Settled

I really love getting settled into a new place. I love how things find their places so that it stays clean.  I love figuring out the tricks of getting from A to B and back again in the least amount of time. I really enjoy getting into a schedule. I love putting things into my planner and seeing how I can get everything I have to done and then find time for the things that I want to do. I love how I can have a perfect record of making my bed or being on time. I'm still not thrilled about the whole homework thing but now that I'm settled in, I'm actually pretty happy. Here is my bedroom all put together. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It makes getting ready and coming and going throughout the day so much nicer. I'm glad my room is off my checklist. Now - to the books.

First day!

I can't believe it really truly is time for fall already. Granted the weather is still summery [as evidenced by our hot apartment that currently has no AC] but when school comes the time for fun in the sun is over. I still don't really want to be here right now. I loved this summer at home and I wasn't ready for it to end. I'm torn inside between wanting this year to fly by so I can just graduate and wanting it to slow down so I don't graduate.

I moved down on Thursday. Mom and I drove the packed [seriously - I mean packed!] van to Grandpa's on Wednesday and did some shopping and then drove the rest of the way on Thursday. A lot of Thursday was spent doing cleaning because my apartment was kinda gross. [It's better now. Not great but better. I'm so grateful for my Mom and all her help!]

We worked on it late and then early Friday I took Mom to the airport. I worked all day Friday [I love using Photoshop and doing design - SO fun!] and then took Heather out for her birthday [pedicures, zupas and a chick flick - it doesn't get better]. Saturday morning Eva helped me bring in the rest of my boxes and then we went to the gym together. Kiley cut my hair [which turned out fabulous... I love the shorter layers!] and then I went to Pirates of Penzance with Grandpa at the Hale Theatre. He took me out for dinner and then when I got back I met up with a bunch of friends at Dan's grandparent's cabin up the canyon. We had s'mores and played games and just had a lovely time. I missed those people.

Sunday was a wonderful day. Church was at 9:00 [better than 1:00 I guess] and I think I will love my ward! My bishop has a very fun nature and I think he is really in touch with where we are what we need right now. His words: "Roman Gardens is pretty much a dump isn't it? But it is the place you are supposed to be right now in your life." I couldn't agree more. I know that this is where I am supposed to be right now. I have asked many times and received many answers and I am really looking forward to what this year can hold for me. The rest of the day was a lovely nap, lots of unpacking and organizing, meeting new friends and ward prayer [so excited to have this back again]. As I was walking around in the evening you could hear hymns coming from various complexes where other people were having their ward prayers and I just thought to myself about how much I really love being here at BYU right now in my life. I love that we all share a testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that we have the knowledge that we are brothers and sisters. I love that even in new places with new people I can feel loved and at home and safe because we share a desire to learn and to grow and to reach exaltation.

Which brings me to today. I worked all morning and then had my two nutrition classes in the afternoon. In between I got to catch up with Casey & Drew [who are now engaged!]. I missed those two. They can make me laugh so easily. I love it. :) I did shopping this afternoon and can say that I feel like I am officially finished moving in. I have a few things to pick up from & return to people but my stuff is unpacked and ready to go. We had FHE tonight which is always fun and now I'm getting ready for another day.

Since fall is here whether I am ready or not I have decided to set some goals for myself. I love new beginnings and the chance to have a fresh start. It helps with making changes and helps me to refocus on the important things in life. Here is what I've come up with for fall:

• Say my morning prayer EVERY single morning. I struggle with this - I get up and start getting ready and forget. I want to pray every morning because it really helps me put my day in perspective, clear my head and focus on the things that I want and need to get accomplished. 

• Get at least 7 hours of sleep every night. I really can't function without enough sleep and I can do so much better in every aspect of my life if I can do this. 

• Keep reading the Book of Mormon every day and study the current General Conference talks. Don't put it off until too late so that I only want to read for a minute. 

• Go to the gym at least 4 times per week for at least one hour. I'm so much happier when I'm working out regularly. Plus I'm still losing weight and I need my good friend Gold's if I'm going to really finish it. 

