New Year Resolutions

As 2010 ends, I have looked back at how the year went and have pondered about how I can improve myself to be a better person from the experiences I have gone through. Overall, I think 2010 was a good year. I accomplished a couple of great goals- I graduated college and I started the first job in my career. I also went through a couple of trials- my unwed sister got pregnant, which was really hard on everyone, and I got in a pretty nasty car accident. Some things didn't change in a good way (like I didn't gain weight at all this year), but also in a bad way (my spirituality and faith hasn't progressed at all).

This year, I'm determined to stick with my new year resolutions! Here is an idea of what I want to do:

1. Increase my spirituality. Phil and I are pretty good about reading scriptures and praying together every night, but we could do better, and I want to work on doing the two by myself, as well. We've been slacking in the areas of going to church all three hours, paying a full tithe and going to the temple on a regular basis, so I definitely want to improve on those! I just got a calling to work in the primary, so going to church more shouldn't be a problem anymore.

2. Enjoy my time with my husband. With having a full-time job and with Phil going back to school full-time with a part-time job, it's easy to get in the routine of coming home, having dinner and just going to bed. Some days go by where we don't really have conversations. That can hurt a marriage, so I am going to start using the little time I have with Phil more meaningfully. I want to try to start going on weekly dates, having game nights, etc. I just want to make sure I'm taking the time to focus and love him. Our marriage is so great right now, but I bet it can be even better.

3. Eat better and get in shape! Right now, I have a routine that is maintaining my weight- which is an improvement from last year because during my first year of marriage, I gained weight! Phil has lost 15 lbs., I don't know how, but he is looking great and it has motivated me to want to lose weight too. I need to cut back a little more on eating out for lunch, though haven't decided how to do this yet, exercise-wise. I know there is a zumba class and I really want to do that, just need to find a workout buddy! :) I'm not going to set a goal of how much weight I want to lose, I just want to focus on having a healthier lifestyle and getting toned up.

So, there you have it! What are YOUR new year resolutions?

Our new car!

So, after looking around for a whole week, Phil and I found a car we both fell in love with at a Right Price Auto liquidation sale in Idaho Falls- a 2010 Hyundai Sonata. Our budget was originally $8,000-$10,000 and this car was $16,000. I wasn't too thrilled about the price, so I did my research and found the exact same car at a Utah dealership for only $13,000. I figured I would use this information to get the best deal out of this as I could. Well, the salesman was so intent on getting our business, he lowered the price to $15,500 with an APR of 8% and a payment of $300/month. We were thrilled with the APR because on my last car, my APR was 22%, but I did not like the price and asked to get a better deal or we would walk. I've never played hardball before, so I was really nervous about what might happen. The salesman left to talk to the manager and came back with this offer- $15,000, APR of 6.99% and a much better monthly payment. This was such a steal, we couldn't resist, so we went for it. Plus, I found out the Utah dealership sold the car I was interested in, so good thing I didn't go with them! This car is great, it has only 29,000 miles on it, lots of features and I love the blue color. Plus, we didn't have to put any money down and didn't need a co-signer. Plus plus, we get a free CarFax report on it since we bought it and won $35- yes, they pay you to buy a car! Merry Christmas to us!

Near death has given me perspective...

So, for those of you who did not hear, I was in a horrible car accident Dec. 1. I woke up that morning feeling like I shouldn't go to work that day, but I brushed off that feeling. I got in the car and started to drive to work in Rigby. I then had a feeling I should slow down, so I did from my usual 70 to 60 mph. The roads seemed fine, but I felt like I should drive extra carefully that morning. I glanced down and it was almost 8 a.m. That was the last thing I specifically remember before what happened next...

It was such a weird, out-of-body experience. Suddenly I'm sliding all over the highway. I don't feel any fear, I don't feel anything really. I swerved into the passing lane, then back into my lane, then through the passing lane again and through the median and onto on-coming traffic. I remember 4 or 5 cars passed me and I was determined to get back into the median. It felt so surreal and dream-like the whole time. The next thing I know, I'm on the ground with a few people surrounding me. I forget what they were saying, all I remember is that I kept asking them when I would wake up because I still thought I was dreaming. I was told I was in an accident and put into an ambulance. I was so confused and disoriented because I don't remember getting hit or feeling any pain or anything.

I was taken to the hospital in Idaho Falls and the doctors and nurses were astounded. I was hit by a car and t-boned by a semi-truck and I walked away with just bumps and bruises! Nothing was broken- except my car. It was completely totaled. Many people might have cried, saying "Why me!" But, I was completely humbled and grateful. Sometimes in this chaotic world we live in, we forget that the Lord loves us and is watching over us. This experience has deeply impacted my testimony on that. I have always feared being a part of a car accident. And, the Lord knew that. He made this horrible experience into one that I can move forward from quickly. I don't remember the accident at all and I didn't go through much pain. Sure, I still hurt- my body aches and I did get a twisted knee out of it- but, it could of been sooooo soooo much worse. The doctors said if the car hit me just a couple of inches to the left, I would have died. To add insult to injury though, the Idaho State Police gave me a ticket for driving too fast- but, like I said, I don't remember the roads being too bad.

