JR.MISS

When Plans Go Wrong...

I have always had a plan in my life... when I was a senior in high school I had a plan. I was going to go to Utah State on scholarship in my grandparents jeep (that I begged for and due to lovely grandparents I was allowed to borrow it for a semester) and study Speech Language Pathology. Everything worked out for me that year after high school (well mostly everything) I did what I thought I was going to do. I had some roommate troubles but other than that I had a great year. I fell in love and then the next plan in my life was established.

My connections class

My 1st college room. My bed was the cute pink one.

I married Clark and now I had a CRV to drive to my Junior year of college. I finally got into my major and loved it and it has been great so far. However, this summer and my plans for that are starting to irk me! I had a plan this summer that I would take an anatomy class from SLCC and stay at my in-laws. I would study for my GRE and volunteer at hospitals to up my resume and I would train for a marathon.

My plan has gone wrong. What do you do when your plan goes wrong? Well to be honest, I don't know the answer to this question. My plans usually have worked how I thought they would and now I really don't have a game plan. This is the reason why... SLCC accepted me and I got on to register for my class this summer and all the courses were full. The professors are discouraged to take anymore students than the limit and their is no wait list for Biology 2320. This little disturbance in the plan made me rethink every single decision I had made about this summer. I had to start thinking about different ways I can take this class. I had to reconsider the job thing and the volunteer thing. etc. etc. NO FUN!

The point of the whole story is that... I strongly dislike growing up. I love that I have my own apartment, with my own husband and my own little life but I miss being a kid. I really do. I miss coming home to a meal made by my mother and a clean house. My mom even made my bed on mornings I had to run out of the house without doing it... she thought I was ungrateful when I didn't notice this but I noticed and I loved it. Thanks mom. I miss cuddling on the couch watching NCIS after mom and I got home from dance practice. I miss FHE with little brothers and sisters. I miss laundry being done for me and all I have to do is put it away. I miss running cross country on a team. I miss jumping on a trampoline whenever I wanted. I miss staying up late talking to my mom. I miss random people dropping in the Cook house on Sunday evenings. I miss a lot about being a kid.

Although the point of the story was that... I strongly dislike growing up, their is another point that this plan story brings up.

I have a plan that no matter what happens with this college class or what happens with the rest of the
future, that I will create that carefree life Clark and I both lived as children for my own. My house will be a safe haven from the world. We will read scriptures, have FHE and attend church regularly. We will have dance parties in the kitchen while washing the dishes. We will cuddle and watch NCIS or some other show after dance lessons. We will practice piano and other instruments. We will work on homework and succeed at what we try to do as a family. We will play endless amounts of games and have random neighbor friends drop in regularly on Sundays. We will work and clean. We will learn a lot together. Most of all, we will love each other and our house will be filled with Christ.

I hope that I can create a life for my children that I had and I hope in that home of ours my children can make plans, like I did and even when they don't work out, they can see the bigger picture.

*This was a very long long blog post but I'm also adding pictures of our Easter Friday night. It was fun!

We dyed Easter Eggs. I put too much vinegar and they turned out yucky so we only dyed 5. HA HA.

We got each other Easter baskets.

I already told you what Clark got and he loved it!

I got cute notebooks for my to-do lists, a pirate kite because West Side is my Alma-mater and lip gloss.

He's a cute guy!

Oh ya and the Easter bunny is Catholic. I got Easter chocolate prayer hands. I think the E. Bunny also has a sense of humor.

On Saturday we went to my parents and opened Easter bags. My parents got me a cute shirt and necklace and Clark a sling shot. He loved it. Then on Sunday we had Easter dinner at the Evans. Claudia makes a mean Halibut dish.

Overall, It was a GREAT EASTER. We are so thankful for the Savior and His atonement and resurrection. We are so grateful we know we will live as families forever.

"Five Feel Goods" Friday!

I decided I'm going to do this on Friday's for fun! So these are the things I loved, that made me feel good today and this week.

1. Old Men- Well really old men can be the meanest guys ever or the nicest and today I had a good experience. This old guy came through parking and I ask "how are ya?" as always his reply is, "I'm doing good for an old guy." He says this every time he comes through. I don't know if it is the dementia kicking in or he really is doing good for an old guy. I love seeing him. I love old men like this and I'm so happy that I already know my husband is going to be nice when he is elderly because those mean one's aren't very fun.



2- Being Wanted- I get a text last night from my dear cousin McKayla saying that she is playing volleyball in Smithfield tomorrow. I was glad she thought of me and would like if I came. Then I had a teacher say she wanted me to come to the lab on Saturday and work on my projects (well she didn't say that exactly but she said we could come work on our projects). Then I had an Ear Anatomy book begging me to read it on Saturday. Then I had my boss email me and say he would love for me to go garden at Shaw's on Saturday. I also had the prophet tell me he'd like me to go to the temple on Saturday (well those weren't his exact words either but he wants me to go). I love being wanted! I do plan on attending each of these things. Luckily, I have Friday to spread them out too!

