Disney!

Haven't posted in way too long, but this was too good to pass up :)

What if the Disney Princes were a boy band?

Hope you were also inspired to watch a Disney movie ;)

Let the Words Fall Out

This is a song we have been loving at work :) (Slash hating when it is stuck in our heads)

Good stuff :)

Brave by Sara Bareilles
"You can be amazing
You can turn a phrase into a weapon or a drug
You can be the outcast
Or be the backlash of somebody's lack of love
Or you can start speaking up
Nothing's gonna hurt you the way that words do
And they settle 'neath your skin
Kept on the inside and no sunlight
Sometimes a shadow wins
But I wonder what would happen if you

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

I just wanna see you
I wanna see you be brave

Everybody's been there, everybody's been stared down
By the enemy
Fallen for the fear and done some disappearing
Bow down to the mighty
Don't run, stop holding your tongue
Maybe there's a way out of the cage where you live
Maybe one of these days you can let the light in
Show me how big your brave is

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

Innocence, your history of silence
Won't do you any good
Did you think it would?
Let your words be anything but empty
Why don't you tell them the truth?

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave...

I just wanna see you
I wanna see you be brave."

:)

Rapidly, merrily

Charlotte Bronte wrote an encouraging poem I quite liked!
What I like most about it is that I strongly believe the message I got:
Hope is powerful.

Really we're all gonna have uncomfortable or rough or personally stretching times. If you believe things can get better, you work to create that reality. What a simple but profound truth!

My boss has a license plate cover that says, "There are no accidents." Besides tempting the car wreck gods, this saying basically means that you create yourself and what happens to you by what you think and do. (Things happen to us. But if we do something with them (or not), then we are still involved in that creation.)

Which reminds me of this:

(Yep. Totally found this on Pinterest)

Life teaches you that you need to have hope when hope is the silliest option.

Which reminds me of this video. Holy heck, that was one of my first posts. "If you don't get a miracle...become one."

A line in this poem says,
"Yet hope again, elastic springs, Unconquered, though she fell." Awesome

Life--Charlotte Bronte
"Life, believe, is not a dream
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day.
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
O why lament its fall?

Rapidly, merrily,
Life's sunny hours flit by,
Gratefully, cheerily,
Enjoy them as they fly!

What though Death at times steps in
And calls our Best away?
What though sorry seems to win,
O'er hope, a heavy sway?
Yet hope again elastic springs,
Unconquered, though she fell;
Still buoyant are her golden wings,
Still strong to bear us well.
Manfully, fearlessly,
The day of trial bear,
For gloriously, victoriously,
Can courage quell despair!"

:)

Future is Present

Time by Edie Moy

Forever it seems
Seasons fly by and by, now
Future is present.

:)

Summertime!

Woo! Life sure moves along :) It's exhausting and wonderful :)

I have a new job! (Internship.)

I'm interning at a residential treatment center and I'm amazed.

The students here have been through hard things, and they are working on making hard changes.

They are in an environment specifically designed to help them understand themselves better and recognize changes they need to make. WOW!

Really, we are all in such an environment. It is just usually more subtle. Feedback and consequences in the "real world" aren't always consistent or obvious.

Watching the students look at their issues makes me really think about how I react...to everything. To other people, to myself, to everyday situations.
When something isn't going how I would like it to (whether because I'm not acting correctly or because the details around me aren't ideal), what do I think/feel/do?

Withdraw? Shut down and think it isn't worth it to work through the situation? Smile and nod but seethe inside? Feel frustrated but decide to make that hard, good choices? Take my feelings out on others? Choose to look at what I can change about what is going on? Hmm!

I am so impressed by people. People go through rough stuff! But we can do it! That is why we are here--refine ourselves and love others. Awesome :)

:)

If You Can't Say Something Nice..

I love this! Got chills at one point.

Little bit reminds me of this:

http://thedoghousediaries.com/4503

This happens all the time with singers, actors, politicians, etc.
Crazy how sometimes we rationalize why we can be rude!
Of course we can have opinions and preferences. But remember we are all people :)



:)

Lotsa Pretty :)

The other night I watched the Life of Pi with my roommates :)
I'll admit I was skeptical before the movie began ha. After seeing the trailer, I wondered how the movie could last more than ten minutes. He gets shipwrecked and he is in a boat with a tiger. How do you stretch that out??

