The Month of Change

It's that wonderful time of year again.

October!!! 

My most favourite month for selfish and non-selfish reasons:
a) My birfday. I just turned 23, boo yah.
b) General Conference! If you've never seen it, you should! There are four 2-hour sessions. There were two today and there will be two tomorrow (Sunday) at 10 am and 2 pm. To tune in live via the internet, go here.
c) A billion other birthdays too, including Joe's and my dear friend, Trudy's!
d) Hallowe'en. I love any excuse to put on a costume!
e) It's pretty. I love watching the leaves change colour as long as I don't think about the imminent winter on its way.




This year, however, October is special to me for another reason.

Remember when this happened?

Today is the anniversary of the fateful day I crashed our favourite car. Although it was an awful experience, I am grateful it happened (and more importantly, grateful we came out of it okay!) and it is the reason why I am where I am today.

Did you ever wonder what made me choose to move up to GP this summer? It was this stupid accident. Before the accident, I was completely set against living in GP, even after I graduated. It was just too far away from my family. I wanted to at least move to a middle ground where we'd have family 3 hours away on either side of us. After the accident, I changed my mind. Joe had stayed home for a whole month and given me a taste of what it's like to live like a "normal" married couple. When the time came for him to go back to work, I was so sad that I knew I didn't want to do long distance any more. Initially I wanted to quit school after that semester and move up with him that year, but that was just the concussion talking. Luckily I came to my senses and knew that I needed to finish school before moving up with him. So the next best thing was for me to move up to GP for the summer. And I am so glad I did. My summer there changed my attitude about the city and made me realize there are good things there too.

So for my Lethbridge friends and family, now you have something to blame for me leaving you. And to my new GP friends, you now know what brought me into your lives. I just hope that for future life changes, God chooses a more subtle way to point me where I should go.

This post started out as nothing special but then turned into an awesome tribute to my best friend.

I want to blog, I really do. But lately I haven't felt like I have much to share.

So I've decided that today I will make myself sit down and write something and I won't stop until I have something.

Ready? Go.

• When I was a kid I loved the Ninja Turtles. My favourite was Raphael. Me and my best friend, Cassandra used to yell down the sewers to talk to them. Her favourite was Michaelangelo. That's why we were best friends, because we rarely ever fought over boys. Or turtles.
• The only thing me and Cassandra ever fought about was who was going to be the pink power ranger. Or poison ivy. Or baby spice. When we fought there were usually some tears shed and then one of us would go home. We always got back together though. Either an hour later or the next day and it would always be like nothing ever happened.
• I think Cassandra wore the pants in our relationship because I believed everything she told me. We used to have bike races that went from speedbump to speed bump and I'd usually cross the finish line first, but then Cassandra would say, "Nu-uh! The finish line was back here! You lost!" And so I would think I lost because I went past the wrong finish line.
• When I moved to a different school after grade 4 I was devastated because I didn't want to lose all my friends. But I made new friends. The relationships I had with these new friends were different because we didn't play pretend like me and Cassandra used to, but I'm still friends with several of the ones I made at the new school so I think it worked out.
• Seriously, Cass and I played pretend until we were 12, maybe 13. The last thing I remember us playing pretend about was the car my family had in our backyard. We'd go in there and pretend it was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and we pretended it took us to all these crazy places. Or we were secret agents like in Charlie's Angels and the car talked to us like it was Charlie.
• Technically speaking, you could probably say we played pretend straight into high school because we used to make up scenarios in our heads that usually involved a boy we liked and so we'd make up different conversations we could have with him or whatever. Seriously, we were retarded.

When I look back on my childhood, I think it was the best childhood anyone could possibly have. Cassandra and I had some crazy imaginations and when we got together it made them even crazier. We don't see each other as often as we used to, but that's okay. Kids grow up and make new friends and follow different paths in life. Even though we spend less time together these days, she still is one of the few people I can really be myself and be totally comfortable with. In fact, I knew that Joe was a good fit for me because the relationship I had with him mirrored the one I had with Cassandra, but it was even better.

So thanks, Cass, for teaching me how to have fun with nothing but your imagination and for showing me what a good friendship should look like. The statement.

Turning Points

There are a few moments in my life I can look back on and say that if they hadn't happened, I wouldn't be where I am today. 