• Attend the temple at least 2 times each month. Though to do that I need to renew my recommend - mine expires tomorrow! Blah! 

• Meet new people and remember their names - it means everything to have someone who knows your name. Make at least one friend in every class. Keep in touch with old friends. Tell people when I am thinking about them. Be aware of the people in my life and find ways to serve them. 

• Be happy. "Got my dreams, got my life, got my love. Got my friends, got the sunshine above. Why am I making this hard on myself when there's so many beautiful reasons I have to be happy." Share that with the people around me. Smile. 

• Love myself. "Don't you know you're beautiful, just the way you are?" Have confidence in the person that I am and that I can become. Let the princess in me rule. Remember who I truly am. [Actually click that one.] 

I really am excited for what this semester can hold. I have a lot ahead. I need to take the GRE, start my grad school applications, do well in school, fulfill my role as secretary of stand for the family, and many other things that will come. But I'm not overwhelmed, I'm not stressed. I'm sure there will be days when I can't keep perspective and will be frustrated and confused. But right now I feel like I can see a bigger picture and all I need to do is keep moving forward and take each day, each trial, each adventure one day at a time.

So that brings me to the last thing I want to do this semester. My goal is to take a picture every single day of this semester. Mostly I hope these are my happy thoughts or things that make me smile. But I'm sure some of these may be quite boring as my life often involves long periods of sitting in an office, in a classroom and in the library. But I think each day has a potential in it that I want to try to slow down and notice and so I'm going to take a picture every day to help me recognize that. I won't share them all I'm sure. But hopefully in taking pictures I will also be better in writing which I would like to do.

So - this is today's picture. Today was my last first day of fall as an undergraduate. Cute hair. Happy shirt. New jeans. Fabulous bag filled with my essentials [waterbottle, ipod, naproxen, keys, wallet, chapstick, etc]. That combination made me very happy and it's all I need. With that I'm ready to take on the world. Or at least BYU. :) So, here's to an absolutely great final year.

Lake Powell

Disclaimer: The following photos contain multiple photos of my with CRAZY hair. I have naturally curly and very thick hair. This combination gives me a ridiculous headful which I have generally learned to control. However on the lake, I had no electricity and there was no point to using any product because it would just be washed out as soon as I jumped in again which was every few hours. Also, I have on no make up. So. Don't judge me. :)

Lake Powell was the most anticipated part of my summer and it did not disappoint. I had the best time. I love the swimming.  I love being with my family. I love the sunshine. I love the smell of the water. I love the smell of sunscreen. I love never taking off my swimsuit. I love boating. I love kneeboarding. I love playing cards. I love camping meals. I love hiking.  I love long naps. I love reading. I love boating. 

I love Lake Powell. 

But rather than try to write out my whole trip - I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves. :)

Happiness = Lake Powell

More Summer at Home

Summer has just flown away. I can't believe we are so far into August already. For the first time in my life I really and truly am not anxiously awaiting the start of school. I'll be happy when I get back I'm sure but right now I really am not interested in going back. I've loved my summer at home too much. 

Much of the summer has looked like this or similar to this with other various scenes from the farm. There are a bunch of pictures on this post if you want to see more of what my farm girl life is like. This is my Uncle, my cousin Tater, my brother and my cousin/sister Nicole stacking hay. My Dad was also stacking and he straight up fell off of the trailer. Oops! 

A great deal of the summer was devoted to preparing for a stake handcart trek. My dad is our Bishop and was also asked to serve as the stake's medical director. Everyone except Luke and me were going and there was a lot of work to be done. Everyone in our ward needed a bag and my mom got really involved in that and I ended up making nametags for each bag. We had to sew trek clothes. And there was all the packing and organizing of medical forms and supplies. It was a crazy few weeks. The Relief Society president's daughter (age:7) was talking to her Mom and said "Trek, trek, trek, I hate trek." I didn't really but it got a little overwhelming. However, the testimonies and spirit that the youth brought back with them was more than worth the work (which I knew it would be having gone before my senior year). These are some images from around the house the week before. You can't really see it but behind Megan, we had Mom's and my sewing machines permanently moved into the sun room and it was a crazy mess of chaos. 