Well, I must say I was thoroughly impressed!!! My roommates and I got really into it haha--yelling and oohing and aahing.

The scenery was gorgeous, astounding. Breathtaking, even! Seriously incredible nature shots.

With this on my mind, and another bike ride up to Deer Creek Reservoir, I couldn't help but think how great this earth is. I feel God through his beautiful world!

I love the sky, I love the mountains, I love trees. Tis all great :)
Pretty nature makes me happy happy happy :)

(Wanna hear another pretty thing I will see today?? The Oquirrh Mountain Temple :) I am going through, and I am not sure I could be more excited than I am at this moment :) :))

Eek! :)

:) :) :)

Motives

I don't think we realize everything that has been done for us.

Sacrifices made, times people held their tongues when we were being dumb, efforts they made to make themselves better.

Makes me want to give everybody the benefit of the doubt, think kindly about everyone. Who knows why they are doing what they are doing. 

It reminds me of a Christmas story! A family was really struggling for money--they literally could not buy any Christmas presents for their young children. To their joy and surprise, someone dropped off a generous supply of gifts on their porch Christmas Eve. 

They went about their days, finding themselves acting kinder to everyone! They had no idea who gave them the presents--what if they were sour or judgmental towards someone who had presented them with an unspeakably wonderful gift?? 

I love that! We really don't know everyone's full story. I have found that the more you know (about circumstances or people!), the easier it is to understand and love people. 

So until you know more...love anyway :) Think the best of people!

Pretty much...I'm feeling really humble today. We all fall short, yet there is so much good going on. Life rocks.

:)

Super!

Hello world!

Can I show you something super pretty?? :) :) :)

This is where I did my homework yesterday :) 

I am in a mountain biking class and for homework we go on an individual ride once a week. --This is the Deer Creek Trail. Lotsa ups and downs but a wide trail so I never feared falling off a cliff :)

Mountain biking is super fun! I'd never done more than road biking before this semester, but I like it a lot :)

Ready for some more super happenings in my life?

General Conference this weekend! (Plus going to Colton's mission reunion--woot!)

Next week I am going to the temple!!!!!!!!!!!! (insert a million happy exclamation marks)

Three weeks from today I will take my last final, which means....

Three weeks and one day from today I will marry Colton in the Salt Lake Temple!

:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

I feel really great this week. (Which is nice because last week was insanely stressful. I can't remember ever feeling as stressed as I was! Three cheers for school ha)

Luckily I had an awesome weekend to help me recover :) I joined the Kilmer clan in Mesquite for Easter weekend. 

The whole trip was a blast!
-A sweet hike,
-Easter egg hunts,
-pool time,
-and even a stop at a Cove Fort--a pioneer site where our missionary guide instructed Colton's uncle to marry us (complete with a prairie diamond--a bent horseshoe nail ha!)

Who needs Vegas? ;)

Twas great. Super great! :)

This guy may have been my favorite part of the whole adventure ;)

 (I do realize I look slightly stoned in this picture. Sh sh sh. I'm just happy :))

Anyhoo, life is super busy. And super awesome :)

:)

Jojoba

"On bleak days, with leaden skies,
when you don't know where to begin.
Your head hurts and your heart cries,
look for the sunshine within.

After dark dreams of panic and fear,
when you almost break, almost give in.
All hope smashed, dreams far from here,
look for the sunshine within.

On foul days, with no rest in sight,
and you cannot force a grin.
Remember be calm, it will be alright,
you have the sunshine within."

(What is it with poets having the coolest names ever? The author of this poem, The Sunshine Within, is Jojoba Mansell! Sweet!)

:)

Rocks

Guess what! I'm taking a mountain biking class now! (I ride with the slow--ahem, I mean fun--group.)
It is a blast! In a challenging sorta way ha.

Wanna hear one of those life lessons random activities can throw atcha? :)
I thought you might ;)

When we were approaching a part with a lot of twisty downhills, our teacher told us,

"Now don't look where you don't want to go.

