A girl who reads

Totally love this.

My new place

Bedroom

For everyone who cannot come to see my new place, I took pictures!!! Some of them aren't so great, but at least it gives you an idea of what it looks like.

Bedroom

Bathroom

Bathroom

Kitchen

Kitchen

Living Room

Dining room

So there you are! A glimpse of the new digs. Someday I'll hopefully be able to get new couches, but until then, this is what I've got. And it could be a whole lot worse.

Story of my Life

I've been offline for a bit because my new condo (pictures coming soon) does not yet have internet. Today I was at my old apartment and logged onto Facebook to find that a guy I had dated in July is now engaged. Three months after he told me that he wasn't ready to be seriously dating. Why is that always the case? Why do I have to always be the one they don't want to date? I've had other guys get engaged in less time than that after he broke up with me. My first boyfriend did that. My second one was engaged 3 months after he got back off his mission. The third one, well, he just didn't want to actually date me, but he was fine kissing me. The fourth didn't actually like kissing me (not sure what happened to him). Another guy liked me just fine, but then not decided to go out with me because an old girlfriend told him he was a player and he was still in love with her. He ended up dating someone else just a few months later too.


Blerg.

The Difference

I've been thinking about marriage lately. Specifically eternal marriage. People have commented that I just want to get married and it doesn't seem to matter who I'm with, so it never feels to them like they are someone special. However, I have realized there is a difference between wanting to get married and wanting an eternal marriage. Wanting to get married can mean that you just don't want to be alone anymore, that you are afraid that you'll never find someone else, that you are sexually frustrated or any number of other things. However, when you want an eternal marriage, you are looking for a relationship that will last forever, one that upholds and honors sacred covenants you have made to each other and to the Lord. You are looking for someone to serve for the rest of eternity, someone who will help you become less selfish and for someone with with to enjoy the wonderful blessings of family and children. An eternal marriage is not entered into lightly. It is entered into with faith. A marriage because you just want to get married is entered into because of fear and lack of self control.

I have seen close family members get married just because they want to get married. I do not feel that they chose wisely in this case (though I choose to support them in their path). I think that they lost sight of the big picture, what eternity really means.

My choice is to wait for an eternal marriage. I don't want to get married just to get married, though the two may look similar to someone on the outside. I want to get married for the right reasons and to find the joy that I see in the wonderful marriages around me.

Parent Teacher Conferences

Means that I've been at the school for 12 hours. And I'll be back in less than 12 hours. That is a very LONG day.

However, I had more people come than I've ever had before. That could be because I am teaching three times as many classes. It's still exciting. And I feel like an adult doing it, not a kid pretending to do a job too big. I am in my comfort zone and I feel like I have something to say that is important. That's a nice feeling.

I won the lottery!!!

Sort of. It wasn't like a money lottery. It was a house lottery. Which means that I won the right to purchase a home. So I am now in the process of trying to by a home!! Its a little condo, and I have to live there for 3 years, but I'm so excited!! More details to follow. :)

Sometimes you've just gotta cry

Its like a refreshing rain that washes all the dirt, grime and heartache away. You can look at the world anew, with fresh eyes. Clean out the hurt and the pain and then the sun will come out. Like the song says, you can see clearly now the rain is gone. But you have to have the rain to wash away the bad.

You have to hit the bottom sometimes before you can come back up.

And then you can see the good. I am a beautiful, talented, intelligent woman and I choose to face my world with diligence and faith and all things will work together for my good.

Miracles

So I have to admit that the Lord is mindful of me all the time. And while I'm definitely not at my destination, there are signposts along the way. Every once in a while, the Lord reminds me that he is there and that he is most definitely in charge.

So I've had some financial struggles of late. Not fun. I have a job for the fall and I can quit my night job which is basically destroying my health because I am not a night person and wake up way too early in the morning to be working past midnight. But I can't quit until my fall job starts and I have been considering getting another summer job because I really can't make ends meet. Well, I finally decided to NOT get another job; my health is not worth it. And I really need a little vacation before school starts. Right after I decided this, the friend I sell ballroom shoes for called and asked me to pick up a couple more hours this summer. And then another friend called to see if I could babysit her newborn in the fall. And then the government told me they were deferring my loan because of the classes I am taking (for my credential). So I will not be completely broke in September! Yay! I cannot tell you how excited I am for this.

That was Friday. I also went to the temple and had a great day with a friend and her two kids. Saturday, I spent with a different friend and her two kids and had an amazingly productive day. Sunday was pretty productive too. And then I went to the Parade again this year and sat with my ward. I spent the day with an amazing guy that I caught up with at the parade. I consider that a miracle too. I'm hoping the relationship lasts a bit longer. More on that later.

I have a testimony of how much the Lord loves me and how involved He is in my life. Rough it may be, but I would never trade having that protection.

Blerg

I don't even know how to start talking about what I want to post on. This is going to be a complaining post. I don't have very many people to talk to in person at the moment and I kinda need to get it out. Hopefully, I'll be able to move on once I've said it.

So right now, I'm struggling. Quite a bit. I'm not sure I'll have enough money to make it through the summer. I'm ready to quit my night job, but its the only thing that will keep me afloat until I start teaching school in the fall. I love the teaching part, but the middle of the night part, not so fun.

