Thankful

I'm really glad to be where I am in life. Like, really.

I think about where I would be if I had stayed in Kamas and had gone to the Wasatch Campus. 

All the people I never would have met, all the places I never would have gone. 

I think about what would have happened had I not met Kyle.

I'd be without a car a few times in the past, I'd be down a best friend, and I'd be who knows where with who know doing who knows what. 

Not to discount the people that have gotten married and are pregnant or any variation of the two, but I'm glad I'm not married. I'm REALLY glad I'm not pregnant at the moment. However, I hold people that are in the highest respect, they are a lot more mature than I am. That kind of commitment is something that I'm not ready for. Kudos to you for having the maturity level that apparently I lack. 

I'm glad life has taken me to where I am.

I like my house. I like my car. I like my roommates. I like my cat (most of the time.)

I'm really happy. I really like that I'm not married. I'm glad I'm with Kyle and I'm glad I know one of these days I'll be married to him, but right now it's not a big deal.

I'm glad that things haven't worked out to where we couldn't get engaged or anything soon. I wasn't ready for a long time to even think about being engaged. I'm still not quite there yet. I'm glad that things between the two of us have panned out the way they have.

I know that the Old Man upstairs has got a plan for me.

And I'm liking where he's going. He built me tough, so he knows I can handle anything he throws at me.

I'm also thankful in a way that it took me 3 years to figure out what I wanted to be when I grow up. 

Had it not worked out the way it did, I maybe never would have met Kyle.

Had I taken general classes in high school like everyone else, I might not be right here, right now, in this house, with a sleepy happy kitty on my lap.

Even the smallest change in the past could propel me in a completely different direction. Maybe it would be better than what I've got going on now. But then again, maybe it would be worse.

Who knows?

Who cares?!

I don't! 

If I had the opportunity to go back and say something, do something, go somewhere different, I wouldn't do it. Because life is awesome. 

And I'm happy right where I am.

Faith

I've been asked by quite a few people in my life if I was "A Member".. This, of course, meaning a member of the LDS Church.

No, I'm not.

Sometimes this results in the ending of conversation between me and the person that just asked me, as if I'm not good enough to speak with since I don't go to church.

Although I'm not "A Member" of any religion, I still like to think I've got a pretty good relationship with God.

I'd like to have a better one, but going about it down here is hard. I don't like the idea of church, I like the way I have a relationship with God. He gets me. If I go about saying I'd like to get to know God better, it's quite common for people of the predominant religion to start shoving the church down my throat, which is what has pushed me away even more so.

When I was younger I had a friend that was involved in the church, and I learned a lot of great things from her about what the church teaches.

A few of those things I took from the things she told me were: Dressing modestly, staying chaste until marriage, and praying.

I've taken those things to heart, and I still follow them.

I think that's why a lot of people are shocked when I say I'm not a member, those who truly know me best know that I'm not a member, but it's not something I walk around boasting. At least I don't think so.

One of the things that really turned me off to religion was when one of my friends' parents sent the missionaries over to my house to speak to my mom. They told her "I was headed down the wrong path" because I wasn't involved in any kind of religion. My mother was probably insulted by that, for I think she did a splendid job at raising me, and all by herself for that matter. I don't know what my mom said to those missionaries, but they never bothered us after that. That kind of hurt my feelings as well. It made me think that I was a "bad kid" sometimes. I didn't like the church from then on, I'm not sure why now that I think about it. It might have been because it offended my mom so badly, maybe I saw that it hurt her feelings and in turn made me angry. That was a long time ago, I don't really know what turned me.

My dad and his wife started getting more active in the church after they got married and when I would spend the weekends with them, on Sundays we would go to church. I remember feeling so out of place there. Everyone's eyes were on me. I didn't know where I was supposed to go for Sunday school and that made me feel out of place. I didn't know any of the songs that they would sing and that made me feel out of place too. I just didn't like being there because I felt so out of place. Perhaps that's what turned me off to the church as well.

However bitter I became (bitter for lack of a better word) toward the church, it never seemed to reflect upon my feelings towards God.

My mom was wonderful in teaching me about God. She's got a great relationship with Him and I know He loves her. My mom taught me that I could talk to God, he wouldn't "talk back" in the way a little girl would expect him to, but he would answer my prayers. I've learned to carry that through my life to this day as well. My mom taught me that he's always got our best interest at heart, even when we think our best interest is something entirely different. And most importantly, she taught me to stay positive and view all of the hard times as learning lessons, not as the world working against me. That's how I stay positive through all the bad times, however hard it may be, because I know he knows it's something I can handle. And I know it's going to teach me something that I need to know.