If there is a rock you want to miss, don't stare at it. 

Look ahead, where you want to be."

(I admit, I really didn't think it was impossible to conquer some of the up-hills we went on ha. 

But we did!

No, this isn't a pic from the class. Tis a random one, courtesy of google) :)

Ya catching my drift? If there is something you are working on in life, don't concentrate on the ways you can fail. Don't stare at habits you want to stop. 

Like they say in rehab for people with addictions--you can't just stop your habit, you have to replace it with something good.

Such is life, eh? :) Focus on the good. Look ahead, where you want to be. 

You might just hit less rocks :)

P.S. Today is a country music night for me :)

Rambling

Guess what it's March! I can officially say I get married next month :)
Whaaaaa? :)

I'm tired. I know there are people who work harder and sleep less than me
--but I'm still tired ha!
My roommate says I was talking all last night...I wonder if sleep talking makes sleep less effective?

That being said, I'm happy as a slinky on an escalator :)
(Anyone else love those commercials?)

On my mind today is getting things done. Specifically, how you can do things you couldn't do before with a bit of training. (Fortunately because I think this is the point, ha, but) I feel so much more prepared to do lots of different things after taking all of my college classes. I feel more comfortable in different job scenarios, I understand more about the world, etc.

I don't know if I ever imagined I would feel skilled and competent in specific situations.

This has made me reflect on the fact that, really, if we want to accomplish something, we can. We have to put in the training and practice!

This seems like sort of a silly epiphany--every little kid show spouts the fact that if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish it. And yet I still saw people in professional positions (or, quite frankly, most grown ups) as intimidating, talented special-cases.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still impressed by their talents and intense work they do. But now, I'm less stunned by their qualities and more impressed with the fact that they honed the skills to get to that point.

So, to echo all those kid shows out there--if you have a dream to be/do something, do it! You can train, you can practice, you can learn. And once you get there, start working for new goals and dreams :)

Let's call this post Rambling of a Tired Woman.

Have a sunny day!

:)

Rise and Shine

Love this. Not just for running. For life.

 :)

Touched by an Angel

This is one of the first of my favorite poems
I guess some people could say parts are cheesy...but writing is a vulnerable thing. So I'll take it :)

Touched by an Angel--Maya Angelou

We, unaccustomed to courage,
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.
Love arrives
and in its train comes ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.
We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light.
We dare to be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

House of Cards

I just read A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis.

Tis a tiny little book, very quick read--I recommend it :) 

(Tiny background: he wrote this book after his wife died. This is a collection of thoughts and pains he jotted down in a notebook after that.)

I was intrigued by the book for the simple reason that human experiences--thoughts and emotions--always attract me. His journey of grief and grapple with faith are so human!

His relationship with his wife is described so sweetly and painfully...as this kind of pain is not something I'm currently experiencing, this post is gonna focus on some astute observations Lewis had about grief in general.

(Hahahaha that just reminded me...sometimes my mind wanders in random directions. The other day in the middle of a run I was having an internal dialogue about the advantages of an author saying "smart" versus "intellectually astute." 

Obviously one sounds more descriptive, but perhaps also a tad pretentious. "Smart" might be a little common, but it's more concise. Yeah...Anyhoo...)

Allow me to share, first some parts that stood out to me (good un's), and second, three metaphors that developed in the book that I quite liked.

Good Un's

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear."

"...this is one of the miracles of love; 

it gives...a power of seeing through its own enchantments 

and yet not being disenchanted."

"I never believed before--I thought it immensely improbable--that the faithfulest soul could leap straight into perfection and peace the moment death has rattled in the throat...I know there are not only tears to be dried but stains to be scoured. The sword will be made even brighter. But oh God, tenderly, tenderly."

"We don't really want grief, in its first agonies, to be prolonged: nobody could. 

But we want something else of which grief is a frequent symptom."

"...in grief nothing 'stays put.' One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral? But if a spiral, am I going up or down it?"

Closed Door

"Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude or praise, you will be--or so it feels--welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate  when other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. And that seeming was as strong as this. What can this mean? Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?"

