Cuddle Weather

When you're sick, just walking across the room wears you out. Thank goodness for my little cuddle bug. She's a good friend to have around when it starts getting cold outside. We like to nap while we watch Big Bang Theory reruns together. It's bonding time. 

Hello, Autumn!

Two days ago, I was admiring the pouring rain as it fell outside of my car. I turned on some tunes, grabbed a hoodie, and just enjoyed the beautiful view as I drove to school. 

On my way home, the rain had stopped, and it had warmed up to a beautiful temperature. I found myself wishing that the weather could just stick here for a little while. Colorful leaves, beautiful rain, cool air. 

to be fair, this was in the mountains.. not on my way to school.

Oh, Autumn. I love you! 

Bright Colors

Pumpkins

Long Sleeve Shirts

Corn Fields

Hoodies

Hot Chocolate

Cuddle Weather

Football Games

Mountain Drives

and.. 

Wait for it. 

Illness. 

I do not have time to spend my days knocked out on the couch with 100 and something degree temperatures. 

Thank goodness my cute puppy spent the past two days cuddling with me.

And I'm super blessed to have an awesome friend that's willing to come hang out with my sickly self after he gets off work every day. Even though all I do is nap. 

Big Bang Theory marathons and Avengers viewing parties are probably the best thing ever to do when you're sick.

I don't think I could recreate this hairstyle if I tried, so here's a quick picture of my smelly self that's been passed out on the couch for two days. Hopefully my sudden burst of energy has more to do with me actually getting better than the large amounts of medication that's been pumped into my body just covering it up. 

I'm thankful for throat lozenges. Especially the kind that make your entire mouth numb. Meesa like jar jar binks. 

Bad Moods

As I was driving home from school, I realized that I was in a very sour mood. 
Now, when I'm in a particularly sour mood, I like to sort it out and figure out why so that I can avoid biting the wrong people's heads off. 

It only took me a few moments to figure out why I was in such a nasty mood.

I definitely fell asleep on the couch last night, meaning I didn't read my scriptures before I fell asleep.

The only way to get rid of moods caused by such events is this: read your scriptures. 

I went ahead and plugged in the iPhone to the stereo so I could listen to them instead since reading while driving is rather dangerous. Bad Mood:Crushed

God:1
Lucifer:0

It wasn't until a few months ago that I realized how big of an impact reading your scriptures daily can have on your life. Now that I know the difference, I can testify to you that reading the scriptures really DOES make me happier and DOES improve my life. I don't ever want to go back into the slump I was in before I made scriptures part of my daily routine. They'll make a difference in your life if you read them every day, I promise. Try it. I dare you. 

these are a few of my favorite things

Who needs a stairmaster when you work in a 4 story barn and have to haul watermelons around? Not I. I'm pretty sure I got more of a workout today carrying in groceries than I would have gotten at the gym. Either that, or I'm just way out of shape. 

I think this post shall be rather scattered. Here we go!

I think I shall just tell you about a few things that make me really happy. 

1 - My ward. I love my ward so much. 
2 - Peanut butter bars. Addie made me some for my birthday, and they are delightful. And Oreo cookies. 
3 - When people that you don't usually talk to text you. You were thinking about me? Aww! 
4 - Getting mail. Especially missionary letters.
5 - Dates. I like going on dates. 
6 - Feeling accomplished when you are the only girl you know that can drive a manual transmission car.
7 - Feeling accomplished when you can even manage to do things like talk on the phone or hold hands while you drive a manual transmission car. Multi-tasking win. 
8 - When you run into your ex's family. You end up missing those people a lot more than you thought you would, and it's just a pleasant surprise to run into them on occasion! 
9 - Singing in the car at the top of your lungs. Especially Taylor Swift and Classic Rock. 
10 - The Gospel. There's really nothing that makes me happier and fills me all the way to the top with such a pure form of joy.  I could go on and on about this one for forever, but I think I'll save that for another post. 
11 - The number 11. :) 
12 - Halo nights with my boys. Every Monday night.
13 - this song : It makes me think of my best friend Dylan. 

14 - Delivering Flowers

15 - When you try something new, and catch onto it really fast. (I'm going to become a professional longboarder, folks.) 

16 - Being me!

Sixteen seems like a good number to stop at, because I'm pretty sure that even though I'm now 20 years old, I still feel like a 16 year old.

