and in that moment i KNEW i was infinite.

This weekend I had the opportunity to go to oo-tah with my sissy and one of her mission buddies. We were going down for the Festival of Holi which is held each March in Spanish Fork, Utah at the local Krishna Temple. (Which is the largest Hare Krishna temple in America--pretty rad.)

I went last year with my roommate Cody and one of her friends from back home and was excited to go again. 

I could try and explain the concept of it to you; but, no matter how hard I try it only ever sounds like a huge (and strangely bizarre) hippie gathering.  Probably because that is exactly what it is.

It doesn't ever make much sense unless you have been there.

For as seemingly pointless as it is, and as nappy.dirty.gross as you come home I haven't felt that alive or beautiful or happy or full of purpose in a while.

PROBABLY SINCE EUROPE.

We stayed with Christine's friend Kelli in Centerville, Utah this weekend. She is one of those people you just like as soon as you

 meet her. Last night she showed me and Christine a ton of things from her wedding plans and dreams a

nd we ended up spending hours online looking at beautiful things that inspire us:

Lights

Umbrellas

Balloons

Hearts

Streamers

Crafts and DIY decorations

Gazebos

Chandeliers

Candles

Mason Jars

Flying Lanterns

Fire Flies

Doves

It has all inspired a new blog.

A home for hopes and dreams.

This weekend alone has made this semester worth it.

No plans are usually the best plan.

I love to just live by inspiration and go where the wind blows you.

I am so excited about my future.

And my present.

And so grateful for my past.

(Even the heavy times).

There are so many beautiful things all around us and so many miracles every single day. I am here to do something great--to be

 something great. We all are.

This weekend reminded me of some very important things I will be thinking about over the next few days and posting over the course of this week, but one thing I know I can go ahead and say right now without worrying about not having the right words yet is
I LOVE MY LIFE

[R E C E N T H I G H L I G H T S]

La Biblioteca

Libraries are so so wonderful.
Not only are their shelves full of novels and plays and books of poetry; but, you can also find just as many books about the people that wrote those novels and plays and poems and what influenced then and what their life was like.
One of my favorite thins is getting books from the library I've already read and looking to see what other people thought about it be reading their annotations and notes in the margins.
When I am in the library I feel like I am in Europe again and all I want to do is soak up everything I can and check out every book I can carry and learn all I can about everything I can think of. It's times like this that I truly realism how much humans are capable of and the creative power we all have.
When I see all of the books that exist--even in a tiny library like the David O. McKay--all I can think about it how our knowledge is all we get to take with us when we leave this world. It's times like this that I truly realism how much humans are capable of and the creative power we all have.

Today as I was looking for a copy of "The Fall of The House of Usher" to read for my literary spin offs class I started thinking about something: do you think we can go hang out with Poe and Shakespeare in heaven? Or grab lunch with Mark Twain or J.D. Salinger?

Quote of the Day
"The tragedy in life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach."– Benjamin Mays

words to live by

Awakening...

I think I have been sleeping for too long...

Blacklight Bowling?

At the beginning of the semester--during one of those late night fits when everyone acts on impulse and everything is a lot funnier that it actually is--me and my roommates though it would be fun to sign up for as many intermural sports as we could in order to cross #4 (get involved and meet people) off of our "Winter 2011 Bucket List".
After realizing we couldn't sign up for battleship without boys, we discovered this hidden jem: BLACK LIGHT BOWLING.

I am now the proud captain of The Gypsies, and our first game is tommorrow at 8 p.m. against "Like A Boss."

Go big or go home.

Bucket List Blog

The Buried Life

Bucket lists are something I have been rather fascinated with ever since I first heard about them a few years back.  I've made several, crossed out a few items, and added more as life has progressed.

Today after cleaning my room, doing some homework, and trying to get settled into a new semester I decided to watch THE BURIED LIFE on my computer and take a little break from mundane things.

I've been thinking a lot lately about everything that I have done in the last year, and where I was in my life a year ago.  So much has changed and happened and it has really made me think a lot about where else my life will take me and what else there is in the years to come.

That being said, here is my official BUCKET LIST.

1. serve a mission for the church.
2. get married in the temple.
3. visit all 50 states.
4. graduate from college.
5. be homeless for a summer on a beach in Hawaii.
6. sleep under the stars.  No tent.
7. Learn to drive stick
8. get in fierce shape.
9. be published.
10. join the peace corpus.
11. make a record.
12. ride an elephant in india.
13. land a 360.
14. land a 180.
15. learn to drop in on a skateboard.
16. go to a karaoke bar.
17. return to rome.
18. run a 5k.
19. break a world record.
20. adopt a dog.
21. live in boston.
22. live in europe.
23. get more heavily into creating art: painting, drawing, music, poetry...
24. festival of holi. round two
25. sundance film festival
26. mexico
27. australia
28. india
29. new zealand
30. walk across the golden gate bridge
31. backpack through europe
32. learn to do a cartwheel
33. fly a plane
34. learn to surf
35. fall in love
36. see the pyramids
37. see the leaning tower of pisa
38. see the phantom of the opera
39. DJ in a club/at a party
40. learn to do a back hand spring
41. scuba dive
42. ride in a hot air balloon
43. watch a sunset/sunrise in all 50 states

MORE TO COME

the things that I have successfully accomplished so far:

1. ... on campus 
2. be blonde.
3. write and preform a song.
4. keep curfew.
5. festival of holi.
6. italy
7. london 
8. france
9. ride a segway
10. ghost ride the whip
11. crepes in france
12. gilatto in italy
13. learn to wakeboard

Semester Mottos.