"I have gradually been coming to feel that the door is no longer shut and bolted. Was it my own frantic need that slammed it in my face? The time when there is nothing at all in your soul except a cry for help may be just the time when God can't give it...Perhaps your own reiterated cries deafen you to the voice you hoped to hear. On the other hand, 'Knock and it shall be opened.' But does knocking mean hammering and kicking the door like a maniac? After all, you must have a capacity to receive, or even omnipotence can't give. Perhaps your own passion temporarily destroys the capacity."

(This reminds me of 'Where is the Pavilion' by Henry B Eyring)

"Turned to God, my mind no longer meets that locked door...When I lay these questions to God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of 'No answer.' It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate gaze. As though He shook His head no in refusal but in waiving the question. Like, 'Peace, child; you don't understand.'"

Rope

"You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose you had to hang by that rope over a precipice. Wouldn't you then first discover how much you really trusted it?...Only a real risk tests the reality of a belief."

"I thought I trusted the rope until it mattered to me whether it would bear me. Now it matters, and I find I didn't."

House of Cards

"We were even promised sufferings. They were part of the programme. We were even told, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' and I accepted it. I've got nothing that I hadn't bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not in imagination. Yes; but should it, for a sane man, make quite such a difference as this? No. And it wouldn't for a man whose faith had been real faith and whose concern for other people's sorrows had been real concern. The case is too plain. If my house has collapsed at one blow, that is because it was a house of cards. The faith which 'took these things into account' was not faith but imagination. The taking them into account was not real sympathy. If I had really cared, as I thought I did, about he sorrows of the world, I should not have been so overwhelmed when my own sorrow came."

"And I surely must admit...that, if my house was a house of cards, the sooner it was knocked down the better. And only suffering could do it....Is this last note a sign that I'm incurable, that when reality smashes my dream to bits, I mope and snarl while the first shock lasts, and then patiently, idiotically, start putting it together again? And so always? However often the house of cards falls, shall I set about rebuilding it? Is that what I'm doing now?
Indeed it's likely enough that what I shall call, if it happens, a 'restoration of faith' will turn out to be only one more house of cards. And I shan't know whether it is or not until the next blow comes--when, say, fatal disease is diagnosed in my body too, or war breaks out, or I have ruined myself by some ghastly mistake in my work. But there are two questions here. In which sense may it be a house of cards? Because the thing I am believing are only a dream, or because I only dream that I believe them?"

(I had to read that last line twice ha)

"I begin to see....Whether there was anything but imagination in the faith, or anything but egoism in the love, God knows. I don't. There may have been a little more...but neither was the thing I thought it was. A good deal of card-castle about both."

"God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down."

Some Final Thoughts....

"Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand."

"I thought I could describe a state; make a map of sorrow. Sorrow, however, turns out to be not a state but a process. It needs not a map but a history..."

I think this last thought is why the "consolation of religion" is difficult to let inside.
Sometimes we just need to shake ourselves off and be happy, but for real sorrow, it is something that we have to work through. We have to experience it and eventually conquer it.

But there is hope! :) All things will work together for the good of those that believe.
We just have to make it to that point.

Reading this book both made me appreciate the sorrow of others more, and made me want to fortify my faith.
I understand closed doors more than I used to, I trust the rope more than I have, and my house of cards has been knocked down hard enough that I built it stronger this time.

Just keep swimming

:)

Words

Can't sleep tonight. I'm in the mood for poetry. Sometimes I'll just google and browse around til I find another poem or two I love ha.

It is often just as intriguing to find poems that I don't love--trying to imagine or decipher just what the author was thinking when they penned/typed the words.

Interesting how sometimes we give more credence to dead people than living people. (Truth in The Band Perry's song: "Funny when you're dead how people start listening.")

Really though..when there is a particularly hidden metaphor or confusing wording, if the person is a classic poet, or old, I tend to think it is me who has just not quite breached the proper level of understanding.
Others can sound like they are just trying too hard to be deep. Even then I guess I find it intriguing to puzzle  toward their message.

Tributes to or commentaries on normal things.
On random things. On important things.
On love and happiness and loss and heartbreak.

Tonight (I guess it is morning now) I've mostly been randomly browsing the poems of Pablo Neruda.
Not necessarily cuz he's the best, or a favorite. Just cuz.

