The LOVES of my life

I haven't shown any pictures lately, so I thought I would share a few of my Favs of late :D

Namara and her baby

Me and Namara-- I realized I didn't have many/any pictures of just the two of us, hence this photo op I took advantage of.

Tobin doing Yoga with Aunt-T on the Wii fit-- Can you find anything cuter?

Tobin and Aunt-T-- I love this boy

A Namara/Aunt-T moment. Cute little girl.

Seriously? Love.

They were so cute cuddled up together on the couch. A minute or two before this, I was on there too = uncomfortable, yet wonderful.

I Love Love Love Love LOVE this photo of Maraleigh. It just makes me smile.

Wow.

I have been "student teaching" at the highschool just north of Logan since the beginning of January. I have experienced quite a few emotions since I have started, and for a while it was resentment.

But today, today was a good day. I had an amazing lesson, I connected with students, and I pacified a few of my students's frustrations and anxieties. I remembered (once again) why I went into teaching. Why I always felt like this is something I wanted to do.

I really just had a great day. I didn't feel like I was constantly at odds with my cooperating teacher, and I didn't feel like the kids were bored out of their minds.

I'm really excited for this chapter in my life.

I'm also really excited to start learning and experiencing new things.

All you Need is Love

I just bought this adorable sign from Hobby Lobby last week.

Everytime I see it, I start singing the Beatles song. And I realize, all I really do need is love.

I used to hate that saying. Mainly because finding "love" is hard for me. But this sign helps remind me what Love really is.

Love is loving yourself for yourself. Loving who you are in spite of you. I know the same is true for when you have someone special in your life, because for a short time I did have someone special in my life, and I loved him in spite of him.

But it's loving yourself. It's knowing that people around you, love you. It's knowing your Heavenly Father loves you. It's loving your Heavenly Father. It's loving the people around you. It isn't the mushy gooshy nonsense. At least not to me. To me it's so much deeper, and yet so much more surface level than that.

To me, simply put, it's loving yourself.

Raised by a Rat

So once upon a time, there was a mommy rat and a daddy rat. These two rats never had much when they were baby rats, so they held on to anything and everything, piling it up where ever they found room. They kept things they found. They kept things they were given. They kept things they purchased from the local rat market. Basically, anything that found it's way into their little rat hands, they found a spot to put it and kept it.

Eventually, these two rats had three baby rats. The three baby rats never had much, but they always had enough. However, they were raised by rats who kept everything and so these three baby rats too kept everything they possessed. The few times the baby rats decided to go through their things and get rid of it, the momma rat would come in, and go through everything the baby rats had put in a pile to get rid of. The momma rat would hold everything up, and say "are you sure you're never going to use this again? because you won't be able to get a new one." The momma rat would look through everything the baby rats tried to get rid of, and put the majority of it back into the baby rats' habitat.

These three baby rats all grew up. But in growing up, they learned to hang on to everything. In fact, the youngest rat, the girl rat has all of her toys from when she was a baby rat. She goes through her closet thinking she's going to get rid of clothes, only to put all of them back into her closet, because she never knows when she's going to use them again. She keeps things she hasn't used in years, but has lugged back and forth between her two homes for five years now, thinking, "what if I need it?" when she hasn't needed it at all.

This baby rat, that's all grown up, thinks about when she's out on her own without her momma rat. She thinks about where she'll be living and what she'll actually need to hang onto. She even thinks that maybe, just maybe, she'll be able to get rid of some of the things she has packed away for a rainy day.

My Painter

I was listening to the radio yesterday, and there was a song, about how a portrait becomes perfect if the painter is near.... or something along those lines.

It got me thinking about having our Savior nearby us at all times. I've noticed the closer I feel to my Savior, the more perfection I feel. I know I am not perfect. In fact I kinda hate the word, and any words in association with that word. However, I do feel that when I am closer to my Savior, I feel more like my Savior.

When I am doing what I am supposed to be doing, I feel as if my portrait is beautiful to more than just me or those who know me. My portrait is beautiful or "near perfect" to those who don't know me.

I don't know if this makes sense, but it really struck me that I need to strive to do better to keep my Savior close by me at all times.

A Dollar A Day

So I was reading a blog a while back. A friend of an acquaintance if you will.

Anyway, she talked about how she only spends a dollar for every day/use of an item.

I really like this. It helps me put into perspective how much I'm paying for something. Not that I've ever had a hard time, because I don't stop in a store until I hit the clearance rack anyway, but I really like this idea.

I think sometimes I overspend. Whatever the case may be. Probably mostly clothes and shoes (although lately, I feel that I'm paying a good deal of $$$$$$$ on food, which is kind of depressing to think about.) So when I read her reasoning, I kind of agreed.

So I have a new philosophy of spending. I have to look at the cost, and then decide if I will use that item as much as I'm spending.

I think, sadly, this will be easy for me for clothing. I spend $20 I wear it 20 times, I think I can do that. But it'll be the bigger ticket items to come up in my life fairly soon (furniture and electronics and whatever else comes with moving into an apartment and living on your own.) I'm going to have to start reasoning out couches and tvs and tables to see if they're really worth my hard earned teacher's salary to pay for.

It has already put my thinking into perspective.

Story. I was looking at movies with my roommate (not for me, but she wanted to look at them, because anyone who knows me KNOWS I only buy movies the day after Thanksgiving. Bargain.) Anyway, I was looking at these movies that are 15-30 dollars, and thinking there's no way people ACTUALLY watch those movies 15+ times. I thought about my own movie collection and wondered about how many times I watch my movies. Of course, for my brother he gets more than his money's worth on a few movies, such as Bolt and Monsters, INC. because my niece and nephew LOVE those 2 movies and will sit and watch them as long as they're playing.

I just did a visual count of the movies I have here with me at college and it's somewhere around 80 movies, unless I counted wrong. That's crazy! Good thing I only spend $2 on most of them huh? (minus a few of them that were gifts such as my Harry Potter collection and Disney movies) But even still, if all of those movies were only $2 (they're not, some were much more than that) that's still $160. That's a lot of money on something you can't do a lot with, really. It's entertainment, sure. But you can't really do anything productive with them.

Just some (expensive) food for thought.

A lot of Nothing

I feel like I have so much to say, so much is floating around in my head, but I'm having trouble formulating it and actually figuring out a way to include my thoughts here.

I stink lately at this whole blog thing. I stink lately at a lot of things. I stink at trying to figure stuff out.

I'm going to make an effort to be better. To be better about blogging with more style and finesse, and pizazz. To be better about really relating my true interworkings and musings.

I feel like even if you don't care about what I'm saying, I do. I have to keep telling myself this. I care about my thoughts, and I need to get them down.

Hopefully my blogging will come alive this 2011.