This experience has opened my eyes so much. The Lord has lovingly given me a second chance at life! I don't know why, but I am so grateful and am determined to really live my life in the fullest- and that includes blogging more, too. :)

I am recovering very well and hope to get back to work on Monday- though I am terrified of the commute now. I still have bruises and I swollen hip and knee, but I am doing great. Thanks everyone for all your support through this. I'm so grateful!!!!

To view the news release of my accident, click here: http://www.localnews8.com/news/25971793/detail.html

This summer

Well, I have been out of school for almost two weeks and I have discovered that I have a lot of time on my hands and no idea what to do with it all. So, I have decided that I'm going to read- a lot. That was always one thing that bothered me when I was in school; I never had time to read. To make up for all of that lost time, I'm going to try to read 100 books by the end of August. I got lots of book suggestions from friends and family, but I decided to go ahead and read the top 100 classic books. There is a handful I have read before and a handful I recognize. Here is the list! I think it's going to be a good summer. :)

100 The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein

99 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

98 The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore

97 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

96 One Thousand and One Nights Anon

95 The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

94 Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

93 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré

92 Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

91 The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki

90 Under the Net by Iris Murdoch

89 The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing

88 Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin

87 On the Road by Jack Kerouac

86 Old Goriot by Honoré de Balzac

85 The Red and the Black by Stendhal

84 The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

83 Germinal by Emile Zola

82 The Stranger by Albert Camus

81The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

80 Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey

79 Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

78 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

77 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

76 The Trial by Franz Kafka

75 Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee

74 Waiting for the Mahatma by RK Narayan

73 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque

72 Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler

71 The Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin

70 The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

69 If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino

68 Crash by JG Ballard

67 A Bend in the River by VS Naipaul

66 Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

65 Dr Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

64 The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz

63 The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

62 Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

61 My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk

60 One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

59 London Fields by Martin Amis

58 The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño

57 The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse

56 The Tin Drum by Günter Grass

55 Austerlitz by WG Sebald

54 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

53 The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

52 The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

51 Underworld by Don DeLillo

50 Beloved by Toni Morrison

49 The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

48 Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin

47The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

46 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

45 The Voyeur by Alain Robbe-Grillet

44 Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre

43 The Rabbit books by John Updike

42 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

41 The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

40 The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

39 Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

38The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

37 The Warden by Anthony Trollope

36 Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

35 Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

34 The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

33 Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

32 A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell

31 Suite Francaise by Irène Némirovsky

30 Atonement by Ian McEwan

29 Life: a User’s Manual by Georges Perec

28 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

27 Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

26 Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

25 The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

24 Ulysses by James Joyce

23 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

22 A Passage to India by EM Forster

21 1984 by George Orwell

20 Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne

19 The War of the Worlds by HG Wells

18 Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

17 Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

16 Brighton Rock by Graham Greene

15 The Code of the Woosters by PG Wodehouse

14 Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

13 David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

12 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

11 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

10 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

9 Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

8 Disgrace by JM Coetzee

7 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

6 In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

5 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

4 The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

3 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

2 Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

1 Middlemarch by George Eliot

It's official!

I am a college graduate. It still feels surreal to me though. It just seems like I am going on summer break, which happens after every winter semester. I think it will really hit me when fall comes and I am not going back to school. It's so crazy that I am done with school forever! Well, graduation was awesome- I loved the attention and presents. :) After I got back from Rexburg, Phil surprised me with balloons, candy, and a willowtree called Courage. I was excited, I love willowtrees! Then we got all set for the event; my mom bought me a very cute dress for graduation and I put on my cap and gown. We went up with his parents, who got me very needed garments and a $50 gift card to Barnes and Noble.



At graduation, Sister Bergstrom, the dean of the communication department, said I should hop on stage and join the graduation choir since it wasn't that big. I saw my friend Chanae up there, so I was like okay! I had so much fun. I could feel the spirit so strongly while I was singing- it was just amazing. My family said they were amazed at my singing; I was apparently belting it out. All the credit goes to the spirit. :) Plus, the choir was the first to get their diplomas, so that was awesome.


After graduation, Phil came over with roses that my mom bought me and we took tons of pictures. Then we went to Applebees to celebrate! It was a great day. The next day (yesterday), I wanted to go shopping to celebrate graduation, as well as our one-year anniversary (which is today!). With the Barnes and Noble gift card, we bought 5 movies- Kate and Leopold, Step Up, Bedtime Stories, The Count of Monte Cristo, and National Treasure. We love our movies! I also bought two pairs of church shoes, a shirt, and a couple of other items. It was fun! I have had a great weekend.

In other news, I applied for a community news editor position at the Post Register and got an interview immediately. I thought the interview went sooo well; I've never had such a good interview. I would love to work for the Post Register and hope to get it. I will hear if I get the job sometime this week, so wish me luck!