July 25th, 2008 - I tore my ACL. One silly ligament was enough to send me down a very different path from the one I had anticipated back in high school. I didn't get to play Pronghorns that fall and as a result, I was able to play a large role in the single adult ward I was attending. I formed a network of friends that were good influences on me and helped me to be a better person. 

December, 2008 - I created a friendship with a girl who I think eventually helped me to meet my future husband. Starlene. She was from a small town I'd never heard of called Cherry Grove - the place where Joe grew up. Star and I became pretty close and were always together at every church function. So when my future sister-in-law, Anne Marie, moved into the ward in the fall of 2009 she stuck close to us because she knew Star from back home. Annie and I became thick as thieves that semester, so when her big brother, Joseph, moved down in 2010 there was no way our paths weren't going to cross. 

January 4th, 2010 - The very first time Joe and I laid eyes on each other. My first impression of him was, "Holy biceps, look at those arms!!" and "Man, that boy sure can talk". We didn't actually spend a lot of time together that night, mostly because I avoided him because he was so good looking and I didn't want Annie to catch me staring. In fact, we didn't see each other again until May. Joe lived on the westside of town so he was in a different ward from us and floated in a different group of friends. 

May, 2010 - Joe started hanging out with our group of friends. And we had a pretty good group going, so I don't blame him for coming over to our side. The rest, they say, is history. We started dating in June and by the end of the spring semester in 2011 we were engaged. And now, we've been happily married for a year and a half tomorrow! 

Four and a half years ago I would have never guessed that my life would be the way it is now. Had I not torn my ACL, I would have gone on to play for the Pronghorns. And because that would have taken up so much of my time, I would have never developed that network of friends that I had in the beginning. And if I'd never made those relationships, I could have missed out on meeting Annie and eventually, Joseph. 

So I guess the moral of the story is, even when something may look like a setback (like my ACL), it can really be God's way of telling you that He has a better path in mind for you. But the question is, will you fight it? Or are you willing to see where the path will lead?

puttin' a twist in your stem

Does anyone else play that little game you play when you're twisting the stem off an apple and you say the letters of the alphabet in your head as you twist, and then the letter it breaks off on is the first letter of the guy you'll marry?

I still play this game, but I need to change the rules now. Today I was twisting the stem off my apple and it came off on C and I thought, "I'm gonna marry a guy named Carl. Oh wait..."

Now that I'm married I've changed the game to just trying to land on the same letter of my husband, but it hasn't happened so far so I've decided to change the game again. From now on, when I twist off my stems, it'll be the letter of my first child's name. Which is a long ways down the road from now.

Time to Destress

Okay, not to be one of those girls that can't stop announcing how close her wedding is to everyone she knows just to get a reaction out of them, but --

-- HOLY CRAP I'm getting married in less than a month!

At this point I am excited, nervous and stressed beyond belief. It's not even the wedding itself that I'm stressing about. It's finding a place for us to live! As August 16th draws closer and closer, I'm running out of time to find us a place of our own.

I don't think I have ever been so worked up over something in my life. In fact, a couple weeks ago I think I had a slight melt down - I was terrified to call people about rentals. I would actually sit and stare at the phone, dreading the task I was given to do. I felt comepletely helpless and miserable.

Thank goodness for ice cream. And Amy. If I didn't spend some quality time with that girl one friday night eating oreo and cookie dough - brownie ice cream while we watched 13 Going on 30, I may not have snapped out of it. It's amazing what a late night vent session with ridiculous amounts of dairy can do for a person.

Since that night I've been on the go calling house after house and setting up appointments with them, trying to find a place for Johnny and I. I'm still waiting for the right one, but we've made progress, people! Though, I definitely do think I'll be due for another ice cream night soon. We've still got two half-full tubs of ice cream to get through!

So moral of the story kids: Don't wait for someone to notice your distress and save you. Sometimes you need to reach out because hey, maybe they've had a bad day too.

Callouses Are Hot

I hate growing up.

Yesterday Selina and I were walking from her house to mine and all I had were the heels I wore to church. So I decided to slip off the shoes and walk barefoot. I figured it would be just like the good ol' days when I was a kid and rarely ever wore shoes.

And you know, for the first block and a half it was great. I felt like a kid again. I felt innocent and young and carefree all over again. It was pure bliss!

And then I stepped on a rock.

And another one.

And then my feet started to get raw from rubbing against the pavement.