Now, I have a very important question for all of you. 

I have recently learned that each college has their own way of becoming a "true (insert mascot here)" My question is this: Can you become a "true _____" without actually attending that school? 

These things are very important to know. 

I am probably the most awkward person I know.

Elevators are probably the most awkward place ever. We as humans, trap ourselves in a tiny room that's moved by a series of pulleys. Up and down, we ride the little room through a creepy, dirty shaft in the middle of a building.  We don't make eye contact, don't converse, and we stand in our own little corners 

Then you have Toni. She's the fool that tries to lighten the mood in an elevator by saying something. This is almost always a bad idea. 

I just so happened to follow a kid all the way from my car to the elevator. I noticed that the plaid on his backpack matched his shirt and decided to comment on it. 

"Your shirt and backpack match. It's like camouflage."

He slowly looked to the closed door and then down at his shirt. "Oh.. thanks?"

"Yeah, I noticed cause I followed you all the way in from the parking lot!"

"Oh!" He uneasily laughed and escaped onto the 4th floor. 

Alone in the elevator, I face-palmed. A literal facepalm. 

I got off on the 5th floor and went to class. 

After class, I decided to avoid the elevator. I went down the stairs. Plaid-boy jumped into the crowd of students directly in front of me on the fourth floor. I decided to just pretend like I was invisible. 

I sped ahead of him towards the parking lot, and was surprised to see him run up beside me and say, "Hey!"

I panicked. "I'm not following you, I swear!" I quickly blurted out like a mad woman.  

"Oh.. Well that's unfortunate!"

I flashed an embarrassed smile, waved, and took the long way around the parking lot to my car, only to remember that I was parked right next to him.

Shoot. 

I got in my car and quickly tried to get out of the packed parking lot. "Quickly" and "Parking Lot" don't go together. I didn't even get to flee the situation. 

I embraced the awkwardness. I rolled down the windows and had a great solo singing party. 

I love college. 

The Y

Most of the time, I tend to not care about sports in the least bit. Unless it's serious business like the Olympics or the BYU vs U of U game. 

I watch all of one football game a year. This year's kept me on the edge of my seat more than any other football game has in my life. Ever. 

We were 21-24 with 8 seconds left on the clock. The "Last Play" went down, leaving one second on the clock. Assuming that they won, the U of U fans jumped onto the field. Penalty. They had to clear them all off the field. Then they managed to rush the field AGAIN before the next play was completed. Penalty AGAIN. 

After clearing the field for a SECOND time, we somehow managed to miss our field goal. 

We lost.. but that's fine. I'm no bandwagoner. I still love my team. 

BYU

Apparently I'm a Part-Time Bird-Herder

I currently have two jobs that I absolutely love. I work at a flower shop and a wedding center for two different people with the same name as me. 

When I got to work today (the wedding place, not the flower shop), I followed Tony into the building.

"THERE'S A BIRD IN HERE!" he exclaimed. 

Let's be honest, I thought he was crazy. I didn't see a bird. 

"There it goes!" He pointed at nothing. 

"Now it's over there!"

I didn't see the dang bird, so I headed down to the bathroom to change into my cleaning clothes. I was halfway out of my pants when he yelled in a panic voice "Toni! Come here! Quick! I found it again!" I did an awkward hop-back-into-my-pants-run as I dashed out of the bathroom and up the stairs. 

Tony was pointing at the ceiling again where I soon spotted the bird flying next to the ceiling fans. So he WASN'T crazy. My mind suddenly filled with a vision of the bird hitting the ceiling fan and splattering everywhere. How morbid. I asked him if we could turn the fans off. He didn't know how.

We opened the door and tried to herd the stupid bird out into the wild. No dice. Instead, it promptly flew right into Tony's office and judging by Tony's loud yells of "Eww! He pooped on my desk!" got revenge on us for scaring him. I held back giggles as I waited for him to chase our new friend back down to me and hopefully not headfirst into one of the rapidly spinning ceiling fans. 

"Here it comes!" I watched the bird fly across the ceiling and settle on one of the rafters. I charged, trying to herd him towards the balcony. 

Soon after, it spotted the blue sky peeking through the open door. It made a run for it. We held our breath as he gracefully swooped towards the sunlight before hitting the solid window with a loud "Smack!"

