There are so many words in my head it's starting to result in the lack of the right one. Every other word is a, "What's that word again... you know... I just can't explain it."

If I let it all out in to-do list format, it will allegedly get better. But you're talking to the connoisseur of to-do lists. I've got a note book filled and I know that by examining what you have in front of you comes a sort of release, but an added weight and responsibility in another way. Day-to-day lists are necessary and daunting, and so far this term (we're at Week 6... wait maybe 5 or 7...?) I haven't done it and I've just been flighting from day to day thinking only about the hour that is in front of me.

I'm weeks behind my favorite television shows and I can't even entertain the thought of when it might be that I can watch them. To snuggle on the couch with my love and purring Kingsley would mean the world. They say when you are doing what's right the unnecessary things in your life slip away and I can attest to the truth of that; I don't want the alternate world of television to become what I live for. But some of the basic things I need for my sanity and spirituality are slipping away too and I need to get them back.

Three cheers to sanity in a beautiful kind of way, retrieving my floating head, and having the best Valentines Day yet. To that I raise my glass, of water, which might just be my lunch and dinner today.

stop signs

i'm so glad that you and i
stop at stop signs

when the rest of the world
just drives on by

living free and cavalier
is nice once in a while

but we have to care
because we have a reason

we know what happens
when we don't stop.

we know because
we've done it before,

we've been there
and we're not going back.

at least,
i'm not

We can do hard things.

I have loved to write from the very beginning. Each year in school I looked forward to the writing assessments. I always anticipated prompts they might ask. With my big family, life was never boring. I always had a fun story to recall, and loved getting to construct it and put it on paper.

And then came academic writing. Though research papers were not initially as fun, I have always been able to still find my own voice and be proud of a paper to call my own. Until my Lit classes....

Not only do I have to read something that makes little sense to me (the first three times), but I have to put it into context, summarize it, tell about the parts that were most interesting to me (and why), and then interpret the piece as a whole, and relate it to other things we have been learning.

Doing said assignments is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life. It takes every bit of  my concentration and patience. It is as though I have to squeeze out every single sentence from my brain until, one by one, it is complete. And then I pray very hard that it makes a bit of sense.

Don't get me wrong, I always feel better after these assignments are complete, but while they are in the making, you may as well chain my arms and legs down to the edge of a cliff and torture me.

This is a lesson for me. I hope to instill in my children a love for literature, so when this part comes around they are more worried about having too much to say. Fantasy? Yeah.

Warning: Dramatic Post Ahead (and apparently cheesy)

Have you heard the phrase, "Hit the ground running?"

After a long summer, such was my plan for the upcoming academic year: particularly Fall term.

Well, I coined a new phrase instead: hit the ground, fall on my face, then comes that classic weight out of the sky and boom, I'm stuck. (Drama at its best)

I believe (or have thus convinced myself) that it is okay to feel resistance during school. It's okay not to swoon over every single assignment, and it's okay if you don't connect with every single classmate and professor, but as a whole it should be positive.

The thing is, I usually love school. At least after a week or so, I feel so glad about what I'm doing, and soak up everything I get to read, all the lectures, and that feeling I get when I finish an assignment.

This time around? I'm distracted. In fact, distracted is the perfect word to describe my whole life right now. And you know what? It's distracting in itself, because my mind is wandering to other routes, other options, and it can't do that! I've already been there. I've already done that...

After my first week of school I was so completely and utterly disappointed with my classmates. I felt that all they did is complain about every single reading and every single assignment, and I felt that they did not care about getting to know me, or making the best of school and all that comes with it.

But then I realized, that student is me too. And I'm embarrassed. I don't want to talk to anyone about what I read for class, because I can't seem to wrap my mind around it. I don't want to talk about the assignments, because I don't know where to start. And I also don't know where to end this post, because I haven't come to a conclusion yet. But I will......

Stay tuned.

My BSU, BYU-I, CWI, EOU Life

Lately, I have had to constantly remind myself not to wish away these last two years of my undergraduate studies. I look back to when I started in the Fall of 2009 and it feels like forever ago because I have come so far. Midway through my first semester at BSU I remember telling my mom, through tears and confusion, that I just don't know if the university life is for me. I really just wanted to take some writing classes so I could improve in what I actually cared about. I also had thoughts of going to San Francisco to make bank as a nanny, try massage school, reflexology, or enroll in a hair academy. Most of my teachers are BSU were really strange, the environment put me into a sort of culture shock, and I didn't feel like I was in the right place.

I had the powerful feeling in December of my first semester that I needed to let BYU-I know I was coming to my accepted Winter/Spring track after all and I packed up to move to Rexburg, which felt like home to me. There I met my two darling Texan roommates and one adorable girl from Boise.  I didn't have many friends and didn't attend many social events, even though it is safe to say probably half of my high school attended BYU-I.  I studied and worked hard to improve me and I reaped the benefits of that. For the first time since elementary school, I felt like I was getting school and that I was succeeding in it, because I was I was growing in tremendous ways I did not know were possible. And that wasn't by some miracle, it was because I was doing all that I could to do well, and God was making up the rest.

When I came home off track I had no idea that I would be meeting the love of my life and that I wouldn't be attending another semester at BYU-I. I had a plan, I was happy with it, and moving forward, and that is why Heavenly Father felt I was ready to have the tremendous blessing of Jeff in my life. That is not to say that I did not have trials and confusion through that time. I took a year off of school before enrolling at the community college Fall of 2011 while Jeff and I were engaged, and that year I also grew in so many ways. I couldn't wait to marry Jeff. I pushed things before they were right, I questioned myself and again, my potential and my worth. I had a new lesson to learn and that was not one that involved education.

Here I am, at a great school and married to my best friend, and life still has its gloomy moments. I have been to so many different schools, and sometimes I question what the worth of a Bachelors degree really is. I don't have to have anything to prove I am smart and can work hard. But yet I do. School and a schedule give my life momentum and structure. As of now deadlines make my world go round and they will until a new chapter of my life is ready to begin. But I'm learning and growing everyday and I'm so grateful for this opportunity with truly nothing holding me back but my own doubt at times. Heavenly Father has held my hand through this seemingly long and complicated path to get where I am now. And while the adversary comes in to bring us down at our lowest times, he also comes when we have made a plan for ourselves and are working to better our lives. And I'm not going to let it stop me, not after how far I've come.

Ben Folds put it best when he sang:

I don't get many things right the first time
in fact I am told that a lot.
Now I know all the wrong turns
the stumbles and falls
brought me here.
And where was I before the day
that I first saw your lovely face?
Now I see it everyday.
And I know that I am the luckiest.