Pablo is from Chile. So his poems were translated to English.
Translations.
Crazy. Trying to recreate the same meaning, the same pretty words, the same feeling in a whole new language. Think of whole books that are translated!
Some gets lost, some gets added in the process I'm sure. Comparing different translations of Pablo's poems made me want to read the scriptures in a different language ha. Hopefully all arriving at the same meaning, different words strike you in different ways.

Here are some words of his I liked:

(Ode to the Book)

"When I close a book

I open life...

I won't go clothed in volumes...

they devour

exciting happenings...

send books back to their shelves,

I'm going down into the streets.

I learned about life

from life itself,

love I learned in a single kiss

and could teach no one anything

except that I have lived

with something in common among men,

when fighting with them,

when saying all their say in my song."

(Some Beasts)

"...From a rainbowing battlement..."

(Poetry)

"And it was at that age...Poetry arrived

in search of me.................

And I, infinitesimal being,

drunk with the great starry 

void,

likeness, image of 

mystery,

felt myself a pure part

of the abyss,

I wheeled with the stars,

my heart broke loose on the wind."

(Sonnet IX)

"In the wave-strike over unquiet stones...

You and I, my love, ratify the silence..."

(Your Laughter)

"...do not take from me your laughter...

My struggle is harsh and I come back

with eyes tired

at times from having seen

the unchanging earth,

but when your laughter enters

it rises to the sky seeking me

and it opens for me all 

the doors of life...

Laugh at the night,

at the day, at the moon,

laugh at the twisted

streets of the island,

laugh at this clumsy

boy who loves you...

never [deny] your laughter..."

(The House of Odes)

"...I know who I am

and where my song is going..."

That'll do for tonight ;)

:)

Change

On my mind right now....how much we humans change. Further down I have three poems posted, all by Pablo Neruda. One is about the pain of a lost love, one about feeling love, and one that could go either way.

We can feel all sorts of things: powerful feelings, subtle unnameable feelings, troublesome or soothing feelings.

I guess I'm writing to the same tune as I recently did...

We change.

That doesn't make what we experience less valid or real. But it is true. 

We can be knocked from our comfortable happiness; we can also heal after hurt. 

If I could write a letter to my middle school self, I would say that feeling new or different things doesn't make the old feelings less legitimate or important. 

I'm not just talking about feelings. Also thoughts and relationships and a million things. 

Ha!!!! (Story time: when I lived in California I was a Brownie Scout. And a Daisy Scout. I had a blast, and you can bet I rocked selling Girl Scout cookies ;))

Anyway, there was a song we sang I just remembered...

"Make new friends. But keep the old, some are silver and the others gold."

(You sing it in a round. Lots of fun ha.)

Sure we want to be able to move on to new things in life; we can take parts of the old with us and that will always be important!

Kinda different tangent, but this kinda reminds me of another poem I read last night (also by Pablo). So I guess I'm posting four of his poems ha :)

(We Are Many)

Of the many men who I am, whom we are, 

I cannot settle on a single one.

They are lost to me under the cover of clothing

They have departed for another city.

When everything seems to be set

to show me off as a man of intelligence,

the fool I keep concealed on my person

takes over my talk and occupies my mouth.

On other occasions, I am dozing in the midst

of people of some distinction,

and when I summon my courageous self,

a coward completely unknown to me

swaddles my poor skeleton

in a thousand tiny reservations...

All the books I read

lionize dazzling hero figures,

brimming with self-assurance.

I die with envy of them;

and, in films where bullets fly on the wind,

I am left in envy of the cowboys,

left admiring even the horses.

But when I call upon my DASHING BEING,

out comes the same OLD LAZY SELF,

and so I never know just WHO I AM,

nor how many I am, nor WHO WE WILL BE BEING.

I would like to be able to touch a bell 

and call up my real self, the truly me,

because if I really need my proper self,

I must not allow myself to disappear.

While I am writing, I am far away;

and when I come back, I have already left.

I should like to see if the same thing happens

to other people as it does to me,

to see if as many people are as I am,

and if they seem the same way to themselves.

When this problem has been thoroughly explored,

I am going to school myself so well in things

that, when I try to explain my problems,

I shall speak, not of self, but of geography.