"No, bird! That's not it! There's a door RIGHT THERE. See? Yeah? Keep going!"

BAM!! It ran into another one. This dang bird was going to knock itself unconscious! And I hadn't even cleaned any of the windows yet! Can you imagine what kind of trouble we would have been in had I already used windex to give the windows that commercialized streak free shine? 

And then, my new friend did the unthinkable. He pooped on my fresh linens. WHAT KIND OF FRIEND POOPS ON YOUR TABLECLOTH!? 

Somehow, he finally figured out that the door led him outside. We cheered. We high-fived, we broke out the sparkling cider and made a toast to people everywhere that have ever been pooped on by a bird. (Just kidding)

I spent the rest of the day cleaning up after the bird and the 200 guests from the night before. 

At some point before I left, Tony mentioned that he'd gotten a call from police the night before regarding the motion alarms in the building being set off. They had thought that someone had broken in. Nope. Just our little criminal birdy friend. He's now on the run from the Ogden city police. 

At least he didn't get chopped up by the ceiling fan.

and here is a completely unrelated picture of a cake

Win a date with Sam!

Meet Sam.

She's a hottie. 

We met clear back in Jr. High, when she used to follow me home from school like a puppy. (As I'm typing this, she mentioned that she followed EVERYONE home from school like a puppy.) 

Now we're all grown up and going to college and still super good friends. She doesn't follow me like a puppy anymore though. 

She likes to sing and she likes shoes. 

She also likes to steal my candy, play piano, and give back scratches. 

As you can see from the pictures, she has gorgeous blue eyes. 

AND SHE'S SINGLE!

CALLING ALL POTENTIAL SUITORS:

Please send your resumes along with a short paragraph describing you in order to have the chance to ask this lovely young lady on a date!

Requirements are :

Males only

Must be between the ages of 18 and 28

Single

Responsible and Independent

Must be able to type 40 wpm

Sense of Humor

MUST LOVE TO CUDDLE

(Sam is VERY cuddly. She even tries to cuddle with ME sometimes...)

Must be headed for a temple marriage

(And Toni thinks that you should at least have blue eyes somewhere in your family line, cause it would be so sad for her hypothetical children to lose out on their chance of having gorgeous blue eyes like Sam.)

Peach Days

From left to right: Me, Sam Gosset. Shea Metcalf, Allen Miller, Shane Heinze

Peach days is lacking when it comes to actual peaches. Did I see any? Yes, in fact. About twelve of them.

But when I get to hang out with these strapping young lads (and Sam), I'm A-Okay with that. 

Here's to peachless pre-birthday celebrations with awesome friends. 

Also, Peach cobbler is among my favorite things in life. 

The Chore Chart

After a rather long day of school, I walked into the house and threw my stuff on the ground. I soon discovered that my mother had left an entire college ruled sheet of paper of chores for me. I'm not talking a simple list here either. She had this thing divided into days and times too. This whole paper was covered with rows and columns galore.

I groaned. This weekend was SUPPOSED to be my birthday weekend.. And she decided to ditch town and leave me with a list of chores a mile long? How rude. 

I felt like Cinderella. 

Then I took a closer look at the chore list. 

It was filled with chores like 

- Kiss the dog

- Turn the air conditioner on so you don't roast

- Feed dog

- Feed cat

- Kiss the dog again. 

- Give loves to both pets

- You have to love BOTH pets - If the cat hates you, she will pee on your stuff

- Eat the leftovers

- Have a Happy Birthday

- Do a Birthday Dance

- Remember that I love you!

- Kiss the dog

I love my mom. 

Jazzy is a Model

My dear friend Sam didn't realize that when she bought herself a DSLR camera that she was actually providing my form of entertainment for when we are "hanging out" (a.k.a. spending time together while she does homework) 

As Sam was working on her homework, my dog and I came to this conclusion: The dog is going to become a professional model. 

Go ahead and tell me how she isn't fit for the job. 

She even has the attitude for the job.

The end. 

heck to the yeah

This is how much I owe for college this semester. 

I'm so incredibly happy about this right now. I can't even begin to explain the joy I'm feeling at this very moment. 

ZERO! 

accidental exercise

So, there I was, just minding my own business. I was enduring the rather long drive back from school and wishing, once again, for it to be cold enough outside that I could roll my windows up. 