3- The Easter Bunny- Knowing that Clark probably won't read this I'll reveal what the Easter Bunny is giving him. Clark asked for Jarritos the Mexican Soda, so the E. Bunny got some of that. He also got an iTunes card because he knew Clark was itching to buy angry birds but had no excuse to. He also ordered a book off Amazon for $6.50 and had it sent to our apartment called "Other Men's Horses" by Elmer Kelton. The Easter Bunny knows Clark so well.


4- Sunday Nap- The anticipated Sunday nap always makes me feel good on a Friday.


5- Shaw's and my lovely friend Rachel- I get to go to Shaw's in a half an hour and I'm way excited. Mostly because my friend Rachel will tell me her love life stories and also because I feel accomplished after I garden for a while.

PS- I'll add pictures later to make this more exciting!

Crumpled Parking Tickets and Passions

Lately, I've been thinking... what is my passion? Everyone in life has something they absolutely love. For my Grandpa it would be: fishing, sports, the gospel and his family. (I miss my grandpa)

For my Grandma it would be: her honey, her kids, her grand kids, the gospel and taking care of the church library (AKA ward). (My Gran looks lovely in this picture)

For my dad it would be: telling jokes, pondering about things for many hours, his calling and his family.

For my mother it would be: entertaining the masses and serving others (and of course the gospel). She tends to always be doing something for someone else or talking to a wall. (She is a cute mom!)

For my brother Joseph it would be: SPORTS, what ever is in season and maybe his other one would be talking mom into pretty much anything.

 
For my sister Addie, it would be: perfecting everything. She is perfect at pretty much everything she does whether it's sports, school, making friends, reading her scriptures, obeying her parents... She is perfect.

For my brother Brigham it would be: a tie between being the baby of the family and eating ramen noodles (my dad says he could feed Brig for $1 a week and Brigham would be content every night on ramen) or maybe it would be his bird buddy. (I put this picture up because my mom says he is her favorite kid)

For my husband Clark it would be: Brazil, horses, the outdoors, western novels and I would say me.

So all of these people have these amazing passions. They are unique to them but I don't feel like I have any unique passion. Some people have a passion for fashion, some have one for cooking or interior design. I do not have those passions. I can't pin one for me. I have the regular passions: my family, the gospel, my husband etc. but I don't have a Brazil or a bird. I don't have a sport or kids. I don't have a knack to serve all day everyday. So I constantly tell Clark I'm passionless. I have not one thing that is all mine... except for him.

This was our discussion the other night. Clark is in the other room studying and I am looking at a fashion blog. I realize again that I'm passionless. I am just a fish in the ocean of students at Utah State. I work for Parking of all places... parking. I then get depressed. I go into the room sit by Clark and say, "Clark, I'm passionless." He replies, "No you aren't." I say, "Yep, I am. I don't know fashion, interior design, cooking or crafts." He then says, "Those fashion people are selfish. (NO OFFENSE FASHION PEOPLE) You take care of me. You pay attention to your siblings. You're good at school. You run a lot. You are fun. See, you do have passions." Needless to say, I guess I was looking for passion in the wrong places. I just wanted something cool that I could blog about and get famous off of, like this fashion girl I was reading about. So pretty much, I was being shallow.

I decided that I do have a passion and mine is: "Becoming a Someone". I have so many things I want to do in this life and I have goals I want to reach. This is why I am in school and why I go to church and why I develop talents that I have. I think it is a good passion and an experience the other day confirmed it for me. As I said, I work for parking and I see many many people come through everyday. Nice people, mean people, stressed people, sad people, happy people, lovely people and all kinds of other people. I get handed many blue tickets from all these people everyday that tell me how much to charge them and then this old lady with arthritis comes through, a really BAD case of arthritis.

Her knuckles are turned the wrong way. Her fingers don't come together right and she hands me a crumpled parking ticket. I usually get frustrated when they are crumpled because I can't run them through the machine and I have to un-crumple them and run them through a separate machine and it slows me down. I want the tickets handed to me perfectly in crisp condition. Then it hits me like a ton of bricks... this analogy is strange I know but... I want to be a crumpled parking ticket. When I've grown old, I want the experiences in my life to have shaped the person I am. I don't want to be the perfectly crisp parking ticket that has never experienced anything in life. I want to be the crumpled isn't perfect but will still do.

My grandma has a quote I read when I go to her house and I can't remember it now but the point is that the lady makes in the quote is when she shows up to Heaven she doesn't want to recollect her Earthly life as having the biggest house, the most money, the prettiest clothes etc. etc She wants to show up with peanut butter on her dress from the sandwich she made for a child in an old volks wagon with calloused hands. The analogy reaches quite far from a crumpled parking ticket to this quote but the lady wants to be a crumpled parking ticket. She doesn't want to look prim and proper all the time, she wants to be that someone that didn't have everything and didn't live the 'perfect' luxurious life but she still enjoyed the ride and was shaped into the someone she is because of it. I want to "become a someone... a crumpled parking ticket."

BECAUSE in the end it doesn't matter how perfect you are...What matters is:

How much you LOVED the people in your life...

How GOOD YOU WERE to the friends you made...

the DECISIONS you made...

and how HARD YOU TRIED.

Because the Lord will un-crumple your ticket and make up the difference.

So from passions to parking tickets I found that, I do have a passion and I love it. In the end, what will matter most is, "that someone I became."