Starting with summer '08--my first summer in Rexburg, as well as my first semester living with Amy Doll--I have given each semester of school a motto to serve as a theme to try to live up to.  Although they are usually just as silly as they are serious, the tradition seems to have stuck.

I don't really know what it is that caused obsession with organization and direction to manifest itsself in this way when there is no physical (or even theoretical) evidence of organization or direction anywhere else in my life, but semester mottos have helped me stay on track, keep my head on straight, and push myself out of my comfort zone--which is apparently the only way we are even going to grow.

Last semester's motto was "Be Your Own Hero"--taken from Whip It!. Things last semester started off really well for me on my quest to be my own hero, and then kind of ended in a crash landing coming from a downward spiral--but hey, at least I stuck the landing. The truth is, you're going to fall.  You just have to be ready to run like hell when you hit the ground.  So, true to form, I hit the ground pretty hard after a series of unexpected events that transpired somewhere between Utah and Idaho and Thanksgiving and Finals.  

That being said, I think that the motto "Be Your Own Hero" is going to be carried over into this semester, and added to the already established motto for winter 2011 "Back To The Basics."

2010

is over.

Time goes so fast when you get older, especially when you are moving half way across the country three times a year.  This year has taken me all over the globe, brought me back to some basics and helped me make some changes I needed to.

2010 way good--really good.  It's made me super excited to see what 2011 has to offer.

Poetry Experiment

When I was in 10th grade I had this teacher--the kind you only get once in a lifetime.  The kind like Robin Williams in Dead Poet Society.

He was so rad, and he really taught me how to love literature.

He taught us that when we create things it is often an abundance of ideas rather than a lack of them that hinders our creativity.

He handed out novels and had us open to a random page.  From the words on those two facing pages we had to write a poem.

This was mine:

What I liked about you, 


for one thing was hard to picture.

It wasnt just one thing,

it was everything,

everything i could tell about you in an hour.

I know where you hung out mostly


I wanted to find you,

walking along


but the sun still wasn’t out


and it wasn’t too nice for walking.

I knew it wasn’t too important,


but it made me sad anyways.

A Ritual To Read To Each Other

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider
--lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--should be clear:
the darkness around us is deep.

William Stafford

GBH

"Believe in yourself. Believe in your capacity to do great and good things. Believe that no mountain is so high that you cannot climb it. Believe that no storm is so great that you cannot weather it. You are not destined to be a scrub. You are a child of God, of infinite capacity. Believe that you can do it."

confirmation

One of my favorite things is when I finally figure something out in my mind, and get it pinned down where I think it should be, and then something happens to let me know it's in the right place and I am okay and everything is going to be all right.

December 08, 2010
Quote of the Day
"Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits."– Thomas A. Edison

This semester has been everything but what I expected. It's been a good one though and I've been streeeeeeetttttcccchhhheeeeeeeed--which mean I have grown.

Thank you Lord, for all that you give me. And for letting it happen in your timing. And for preparing me in the past for now. And for not giving me what I thought I needed.

Defying Gravity.

I have started, stoped, edited, changed, deleted, and restarted this entry several times over the course of this semester. The closer it gets to the end of the semester, the more I feel like I need to write something to try and capture part of this before it is gone. It also gets a lot harder to put that something into words--nothing I write ever seems quite accurate enough to capture what exactly I am feeling right now. No combination of words ever seem to be able to explain all the things this semester has taught me. A list of all the things I have experienced could never include all of the things I am grateful for.
This semester was pretty much the exact opposite of what I was expecting it to be and all of it only strengthened my belief that an unwritten life it the best kind.
With Thanksgiving under my belt, Christmas just around the corner, and the weight of the last week of school right on top of me I find myself thinking...a lot--but come on, what's new? It's not that the fact that I am thinking is so out of the ordinary, but the way I am thinking is what surprises me. Instead of trying to take the parts of my life I think I need, and doing all I can to make it work with what I have, I've discovered it's a lot easier if you just let life happen around you and let things fall into place where they really should be. If i can just take care of the big things: school, church, homework, calling, scripture study... the rest will fall into place.

John Keats

When I have Fears that I may cease to be

WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high pil`d books, in charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,	5
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And feel that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,	10
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.