Favourite Friday

Do you want to know my favourite thing about my school?


The view.

I'm sure gonna miss it. 

Go ahead and share in the comments what one of your favourite things is. I might make this a regular occurrence on the blog! 

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.

Be nice to me or I'll dance on your grave!

It's random fact about me day!  

I may or may not have unintentionally danced on someone's grave. I never knew the person to whom the grave belonged to, so it was nothing personal. But still, it happened. I felt bad about it but still laughed at myself because who actually dances on people's graves??

Here's the story:

One summer, many years ago, I was invited by a not-so-close-but-close-enough-to-say-hi-to-in-the-hallway friend to come play night games with him and a bunch of other kids in the local cemetery. I had spent several summers in my childhood playing night games before, so when he asked me to come out, it was a no brainer to say "YES!"

We all arrived at the cemetery in the late evening just as the sun was setting. While we waited for it to get darker, me and another girl decided to explore and check out the graves of the cemetery. We went around reading the headstones and learning what kind of people were buried there. We came to one headstone and when we read the name, something about it sounded like something you would hear in a song so we started singing their name to a funky beat. Inevitably, I started dancing to the beats we were putting out. When I stopped my friend laughed and said "You just danced on that guy's grave!"

I immediately apologized to the deceased individual and promptly got off their grave. We laughed about the situation for a moment and then joined the rest of the group to start the night games. The rest of the night was pretty fun, and don't worry, I haven't been haunted by the angry spirit of that grave!

In case you haven't found true happiness yet

Dear friend,

I wish I could tell you to stop worrying and stop comparing yourself with others. Stop worrying about chasing the picture perfect life you have imagined in your head. I hate to break it to you, but if you keep waiting to be happy until you find your soul mate, buy a house, pay off the car, have a child, find your dream job, etc., you'll never be happy! Whatever that goal is in your mind that you are trying to reach isn't what will make you happy.

Stop feeling like you aren't good enough just because you don't have the same things as your friends. If you have friends that appear so happy because they have things that you don't, be happy for them but don't hate them for it. Odds are, they probably feel like their life is missing something too.

If you live your life waiting for that one piece of the puzzle to complete your life and ultimately make you happy, it's not going to happen. Because life isn't that simple. There's always more to being in love, owning a house, having a child, and having a job than we think there is. If you build something up in your head to be so amazing that there is no way you could be unhappy with that thing in your life, it's probably going to let you down.

Let me share with you a story.

I was in grade 10 when Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire became a movie. I was so excited to see it because it was my favourite book of the series and so I expected it to be the best Potter movie ever. When I got the chance to see the movie, I went with friends to the theatre and was ready to have my life made. Except - ugh, Harry, Ron, get a haircut! What happened to the Quidditch World Cup? I was so excited for that bit! Wait wait wait, why'd they leave this part out? Why didn't they show this? What happened to that? The movie had left out so many of my favourite bits from the book that I left the theatre disappointed. It wasn't what I expected at all.

This past summer I saw Ironman 3. I didn't really want to go, but Joe really wanted me to go with him so I went. And you know what? It was better than I expected because I wasn't expecting anything from it! 

It's a true talent to be able to enjoy the journey of life rather than wait for the joy to come at the destination, but I promise you that you can learn to enjoy your life where it is right now - despite the fact that you are still single or you don't yet have the keys to the beautiful house you've imagined, or you don't yet have the child you've been yearning for. Find things about your life today that make you happy. You don't know how much time you have left, so allow yourself to be happy now before it's too late!

Love cake! Baby, love cake!

Here's a snippet of the text conversation that's gone down between me and Joe today:

J: Good morning to you as well my love cake.

L: Mmm, love cake. I bet that would taste good. 

J: Making love and eating cake?

L: Is that what love cake means? I imagined it as a specific kind of cake. Like a rich, velvety, chocolately, raspberryish kind of cake.

J: Oh well I was just being obnoxious. 

L: I know, but now I want love cake! 

J: Well which one?

L: The cake. I am now craving something I've never even tasted.

So, like any hormonal woman with a craving would do, I searched up my imagined love cake on google to see what I would find. And low and behold I found this!

See?? A rich chocolatey cake. With raspberries too!

A recipe was included with the picture, so I am going to have to try it out for myself and if I love it, I'll share it! 

Aaand just because this song is stuck in my head now: 

The Final Countdown

Hey friends!

After my 10 day challenge it seems like it's been f-o-r-e-v-e-r since I blogged anything. But really it's only been a week, calm down, I didn't forget about you.

This week has been pretty good though. Joe and I got ourselves moved back into my parents' house on Monday and on Tuesday we took time to enjoy my final day of summer because my classes started on Wednesday! After spending the summer working in the GP clinic, I've come back to school with a whole new attitude. I've been making so many connections already with things I learned in GP and I can see how useful they'll be for me in the future. There was one class I dropped though and I am so glad I did!

Joe went back to work yesterday and while it sucked to say goodbye, I took comfort in the fact that we'll only be doing this for one more semester and then I'll be moving back up to GP with him. One semester, four months, 13 weeks, 91 days, a butt-load of hours, a crap-ton of seconds. It's been a long time coming, but I'll be getting out of University soon and on to what they call "real life".

Bring it on.

 

10 Awesome Things

Finally! Day 10 of my super-awesome, totally creative 10 day blogging challenge! Be sure to check out the original post to make sure you didn't miss a single day.

And now on to day 10's post:

10 Things That Made My Summer Awesome
1. Muskoseepi Park. 

I discovered this park within my first week there and I loved it. There are awesome trails all over the place and tons of areas to explore. I can't wait to do all sorts of fun things in the park when I'm there next year.

2.  My summer job. Even though I wasn't being paid to be at the clinic, the things I learned there made it so worth my while. I learned that physiotherapy is what I want to do. I learned that the human body is so cool and I learned that I love people.

3. Joe. Are you even surprised he made this list? Of course not. This summer we got a taste of what it's like to be a normal married couple that see each other almost every day. And we loved it. We're a little sad to go back to long-distance life, but we'll manage.

4. GP Rugby. I can't believe I was even debating whether or not I'd play with the club in GP. The people I met there became my main social group and I had lots of fun with them. Can't wait to come back!

5. In-laws. Living up in GP brought us within three hours of Joe's family and I'm so glad for the time we spent with them. I feel bad for people who don't like their in-laws because I love mine :)

6. Cooking. I hate cooking when it's just for me so having Joe home on a more consistent basis gave me plenty of opportunities to put my cooking skills to the test. And I'd say I passed! I had fun trying new recipes and perfecting old ones. Housewifery definitely suits me.

7. My Housemates. I'd be ungrateful if I didn't give these guys a shout out for opening their home to me and Joe for the summer. Two couples sharing a home isn't always easy, but we had some good memories and I certainly hope to see them again when we come back.

8. Edmonton trips. Okay, half the time Joe and I went to Edmonton this summer it was usually not for a good reason. But our trips would have been 10 times more miserable if it hadn't have been for our good friends Becky and Justin. These guys gave us a place to stay on several occasions and we are forever grateful to them!

9. Video Calls. I am so grateful that we have magical things like the internet to keep us connected to our loved ones. I wasn't too mopey about missing my family, but it was sure nice to be able to see them once in a while and share all the exciting things going on in our lives face to face.

From a call I had with my mom where we discovered the fun things to do in google hangouts

10. Mila. This is probably silly, but she was a dog my housemates were looking after and I'm pretty sure we loved playing with her more than they did. But she was awesome.