What a great weekend...

Phil and I had such a wonderful weekend together. We went down to Utah on Saturday to attend the PM session of General Conference- and it was amazing!!! We both needed spiritual rejuvenation and we got it. I loved how so many people come from miles away to attend such an amazing event. I haven't felt the spirit so strongly in a long time. We both decided that Elder Holland's talk was the best- though, we loved all of the talks; we learned so much. We walked out much happier and more peaceful, as well as better people and we felt like we were more prepared for life's challenges.

After conference, we headed up to Logan where we stayed at Anniversary Inn. I had so much fun there, I already want to go back! We slept in a tree loft, the bathtub had a waterfall, and there were twinkling lights on the ceiling! What could be better? For dinner, we went to this amazing restaurant called the Beehive Grill. If you are passing through Logan, you seriously have to stop here- the food was amazing. We were only gone for a day, but we really needed that break from school, work, and family. It was nice for it to just be the two of us.

We had a nice Easter. We didn't do much, but we spent the day with my family- and that hasn't happened in a while. We had a great lunch and played games.

Best Friday EVER!

So, today was the best Friday ever. It didn't start out that way. It was a normal morning- I woke up, took a shower, and got ready for school today. I drove to school and went to my only class today, Case Studies. Today was the last day- the first sign it was going to be a great day- and so groups just presented their final presentations. At the end of class, my teacher, Brother Cannon, stood up and said, "If anyone is interested in conference tickets, come see me." My ears immediately perked up. I had wanted to get general conference tickets so badly and suddenly that opportunity was before me! I quickly walked to the front of the classroom and said I was interested- and only two other students came up, so I hoped I had a good chance of getting them. It seriously was a miracle because he had exactly 6 tickets to give away, so he each gave us a pair- plus, he gave ME a parking pass. I left sooo excited and happy.

The rest of my Rexburg day went on as normal. I went to work at the radio station, then went home and had lunch with Phil. I then went to work at Lowe's. I was originally scheduled to work tomorrow, but since I was given these tickets I tried to trade shifts with someone so I could go- and no one could switch me shifts! I was starting to stress when I told the head cashier, Lynne, of my situation. I wasn't sure what good it would do at first since she isn't LDS and so I didn't know if she would respond well to my request of getting off work- but she did! I just wanted to hug her! Then she said one of the managers, Vicky, wanted to talk to me. I suddenly got nervous- why would she want to talk to me? Was I in trouble? All I could do was take a deep breath and walked into her office.

I sat down and looked anxiously at her. "So, what's up?" I asked. And, she said something that I least expected- I got promoted to a customer service desk position. This may not sound like a big deal, but I have been a cashier at Lowe's for almost 11 months- I needed change. I immediately accepted. I would still get the same hours, but I would learn new things and take on new responsibilities. I was excited. I walked out humming with excitement and called Phil as soon as I could. He asked if I was getting more hours. "Um... Well, no..." Higher pay. "I don't know, she didn't mention it..." We talked for a few more minutes then I hung up and turned around- to bump into Vicky. And, the best words came out of her mouth. "Oh, I forgot to mention, we are going to raise your pay to $9.50." You know how I was so happy I could of hugged Lynne? Well, I was sooo happy that I actually hugged Vicky. She gave me a very surprised look and then walked quickly away, haha.

So, since Phil and I are going to Utah tomorrow, we decided we would celebrate our anniversary a week early by booking a room at the Anniversary Inn in Logan for Saturday night. I really wanted to get the Amazon Rainforest room, but it was already booked, so we are going to stay in the Swiss Family Robinson room, which seems pretty neat, too. The best part? The $189 room has a special going on so it only cost $99. Amazing! I am so excited, I have needed to get out of town.

12 Week Weight Loss Program

So, my mom is getting married in May and she has been looking for dresses for her daughters to wear. At this point, I'm the only one who still needs a dress. I have been dress shopping for her, but the dresses are too expensive, don't fit, or my mom thinks I look frumpy in them. A week ago was my mom's birthday and we were talking about what we could do about a dress for me. Then, my mom said something that completely offended me. "Maybe we should go look at Lane Bryants and try to find a dress there." With a shocked look on my face, I replied "Mom! I am not plus-size!" To make things worse, my sister Jaci piped in: "Oh, you're not plus-size? I thought you were." I was so humiliated and upset that my family actually thought this of me. Yes, I have gained a lot of weight since being with Phil- I know that too well, I have to look at myself everyday- but, I am NOT plus-size! I have only went up one pants size and my shirts still fit me, so that's not an issue. So, I stormed out crying and was miserable the whole night. The next day, I looked online for programs to help me lose weight- and I came across a free 12-week weight loss program. I am totally for it! My mom's wedding is in 10 weeks, so I think this will be a perfect program for me. Hopefully, it works out! My goal is to lose 20 lbs. Wish me luck! (This is the most recent picture of me that I could find. I want to go from that to how I looked a couple of years ago.)