Friends Forever :)

once upon a time...

twas just before the valentine's dance;
Haley's mind swirled round.
it was a girls' choice dance, a date needed to be found!

ok...maybe I wont finish this post in rhyme ;)

wanna know who I took to that valentine's dance about four years ago?
my pal colton kilmer! ha!



I remember being conflicted about asking him cuz we were just good friends; valentine's day is about love--should I let someone ask him who had more romantic intentions?

but, I knew we would have a blast, so I asked him anyway. we never dated, but we did indeed have a blast :)

funny to look back on that time in high school--I had no idea he would become my lifelong valentine :)

Colton Kilmer and I are engaged! forgive me if I sound a little giddy ;) :) :)

wowsa. life sure takes you down unexpected paths! sometimes those paths are incomprehensibly wonderful :)

when he got back from a mission to canada, he wasn't going to date for six months. I was getting ready to put in my papers for a mission. buuuuut we fell in love instead :) what can ya do? ;)

dating him rocks, but that can be a story for another time. since we are recently engaged I figured this would be a convenient place to tell that tale for anybody interested :)

I had one request regarding the proposal: I wanted to be surprised!

Mission accomplished :)
I had been wanting to go skating at the gallivan center for quite awhile. so we did :) ice skating is one of my favorite things ever. ice skating outdoors? even better. ice skating with my favorite person? cant beat :)

(Man skating was fun. It felt like we were dancing the whole time!)

(He helped me lace up my skates...cuz it is harder than it looks ha. Yep, love him.)

after that little piece of heaven, we headed to meet my family for dinner. so I was told. really, my family had no intention of ever joining us! since our dinner plans were now open, Colton decided to make a "last-minute" reservation at olive garden. a very specific olive garden, actually.

(you see, when Colton got home we went out to grab some food so he could tell me about his mission. no romantic intentions on either side, just catching up with a friend. that was the non-date that started it all :) )

(different day...but I felt like another picture was called for ha)

I was very excited--in a few days I was going to leave for a cruise with my family. what better way to soak up some last minutes with Colton than heading back there?

towards the end of the meal, our waiter brought out fortune cookies. that was the first time I got a little suspicious--fortune cookies have come to have a fun and significant meaning between us :)

but the waiter covered it great! he told us something about olive garden being a franchise, owning red lobster and several other restaurants (to which colton nodded and responded in the affirmative. I figured I had just never heard that before). the waiter offered us the fortune cookies as a promotion of the company's new concept, which was gonna be a chinese place. yep. tooooootally fell for it; suspicions lowered.

a sweet message from colton was inside :) then my man took a knee and popped the question :)

:) :) :)
I am getting married! I get to marry my Colton :)

after that, we hit up toys r us and temple square (re-creating that first non-date). it was blissful :) since I am always happy when I am with Colton I dont think I realized how happy I was til I saw someone in toys r us and it caught me off guard that they weren't beaming too :)

:)

P.S. I love the song Lost In This Moment by Big and Rich :)
one of the lines in that song says,
"lost in this moment with.you, I am completely consumed; I'm feeling so absolute, there's no doubt."
that is how I feel with him--complete, happy, no doubt :) just...good!

Wanna see something pretty? :)

:)

What's Your Secret?

I work in a hospital, so I see lotsa people :)

Many of those people are old; frequently they will talk about their spouse.

When they mention how long they've been married (often for decades upon decades), my response is always a lighthearted, 

"What's your secret?"

I get lots of responses :)

Some of them are humorous:

"Learn early to say 'yes ma'am,'" or "Realize quick who is boss."

:)

Some of them are packed with history:

"You never give up."

Wanna know my favorite response so far?

"Just love each other."

:)

Motivation

Saw this in one of my classes earlier this semester. Quite interesting!

Rewards as manipulations.

Pretty much the biggest thing I learned in this class is you can't change other people.
(But I'm studying therapy!)

Ahem. Pretty much you can only help facilitate environments in which others would be most willing to change of their own volition. Fine line. Cool stuff.

Worry about fixing yourself. Try to help others.

Trying to change others just gets them and you frustrated.

Wanna know what my excellent (and not-boring) textbooks were for this class?? :)

Why We Do What We Do (Edward Deci), Leadership and Self-Deception (Arbinger Institute), Anatomy of Peace (Arbinger Institue), The How of Happiness (Sonja Lyubormirsky), Learned Optimism (Martin Seligman).

Yep, I pretty much have the coolest major ever--love it :)

This video brings up autonomy (self-direction), mastery (getting better at something), and purpose (what gets you up in the morning).

Trusting people to rise up to an amazing potential gets yourself out of their way, and leads to crazy awesome results!

See people as people.

Life is good :)

PS
Random....but wanna hear about another study I learned about? I'll cite it if I find it...
Basically, some people think the more attractive you are, the happier you'll be.
Nope!
They had a bunch of people rate how attractive they thought they personally were, then they had a bunch of other people rate how attractive they thought each person was. (Don't worry, I don't think anyone got told their scores ha.)
The people that were considered attractive weren't happier than unattractive--the interesting finding:

People who thought they were attractive were happier. Even people that were unattractive or only decently attractive, but considered themselves attractive were happier than the good-looking people who didn't think they looked good.

Blind arrogance? I like to see it as self-assurance--people who are satisfied with what they've got are happier :)

We could all be skinnier/buffer/shorter/taller/whatever. We're all good in our ways. We just gotta believe it :)

Circle of Life

(Apologies...it's a double-post day...I couldn't resist)

I feel so full of thoughts right now.

Some words highlighting (and contrasting) my thoughts right now:

"Turning, turning, turning through the years,
Minutes into hours and the hours into years.
Nothing changes, nothing ever can.
Round and round the roundabout and back where you began!"
                                   ~Turning--Les Miserables

I feel like this occasionally. Some things change, but I'm still ME. Just like I was last year, and ten years ago. Still struggling with the same faults. Still dreaming the same dreams. Realizing more and more how my problems and triumphs are the same ones that have been experienced for millennia by mankind.

But!

I have improved personally; some faults sneak back less frequently.
I have achieved some dreams, I'm working on others, and I'm dreaming up new plans.

This is the concept of entropy. If you leave things be, they will deteriorate back to their simplest/original form. Things will be the same as they were.
If you intentionally change something, it is more/different than it was (unless you stop changing it--then entropy kicks in again).

If you have a good habit that you enjoy/is helping you be a better person, that is awesome! But it won't last forever. You'll stop it. Unless you don't.

Depressing? Heck no!!!!

The very idea that our habits may die away also demonstrates the very hopeful and amazing idea that we get to choose and control what we do!

Agency, people, it rocks.

Of course, there is much we can't control.
Life throws us some very powerful lessons to teach us that..

But control what you should. 

“If you haven’t the strength to impose your own terms upon life, you must accept the terms it offers you.” 
~T. S. Eliot

:)

Lots to Learn

I have another book to add to my list of things-to-read: The Once and Future King by T. H. White :)

In an email from a friend I came across this quote, which I quite like:

"'The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, 'is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatic, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then--to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.'" 

I love this!

I think there are other things that don't fail as well. 

But learning truly is amazing for plucking yourself up out of your present situation if you feel stuck; you realize there is more to see and know and do than what you are seeing or knowing or doing. When I learn something new, I feel refreshed, invigorated. 

No longer do the fences built by your current circumstances seem to stand indefinitely. Learning gives you a sense of something greater than where you are. And that isn't disheartening--it is relieving and inspiring! 

This reminds me of the second point of this post: Busy.

This also reminds me of my PS at the end of this post: Right & Nice.

:)