I love conference every time it comes around. I love the atmosphere of it, getting to feel better about life in general but I REALLY love when they have priesthood session and you see what boys make it a priority to go. Or even just seeing the guys in their suits at the regular sessions.

love how conference always reminds me exactly what guy I really want in life.

22 life lessons

In only 2 weeks, my birthday will be rolling around once again. October 29th is a day that I kinda look forward to for 364 days of the year. Last year, turning 21 wasn't super awesome. I didn't really do much and had no plans with friends so I headed up to Logan late that night. Thank you to Hill and Andy for making the last few hours of it awesome! We passed the birthday candle, got Mt. Dew and balloons and danced at the White Owl and spent the weekend with two of my best friends.
It's hard to believe another year has already rolled around! I was talking with a friend the other night and he made me realize just how much things have changed and what a heck of a year it has been. In honor of soon turning 22, here are 22 lessons or facts that I have learned for myself in the last year...

1. Even in Logan you can get booted. Even on your birthday.

2. "Drinks" are always essential at work.

3. I used to think that laughing really hard was the greatest feeling in the world....then I got to hug some of my best friends that I hadn't seen in over two years. Laughing became the number two.

4. It is possible to truly forgive people. And I highly reccomend it

5. Days where I ditch college life and go hang out with my family (namely Kez and Jax) are essential. Typically the greatest days of the week.

6. It is okay to chop off your hair when you feel like you're losing your mind and that life is falling apart. One day you will probably wake up and realize that you even love it.

7. People still are not going to come to you wanting to be your friend; you have to make an effort.

8. Watching Ash deal with Jake's deployment while raising two children made me realize what an amazing sister I have!

9. Realizing exactly where you're supposed to be and exactly what you're supposed to be doing is the most incredible and peaceful feeling. Do. Not. do anything to mess that up.

10. People will continue to die. Never left the good things unsaid.

11. I learned the real truth to "Those who mind don't matter; and those who matter don't mind."

12. There's a good chance I'll never get roommates who clean. But I've come to peace by realizing that at least when I do it, it's done my way and it's done well.

13. I now understand why people stress over finals week. Cheeeeeers to actually doing college.

14. Second chances are okay. Even third's are reasonable sometimes. But never a fourth.

15. Most times in my life, I do not understand what direction I am headed in. But it's exciting and it's a thrill. And there's joy in the ride.

16. I had no idea just how important being LDS is to me.

17. Sometimes life is all dependent on the view. If you want to see the bad you will. If you want to see the good, you can find it no matter what your circumstances.

18. Saying goodbye really never does get any easier.

19. Being your real, true self really is the only way to go through life. Somebody might like the you that you portray yourself to be, but they might love the real you.

20. Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

21. Even your darkest and hardest day is only 24 hours...and then you can only go up from there.

22. I am more blessed than I realize on a day-to-day basis.

Life truly is amazing! And I can't wait to see what happens in year twenty-two!

bucket list check off-s

I realized today that I have been able to cross quite a few things off of my never ending bucket list....

1. Storm the football field after a college game. I've come close to doing this in the past but never actually succeeded. The BYU/Utah State was one of the closest and most intense games I've been to in a while so it was perfect that the occasion would occur after that.

(even if one of the players did almost break my foot)

P.S. Props to Stewie for being one of the very first ones out there! Pretty sure he was already over the railing before the team even started to rush

2. Remember that song where in the chorus it sings "99 red balloons go high..." or something like that? For years I have always thought it would cool to actually send off 99 red balloons. The 10 year mark of September 11th was coming up and even though they don't connect, we still thought it would be cool to send 99 off "in memory" type thing. It was awesome! We had balloons all over our front room and kitchen and we were still getting high off of helium 4 days later.

We were not planning on it raining or getting dark so early but it was still cool!

3. True Wolverine night. Not quite yet a True Aggie (which remains on the list) but cool to say that I've done it for at least one school. And super proud that I talked Nicky into doing it too since she swore up and down that there was no way she would, yet by the end of the night....she too had a certificate!

4. Lower section for a session of conference. Pierie was gonna be in town and Michelle and I had decided that we'd go stand in standby lines just to see if we got tickets, no big deal. The night that we talked about this, Pier asked if we had any. Long story short: her dad got hookups from their old ward in Ohio. We were probably on the 20th row. It was incredible! Conference is always a cool enviroment but to be that close was definetly a change from being 10 rows from the very top. I honestly did not want this session to end, even though we were DYING trying to stay awake, I feel like I got so much out of it.

Some things that still remain:

sky dive

dance to "Sweet Home Alabama" in Alabama

roadtrip in a motor home

do all the hikes at Zions

Home Sweet Home

As I've mentioned multiple times already, I have 16 credits and work full time. On top of those two things, I have a calendar in my room with "other things" not school related that looks something like this....

That's why I tend to live in the fast lane. Fast as in "15 minutes to get home and change and be somewhere else" or "I'll hurry and grab food and change in the car on the way" fast. I'm home maybe 6 hours a week where I'm actually awake. This can lead to making my room look like a tornado ran through it almost any day of the week. Which drives me crazy but what can ya do? And I continue to be "blessed" with roommates that do not know how to take out garbage, unload the dishwasher and have yet to find the vacuum so I'm assumed general house cleaning also. So today (sad that it was Sunday but it HAD to be done) I started laundry and starting cleaning. FOUR HOURS later I decided the house was now worthy to do blog pictures...

This is from standing in the front door. LOVE the red walls and love how large and open teh front room is. It somehow got cut out, but we have a nice TV to the right of this.

View from the other side of the room.

The kitchen kinda connects to the front room through a super short hallway. I know I don't cook, but I FELL IN LOVE with this kitchen! It is easily my favorite feature of the house. To the left of this is the door to the back yard but there's nothing out there worth showing. This is standing in my bathroom doorway and the base of the stairs. The basement is all Britt's and the other 3 of us live upstairs.

Awful picture but I love how open the stairway is.

Washer and dryer: LOVE having that maybe 20 feet from my door!

That other door at the base of my bed leads out to my own balcony. It's becoming a favorite to eat breakfast out there cause that faces where the sun comes up, reading or homework in the afternoon and sleeping on it or sitting there people watching by night. Yep, big fan of that!

All in all, I love it! The wall hangings still need some help though. Somebody told me once that they felt like my room has so much going on it. It really does! I love it though. A little bit of the rodeos, a little bit of the games, a touch of China, a bit of Hawaii, ceramics from the boys, pictures of everything in between. It makes the messy roommates totally worth it!