I don't want to sound in any way that the church is bad, or that the people in it are either. Some of my best friends are devout to the church and they are wonderful, caring, and loving people. There's the thorns in every group of people, doesn't matter if it's a politician, a parent, a next door neighbor, or any other person in the whole world. Some (as my friends' parents did, I'm sure) just have good intentions but don't realize it might hurt the other person's feelings.

Again, all learning lessons.

I still have my feelings toward the church and there are some things about it that I don't agree on. I won't go into depth about them, but they are the ones that have made me decide I don't want to be involved in the predominant religion out here. To each his own, I support those that are in the church and follow it very strongly. It's their belief and it makes them happy. That's fine with me, as long as it's not hurting anybody.

And again, my true friends will support me right back with my decision not to be involved in the church. They love me for who I am (you guys know who you are) and they're always there for me when I need them. Most importantly is that they love me.

I'm happy with my relationship with God. I know he loves me, I know he wants the best for me, and every day I try to get to be a little closer to being like him and his Son; Try to be more understanding, try to be more compassionate, more loving, and overall a better person.

Normalcy

I'm finally starting to feel normal again.

School started on Monday, and I'm actually glad to be back.

My classes are great!

This semester: ASL 2020 (The final ASL course I take before it's just straight up teaching things about ASL in ASL. No grammar, just history and facts)

I'm also taking ASL 3050, Linguistics of ASL. Pretty cool so far.

Race and Minorities (My final sociology class).

My teacher for the class is hilarious! He's Chinese and he makes really bad jokes. He thinks they're hilarious, and that makes him laugh, and I end up laughing at how hard he's laughing at his not really very funny jokes.

The best one I can remember from the first day of class was, "If you do not try in this class you will receive a 'wet' grade. Do you know what a 'wet' grade is?........ It's a grade below 'C' Level.".

Get it? He laughed so hard.

And finally, my Script and Text Analysis class.

It's going to be a really cool class. We got to decide how the class would be run, as far as attendance, late work, homework, cell phone policy, and other things that the teacher usually decides for ourselves.

It was really cool! And I'm super excited about the plays were' going to read this semester for it. My teacher's really cool.

Overall it's going to be a good semester, I think.

Another cool thing about school. In total, I spent probably $71 total on textbooks.

How many books did I buy for that price? 6.

I feel cool.

If you guys need a good website for textbooks, go to bigwords.com. You won't be disappointed.

In other news,

I got my car payment switched over to one payment a month instead of two, which gives me a little more money in my first paycheck of the month.

Zumba makes me really happy, and I feel so much better after I go. I feel like my mood has improved quite a bit since I started.

Samson's hair is starting to grow back more so, he's got about 1/2 an inch or so of hair.

He still looks pretty weird, but not nearly as weird as he did when he first came home.

He's less snuggly than he was when he came home from the vet. I think the biggest reason he was so snuggly was because he was cold and I was warm,but I cherished it nonetheless.

I'm thinking within a month his hair should be back to normal.

So yeah. Probably not the most exciting post in the world.

But at least things are back to normal.

And that's the best thing in the world to me right now.

And Finally...

We have some peace back in my life.
School starts on Monday (EEK!)
The house is back to normal, and very clean.
The fleas are gone and will NEVER come back again.
Christmas is over, and the holidays were wonderful.
Now we just get back to life, and so far 2012 is being good to me.
I actually had enough money in my account to go grocery shopping for the first time in 3 months.
Don't panic, I wasn't not eating.
Thankfully Kyle's mom has had too much food that she's been getting from the LDS food store, so what doesn't fit in her house makes its way over to ours. And we're very thankful for it. Very, very thankful.
I got a crockpot for Christmas, which I'm pretty excited about. I HATE to cook, but if a slow cooker is going to do the work for me while I'm at work/school, I'm down.
So I've been making crockpot dinners, it's cheap, and I don't have to do a whole lot to make dinner and lunch for like 5 days. Ultimate win!
I've started taking Zumba classes.
I really enjoy them.
I miss dancing a lot, and I did it until I was in 9th grade.
So now I go to Zumba and get to dance as much as I want a week for $25 a month.
Jordyn introduced me to it and I love it.
It feels good to have an out now.
My biggest love (aside from Kyle and Samson) is theatre.
But since I've got to make work a priority, I haven't been able to do much theatre since summer of 2009. I miss it a whole lot, but I've got a great job and I understand that sometimes you have to make sacrifices now to get what you want later.
I've set a goal for myself to do at least one play at UVU before I graduate. I'm not worried.
But since Zumba fits into my schedule so well, I can do it on the weeknights! And I love that. (:
I feel like I've got more of a hobby now, whereas my hobby over the last little while has just been making cloth bracelets. Which are cute, but they get a little monotonous after a while.
Mostly it just feels good to have life be back to "normal". Whatever that means.
It's been a really challenging last 2 months.
But I ate a lot of black-eyed peas for good luck this year.
So I'm going into 2012 with my head held high.