(Tonight I Can Write)
"Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, 'The night is starry

and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'
The night revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer, the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer lover her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
And these the last verses that I write for her."

(If You Forget Me)
I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have fogotten you.

If you you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the hearts where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you will live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

(Sonnet XVII)
"I don't love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom
but carries the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,
and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose,
from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you directly, without complexities or pride:
I love you like this because I don't know any other way to love,
Except in this form in which I am not nor are you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close with my dreams."

:)

Hulk

The other day I had an epiphany.

When I get married I'll be paying to legally change my name...at which time who says I can't change more than my last name?? ;)

Now...having been called Haley my whole life, I'm pretty attached to that ha, but I might be down to give middle names a go!

A nurse I work with and I discussed that if my middle name started with an I, my initials would be HIK......so maybe I won't go down that road.

However, if my middle name starts with an L, my initials would be HLK! (Hulk, get it?) :) I could live with that :)

Or I could always go from Haley Freakin Haws to Haley Freakin Kilmer.

Or maybe I'll just do the normal thing and change my last name.

We'll see. Until that point, let me know if you have any cool name suggestions!
 :)

P.S. I know these are old, but I love them :)

:)

Helen

Helen Keller is pretty much amazing!

Look at some the things she has said..

"Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail."

"It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui."

            (I especially liked this cuz I learned the word ennui.
                 Pronounced ahn-wee..sounds like a french way of saying ornery.
            It means "a feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting
                from satiety or lack of interest; boredom; displeasure; annoyance")


"I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble."
          (...this makes me want to go to Romania.........)


"I seldom think about my limitations, and they never make me sad. Perhaps there is just a touch of yearning at times; but it is vague, like a breeze among flowers."

"The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of tiny pushes of each honest worker."

"All the world if full of suffering. 

It is also full of overcoming."

:)

Path

"The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them 

changes both the maker and the destination." 

~John Schaar

You've probably heard quotes like this before. Do you ever feel like life's course is inevitable? I think there are things we can't change. Especially in the past--face forward. The future is as bright as your faith. 

What about when your faith doesn't feel bright enough to get you to where you want to be? You can get there :) Pray :) It works. 

:)

ha! :)

Living With Questions

Today on campus there was a forum by a man named Dr. Michael Wesch--twas super good!!!

I'll post it when that is available.

He had a lot of really good things to say--one of my favorite takeaways is that we should live with questions. In other words, learning is usually facilitated when you really want to understand something better.

Better learning=better actions.

When you live with questions you want to experience the world;

 living itself feels like a celebration. 

Keep wonder in your world!

We are interested in different things, but our wonder and desire to learn helps us connect to each other and see the value in everything and everyone.

Life is an action, something you can get better at.

:)

I'm reminded of Dr. Palmer--my Social Recreation teacher last semester. He was great at reminding us that as we grow up, we don't have to be boring. We can enjoy life just as much--or more than kids! Keep having fun! Keep your sense of wonder! :)

:)

Birthdays

I just have to get this off my chest:

I am awful at remembering birthdays. This leads me to waaaay over-think facebook haha :)

Let me show you why:

         Good ol' FB is fantastic because I can see when people's birthdays are!
                  The problem?
         Since I am not on FB everyday I get paranoid that I missed somebody's birthday

(You can tell how depressing and serious of a problem this post is going to address)

I used to have the philosophy that if I knew someone well enough to be FB friends, then I was good enough friends to at least leave a generic "Happy birthday!" on their wall. 

          Now I tend to work the opposite way ha...I rarely tell anybody happy birthday.

Over-thinking: what if I tell some distant friend happy birthday then forget to wish somebody significant to me happy birthday??

(Of course if they are truly significant, I will probably offer more than a generic "happy birthday." )

But what about those in-between people who you want to keep up with, but don't know well enough to have their phone number?

Sigh. 

There you go. A glimpse into my oh-so-conflicted self ;) And an apology, to everybody I ought to have wished happy birthday. Happy birthday. 

Hopefully when your birthday comes around I will release my mind from over-analyzing such a simple thing and wish you a more personal happy birthday :)

:)