I saw a sticker for some sort of marathon and thought to myself, "I should go to the gym tonight." Then I remembered that the gym was a rather long drive, and I still needed to put some gasoline in Izzy. She was getting low in the "Oh, I'll probably need to fill her up in the next few days" kind of way, not the "HOLY GUACAMOLE I'M GONNA HAVE TO PUSH THIS THING TO THE GAS STATION" kind of way. You know the difference, right?

So then I thought to myself, "Well maybe I'll go on a quick run around the neighborhood!" 

After I talked myself out of that one, I started thinking that maybe a little walk would be good for me. 

It was an hour long drive. I had plenty of time to talk myself out of that little walk to. 

Lazy is as lazy does!

As I was driving down the last stretch of road before my street, my car suddenly lost power and ran out of gas. I pulled over as far as I could and turned on my flashers. I tried turning it back on and got it just into a credit union parking lot before it died again. 

Some sweet lady offered me a ride home, but I said no thanks, and that I'd call my mom. 

5 days shy of turning 20 and I still call my mommy. 

She didn't answer, so I grabbed my laptop, locked the doors, and started heading towards home. 

Halfway there, my phone rings. It's my buddy Allen. 

"You home from school yet?"
"No, sir."
"Are you still in Salt Lake?"

"Not anymore!"

"Oh, so where are you?"

I told him my whereabouts.

"So you're driving home right now?"
"Well... I WAS driving home. Now I'm walking."

"You ran out of gas, didn't you?"

"Sure did!"

So.. Moral of the story? Don't wait til your gas light goes on if your car has issues like mine does. AND.. If you're thinking about getting exercise, don't talk yourself out of it. It'll end up happening one way or another. 

Shady spots, wet bums, and waiting for my owl.

I seem to have stumbled upon a problem. Between the hours of 9:50 and 11:30 am, I have what I like to refer to as a really early lunch/catch up time. I left this time spot open so that I would have time to study and do other similarly important things. The unfortunate thing is that I am running out of material to study, thus, the blog post. I'm feeling a bit like Hermione Granger here. I obviously need a heavier workload next semester. 

So, while I'd much rather be studying transfiguration this semester, instead I'm blogging in a nice spot of shade.. sitting on a bit of wet grass. 

At least it's pretty out here!

I think I'll bring the Sorcerer's Stone on Thursday or perhaps "Hogwarts: a history" for a bit of light reading. 

p.s. Is anyone else out there having a hard time adjusting to calling their teachers "professors"? It just doesn't sound good in an American accent to me. 

Procrastination Station

School is back in session. Do you know what that means? It means anxiety and adventures and homework. But mostly it means procrastinating! Do you know what I do when I'm procrastinating school work? I blog. And make videos! This shall all be made even more possible by the fact that I just purchased myself a laptop to do schoolwork on.

Luckily, high school and a ridiculous obsession with books taught me how to B.S. assignments, and gave me the vocabulary to work with. :) 

Hello, college!


And now it's time for me to go to bed!

The real question is this:
Why am I procrastinating going to bed?

first day of college

I know, I know. I graduated in 2011, shouldn't I have headed off to college right after?

Well, yeah..

However, my family decided to move during that time frame... And seeing as I had zero support from them financially, I didn't think it was wise to jump into the whole debt thing right off just to get housing. 

So I decided to wait a semester before starting school and just live at home.

Stuff got complicated. College prices go down in a ridiculous way if you've lived in the state for at least a year. 

So I waited. And waited. And waited. 

And finally signed up for classes at Weber State University. I was gonna be a wildcat! I even painted my nails for the occasion. 

My dad was not happy with that. He thought going straight to a University was a stupid move and told me that I needed to look into the community college instead. 

Community College?

Perhaps the negative connotation that I seemed to have associated with community college had something to do with the only TV show that I regularly watch.

I applied to the school just to get my dad off my back. 

During my application process, I stumbled across a scholarship opportunity for the community college. Full tuition, say what?

Weber still wanted me to jump through a bunch of hoops to even get residency, which meant that my tuition was well over 4 grand. For TWO classes.

TWO CLASSES.

4 grand a semester, or free for the next three?

It wasn't a hard decision. 

It still breaks my heart that I'm not heading off to the dorms to start school.. But when was I ever involved in the social aspects of anything? Heck, I didn't even go to prom! 

So... 

Here I come!