While everyone went to Wyoming, Luke and I went to Grandpa's house in Utah. We helped him work on his spring, spent some lazy time and went waterskiing. There is no proof because I always forgot to ask people to take pictures but I skiied and relearned to kneeboard (I had skinned/bruised knees for a week). We had so much fun!

I've also gone to the Lake here at home with my brothers and cousins a couple of times. We literally live 5 minutes away from Lake Lowell and so we've spent a couple of afternoons and evenings there. It's pretty dirty and the beach is rocky but the kids love it and I love everything about the water so I'm happy too. 

One of the best parts of being home is eating garden meals. We have fresh stuff all the time and I love eating the fresh stuff. This is a huge zucchini we found after being gone from trek. We called him Zucchinizilla and made a wonderful batch of zucchini bread out of him. 

I've gone out a bunch with my sister and with friends. I've seen great movies and caught up on loads of girl talk. Toy Story 3 was wonderful. I cried twice. And Inception was one of the best films I've seen in such a long time. 

I've gotten to hang out with my little brothers a lot which makes me oh so very happy. Though how much longer they will be my "little" brothers is questionable. I've told Karl that he is not allowed to be taller than me until the end of the summer and so I haven't let him try to measure but I'm afraid he may be getting very very close. He is strong enough to give me a piggy back now. And Luke is big enough that his squish hugs really do squish! This was from a game of Settlers of Catan. Which I won. :) [with only a   lot of help from Luke]

Mostly being home means being silly and that I definitely have gotten that down. I'm weird and when I'm with my family I tend to get even weirder. :) 

Today we had a spa day with all of the little girl cousins. We painted our nails and blasted "girls just wanna have fun." I love all of these cousins. They think hanging out with me is the coolest thing since sliced bread and I love it. 

A few other things to note about my summer:

I've spent a lot of time shadowing with my Grandpa and at the hospital. I wanted to make sure that I actually wanted to do Marriage and Family Therapy before I applied to grad school for it. I'm happy to say that I do love it. I'm not sure exactly where I'm going with it but it is definitely what I want to do.

I think part of why I don't want to go back to school is because I'm mixing a case of senioritis with a case of graduation anxiety. I don't really have any desire to go back to school because I don't want tests or memorization or too long lectures. But there is also a big part of me that doesn't want to go because it will be my lasts as an undergrad and possibly/probably/maybe my lasts at BYU.

I've had some missionaries come home before now but last week two of my close friends got home. I can't believe it has been two years. I felt like I was going to accomplish so much, be so different when they got back and I'm not. I'm still me. It felt almost awkward to have one of my friends back because I didn't really know where I fit and it almost felt like we were back in high school. Seeing my other friend was exactly how I had hoped it would be. His face lit up and he ran over for a big hug. I've known him since we were 6 years old and he is the big brother that I never had. I love this kid and I was so happy to hear his I love you Rach and to hear him say you look so good. I have several more friends coming home in the next few months and it will be really interesting to see how seeing each of them goes.

I love summer thunderstorms. I catch my breath as the sky brightens for just a second as the lightening flashes. My heart speeds up for a moment as the thunder starts to boom and then I relax into it's loud echoes. And then all of that and every other stress is gone as I hear the rain pour down. Each drop is a relaxing reminder that tomorrow is a new beginning. I can't describe how much I love a summer storm. A few nights ago we had hamburgers on the patio because the weather had already started to cool down with the dark clouds filling the sky. Then when the rain started to fall I took myself and a blanket and laid out on one of our patio chairs (thanks to Grandma G and Marianne for them - they have made for so many lovely nights this summer) and just listened to the rain. It was bliss. So relaxing and happy. 

I love sparklers.

Best of all, since the summer has gone so quickly, it means we leave for Lake Powell in just TWO days!