By the time we got home, my feet were feeling pretty tender. Not to mention they were filthy.

As I washed my feet clean, I realized that I've gotten soft over the years. When I was 10, my feet were never sore from running around barefoot! When I was 10, I was probably browner than I've ever been today because I was outside all the time. When I was 10, I could probably run around the block 5 times without ever getting tired. When I was 10, I was a freaking super hero!

Yup, the elementary school years were some of the best years of my life. One of my favourite memories from those days was when the dickee-dee man would ride around the neighbourhood and I would scrounge up all my pennies for an ice cream bar that I never finished.

Nowadays, kids rarely play outside. None of them have imaginations anymore. Now they all just sit around indoors and play their videogames and facebook and look up stuff on youtube all day. When I have my own kids, I'll kick them outside everyday. I won't buy any of the new-fangled toys that take all the fun out of everything. The only thing my kids will have is a super nintendo and a big backyard to play in cause that's all I had. And look how I turned out.

Mum's the Word

Do I have a sign on my back that says, "You can tell me anything"? Cause I certainly feel like I've become a confidante for a whole bunch of people all of a sudden. Last night I had a good heart to heart with a buddy of mine as we drove back from the temple. He's having girl issues and has been coming to me for advice lately. I really had no idea what to tell him because it sounds to me like his lady friend is just as confused as he is; if not, more. And when I got home from the temple, I had a call from another friend of mine with some family issues. Again, I wasn't entirely sure how to go about giving her advice, so I just decided to listen and offer a word of comfort here and there.

It's not that I don't like people coming to me for advice - don't get me wrong, it makes me feel pretty important - but I just can't figure out why they come to me. I've had a really easy life so far (knock on wood), so it's not like I can draw on personal experience to help these folks out. But I do try to be compassionate and I am pretty good at keeping it to myself if they want me to.

Maybe these people that are coming to me have tried going to other people before, but it didn't work out for them. Maybe they heard about me from some other people. They probably went to a friend for advice only to be referred to me...

Average Joe: "Hey, can I talk to you for a minute? I need some advice."

Plain Jane: "You can try, but I give crap advice."

Joe: "Oh. Do you know anyone who can help me?"

Jane: "Talk to Leinani. She's no Dr. Phil, but she worked wonders for me."

Next thing I know, I've got this Joe guy asking me what the best way is to get his girlfriend back. Trust me, I've never had to win back the heart of an ex-girlfriend before! But I'll try my best to help you out because who knows, maybe you'll be able to help me when I'm in need of some life advice.

So Much Time and So Little To Do...

As I've mentioned before, I am currently taking a semester off school. I'm doing it for several reasons actually,

The main reason being that my family and I are going on a trip to Australia in April, which is the same time that my finals would have been written. Since I didn't want to have to put up with rearranging my schedule so I could write my tests before or after the trip(which would have sucked!), I decided to just skip school altogether.

School is expensive. And travelling is expensive. If I plan on travelling and going to school later on, I will need money. If I want money, that means I have to suck it up, be a big girl and work. I didn't work during the school year because I was majoring in biochemistry. Do you remember the high school days when science was your least favorite subject and that hour long class felt like an eternity? Try taking nothing but science classes. No wait, science and math classes. Sure I used to like science and I used to like math, but after doing it for a year and a half in university, I want to shoot myself in the head at the mention of words like conjugation, molecular orbitals and partial fractions.

Which brings me to my next reason for taking a break: school wore me out. Last semester I was crazy enough to take 5 classes: genetics, organic chemistry, analytical chemistry, calculus II and english. Those were some pretty hefty courses on their own, but I also had some new responsibilties at church as the Superma for FHE which meant that I, along with my Superpa counterpart, was (and currently, still am) in charge of planning weekly activities for the ward to enjoy every Monday night. It's a tough job to keep people entertained and happy, but I like it.

I had a very busy schedule last semester. So it's been a challenge to try and keep myself busy with all this time on my hands. It's so easy to fall into a routine of watching TV all day and facebooking, blogging and other online whatnot, but I'm trying to avoid that. I was blog-surfing today (wasting time, I know) when I came across a blog by a guy in my ward. He wrote an entry talking about finding a good use of our time. I thought it was well written and that he'd made some good points in it. If you've got some time to spare, check it out!

I've got some spare time, but I've already read the blog. So I'll go do something productive like solve world hunger or something... Peace out.