a short time, and I know that I definitely haven't. I have a lot to work on, lots of thing to improve. But that's what so great about this life, we have so many opportunities to change and grow and become better. We don't have to do it all in one day, or one year, it's just a constant tiny change from day to day. Trying to do better....that's all we have to do. It's pretty cool to think about.

That's all. If anyone made it this far, I apologize, because this probably was the worst junk in America. But I don't care :)

Carly's Bridal Shower

This past Saturday morning, Haley and I threw Carly a family bridal shower at our house. Before Aunt Judy left, she made sure that I would post pictures so that you could see them Laura, so this is for you. Enjoy :-)

The gift table with cute pictures of the future Mr. and Mrs.

The cake. I decorated this one, Haley decorated one that looked like a tux, but I accidentally deleted it and it takes forever to load pictures. But it was REALLY cute!

Grandmother Holmes and Aunt Jill

Rebecca and Carly

Carly and Grandmother Holmes, trying to figure out where in the world she was. :)

Grandmommy, Grandmother Holmes, Aunt Judy and Carly

Jenny, Aunt Judy, Carly and Grandmother Holmes

Grandmommy was trying to keep Campbell occupied...it was really funny.

Aunt Judy and Jill, during one of the games

The beautiful quilt from Jenny

My Aunt Angela got Carly cleaning supplies, an ironing board, and a cleaning uniform. haha.

Candle holders.

Cute wall art.

Can't remember who this was from...but it made Carly a little bit uncomfortable.

Silverware!

Vicki, gave Carly a bunch of chocolate...including syrup.

And now, it gets really embarrassing, thanks to Rebecca Hilton.

I think all of this speaks for itself.

It was hilarious to watch her open this.

It gets better...

More syrup.

Red Bull.

Yeah.

So funny.

The shower turned out great. We definitely have good pictures and good memories. Hope you enjoyed it....we wish you could have been here Laura!

Caiden :)

Caiden is getting so big. It's crazy how fast he is growing! These are some pictures that I took of him a few days ago, which are pretty cute if I do say so myself :-).

My poor little car...

What a sad day...at least no one was hurt! Except for my little car, bless it's heart.

Count your many blessings...

What a weekend. Isn't it funny how you don't really realize how blessed you truly are until something not so good happens. Well, that's what happened this weekend for me....

Friday: I worked and rode down to the temple with Brandon. We got there early so we went to the bookstore, and I bought two books that I'm really excited to read. The temple was great as always. So, that was a great day.

Saturday: I woke up early for the day of service. I had to give the sisters and elders a ride and after being lost in Concord for about 30 minutes, we finally made it there. We worked hard to clean up school grounds and it was actually a lot of fun. Later that day we got to go back to Columbia to hear Elder Anderson speak. I drove down with Rebecca, and Brandon and that was fun all on it's own. :) We listened to Elder Anderson speak and it was amazing. It's so neat to see an apostle in such a personal setting and really get to see his personality. He was so funny! So that was amazing...we even got to shake his hand and talk with him for about 5 seconds each...so cool! THEN....on the way home (long story short) I got in a wreck :( It was so scary. I've never gotten a ticket, or even been pulled over...so much for that. So, not surprisingly, I had no idea what to do. Thank goodness for my friends. Brandon Pace is a lifesaver! He was sitting right behind me and I guess he saw it coming and he grabbed my shoulders and kept me from hitting the airbag. He went and checked on the guy we hit (who was fine...and very nice), he somehow made me stop crying, he made me laugh a couple times, he talked to the cops and firefighters and rescue people, he talked to the guy in the gas station where we had to leave my car, he talked to my parents. He did everything. Thank goodness he was with me. And Donald gave us all a ride back to Charlotte...he's the man. So everything turned out fine. No one was hurt!! We were all very blessed.

Sunday: We had ward conference and it was so good. I love having all the Stake leaders come, they are awesome. Bishop was conducting sacrament meeting and announced to everyone about my wreck which was rather embarrassing. :) All of the talks and lessons were really great! Jenny taught Relief Society and it was amazing...she said exactly what I need to hear. I love her! After church Jake took me home (thanks Jake!) and as soon as I got there I got a call from my Grandpa who said he had picked up my car earlier and was coming through Charlotte on his way home...so I got to come home and see my family! :)

Like I said...what a weekend.

After everything that happened I feel overwhelmingly blessed. I'm thankful for:

-Being safe

-My family

-Brandon

-Rebecca

-Jay

-Heather

-Tyra

-Jamie

-Donald

-Carly

-Jake

-The guy we hit...he was probably the nicest person I've met in a long time.

-All of the firefighters and rescue people were great!

-My parents!!

-hugs

-hearing an apostle!

-being able to go to the temple

-ward conference

-My Grandpa

-the list goes on and on and on...

-I am sooooooo blessed-

Maybe one day

You would figure that eventually I would learn my lesson about putting things off until the very, very last minute...newsflash...I won't, at least I haven't yet. This past Thursday night I made a list of all the things that I had to get done, homework, project, lesson plans, studying, activities, all of that stuff. My plan was to get all of my homework done on Friday so I wouldn't have to worry about it the rest of the weekend. Surprise, surprise, it didn't happen. It didn'thappen on Saturday either, or Sunday, or most of the day Monday. I got home from class last night at 8:45 and decided that since I had a lesson plan and a clinical report due today and a final exam on top of that, I should probably get started.

I finished my clinical report in about an hour, which wasn't too bad, but then I had to start my lessosn plan which was another story. I was stuck! I called my mom around 11 and she helped out a lot...thank goodness. So I worked on that for a while, but still didn't finish. I decided that since I had a final exam before the lesson plan was due, that it was probably a good time to start studying. Well, that lasted all of 30 minutes and then I couldn't stay awake, so around 2 I went to bed.

This morning my alarm clock went off way to early. I had to take a quick shower, submit my clinical report, sign up for seminars for a summer enrichment program that I'm going to, and hopefully study sometime in between there before my exam at 11. Thankfully, it all worked out and somehow I got it all done. Now I usually don't get stressed about anything, but this morning was a different story. You would figure that eventually I would stop doing this to myself. Maybe one day :)

he took it well

I got a letter back from Willie today and thankfully he took my little joke pretty well. When I started reading the letter I wasn't even sure if he had gotten it because he didn't mention anything about it and then all of the sudden he said...

"Ok, so your little april fools joke...NOT FUNNY!! haha, that was a good one. Just so you know I had tears in my eyes while I read it until the very end. I'm still shaking right now. That was a good one. My companion really like it. I'll admit, it was pretty funny...just don't ever do it again!"