But I think the hardest part of my life right now is that I've transitioned from the singles ward into a family ward. It is so hard to be in a family ward. I've managed to ignore how much I want to get married and have a family while in the singles ward, but being in the family ward every week, I am surrounded by families. I think its especially hard because we just got about 30 new families from the BYU married wards because they broke them up. So I go to church and see these girls who are 23 and pregnant with their second and I can't even find a companion. To rub salt into the wound, I no longer have a social life. There are maybe three other singles in my ward: another girl probably 5 or 6 years older than me, and two older men. My friends from my old singles wards are integrating into their wards and in school and kind of are already out of the picture. And the guys that have seemed interested in the last 2 months, don't call. So I can't get a date, have no social life and am surrounded by everything I want and have managed to life without for the past 10 years. I think I cry in church every week.

I also room with my sister, and we are never home at the same time. We both work nights, but different hours, which means we also sleep at different hours and then have other things to take care of during the day. So we basically don't see each other.

So I work, because I'm broke, sleep days, because I work nights, and am exceptionally lonely. I'm hovering barely above rock bottom emotionally. I'm on the verge of tears all the time. I know that what I need is to get out and see people, but when you are that close to the bottom, that is a very difficult thing to do.

I just keep trying to remember that it won't last forever. And it won't. But its a very difficult phase I'm in right now.

What I'm really looking for

So in response to my last post, I tried to define what a great guy is. As I was trying to put that into words, I wrote that "He's one of those people you love to be around because you always feel uplifted in his presence. "  As I sat there looking at those words, I realized, that's it. That's what I'm really looking for. That's why some of these guys are really nice guys, but I just can't like them. I don't feel uplifted or edified by them. That's one of the reasons I hung out with FDP for so long, I always felt better about myself and about life when I was around him, and not because his life sucked. 


That's a hard thing to find. At least I can put a name to it now, instead of some vague feeling and me saying "I just don't think I like him"

Positive and Negative

I'm at one of those points where I am so frustrated. I have been taking a break from dating. I was planning on going back to making an effort in June, a full year from when I decided I was done with dating, but the last week, I've been getting the feeling that faith is a principle of action. And since I have faith that I will get married, I feel like I should start making an effort again. I'm just not sure how what exactly that action is.

In the meantime, I have been going out with guys if they actually ask me out. The latest guy is a convert of about 2 years and moved here from Arkansas to go to BYU. First we just went to dinner because it was a blind date. Then we went up to the Conference Center for the Sunday morning session of Conference and we just went to the BYU Ballroom Dance Concert. I don't really like the way he offers me his arm. Weird, I know, and not a deal breaker, but its a little weird to take a guy's arm and then he still holds it away from him. That doesn't really help me at all because my hand slides around. He needs to reconnect his arm to his ribcage so that I feel like he's taking care of me, not just looking like it. And he sent a text message in the middle of the show tonight. Kinda bugs. That on top of him making posts on Facebook during Conference. When President Uchtdorf said some of you have already sent a text or notification that its been 10 minutes and he hasn't talked about aviation, that was Convert!! I really liked that Pres. Uchtdorf then said there was a time for everything, and that wasn't the time to be on FB.

Of course, then I feel bad because the latest First Presidency message says that you find what you are looking for; if you look for the good, you will find the good, and if you look for the bad, you will find that too. Sadly, judging from what I think about Convert, I think I've been looking for the bad. Which isn't promising. I need to start looking for the good on dates. Because there will always be something wrong. Might as well find something you like. I do think, however, that if we keeping doing things, this relationship is going to take a long time to get off the ground.

I am still frustrated with dating. I know so many great guys, but I don't feel like I date any great guys. It could be all in my perspective. I guess I'll be working on that.

Emotional exhaustion

I've been having a hard time lately with Sundays. They don't leave me feeling uplifted and strengthened like they usually do. I've been trying to figure out why that is, and I think I've hit on part of it.
I really don't want to sit by people who aren't my friends. And I don't mean by people who aren't friendly. Everyone in my ward is friendly and nice. I don't want to sit by those people who haven't proven themselves to by my friends. I only want to sit by people I like. I was explaining this to my sister today who is studying to be a Marriage Family therapist (hereafter to be MFT) and she gave me a list of reasons why I might feel this way. I finally said that I can't expend the energy to be nice to them, to reach out to them and that's when she told me I was probably emotionally exhausted. I am generally pretty physically tired too, but I do manage to get sleep (not as much as I should with a night job, but enough that I can stay afloat). But emotionally, I am just drained. I simply cannot spend the energy on anyone else, I just don't have it. Its not there.

I was doing alright until my baby sister moved in. I'll have to tell you the story behind her later, but the parts that affect this post are that she gets off work around midnight one o'clock, but doesn't generally come home until between 3 and 5am. And since I hadn't had time to get a key made, I had to wake up to let her in. This was not good. Then the other day she got up and I talked to her (normally one of us leaves before the other is awake) and she sounded just terrible. I told her she needed to take some time off, but she made some excuse. When I came home later that day, she was out on the couch because she had gone to the doctor. She has some sort of viral infection. She's basically been asleep at my house for the past four days. She just takes up so much of my energy, worrying about her because she's making stupid decisions, not sleeping or eating enough so she is basically killing herself and a variety of other things. Like her boyfriend coming over on Friday night and he made her dinner. I got up the next morning and found that he had used my food (technically its hers too, but its not his) and hadn't even done the dishes. I'm sorry, but cooking in someone else's kitchen and then not doing the dishes is really low. And I have to take care of some things for my mom too because she doesn't know how to use the internet. And considering I work all hours of the day and night, I just don't have the energy to care for anyone else, or to reach out to that poor soul at church that needs a friend. Its just not in my right now.

Maybe this summer when I only have one job.