Summer

Sadly, readers, (I say readers, as if anybody beyond my close friends and grandma has read this blog) Kelly and I decided a while back that the blog is dead.  But I have decided to revive it for just a day because my head is a little full at the moment and I have the strange notion that perhaps if I spill some of my thoughts into the inter-space www the swirling in my head won't be quite so...swirly.

One of my favorite things about life is that I can, at times, look back on it and realize why certain things happened the way they did, why certain people came into my life, or why I came into the lives of others. (The latter is my favorite type of discovery, because it feels especially good to think that I am sometimes able to help other people out in this crazy and confusing world.)

What I've learned is that it seems there are two reasons why certain people or things come into our lives.  The first is just to be a Godsend- to help us, to bring us happiness. For me, music is like this. So are a lot of other things, like the Gospel, the city of Mapleton, my grandparents, Spring, my roommate Kelly, and the opportunity to go to BYU.

The second reason is to teach us something or give us the opportunity to better ourselves. In many cases the two coincide. Take my old roommate, Sarai. (Hi, Sarai!) I had a blast rooming with her this summer AND I learned a lot of things from the experience. She helped me to loosen up and be a little crazy, and taught me that no day is a bad day if it includes Jones Soda. AND she got me to sing in church!

But, many times the two don't coincide.  Sometimes we have to go through trials and hardships that are not fun, but that help us to become better people.  Changes and struggles and heartbreak will come into all of our lives and we can choose to let these things overcome us, or to draw strength from having overcome them. As many people know, moving around so much in high school was like this for me.  I don't like to think of what life would be like if I'd never had to go through that. Or what I would be like.

There is a third reason, too, which is that life is just hard. There are moments when it feels like there can be no reason why something had to happen, like the feeling I got when my cousin passed away, or when I was told that my grandpa had terminal cancer.

I guess what I'm saying is that, yes, life is hard.  But knowing that we have a Heavenly Father who loves us, and who wants to return to Him makes everything so much more hopeful.

I learned this summer that I don't always have a handle on life.  I don't always know exactly what I'm feeling, or what the right thing to do is, and that's one of the hardest things about living, for me.  Yes, we have the scriptures and the prophets to guide us through life, but there's no clear road map for every decision we have to make.

I have always prayed to live the life that Heavenly Father would have me live, and while I still wish to do that, this summer I have learned that no matter what, I am just going to make mistakes.  I'm not going to live anything close to a perfect life.  I'm going to get confused about how I feel and end up saying the wrong thing, or not saying the right thing.  And maybe I messed it all up. But the good thing is that life is about second chances.  I won't make every right decision that will lead me to the "life I am meant to have." In fact, I think I need to give up my "meant to be" stance on life.  I still think some things are meant to be, but most things we really do just have to decide on, or make happen for ourselves, which is scary, but also exciting. I don't think many people will read this, but if for some reason you are, let me just say, don't give up!  Life can be beautiful if you face it with an eye of hope and no fear! Being fearless is hard, but how about I'll try if you try?  We've all got a long way to go, but you know what? I think we might just make it.

-Audrey



P.S. I'm going there someday

P.P.S.

crayon art and childhood memories

WE ARE SO CRAFTY. MORMON LEVEL= 100.

In conforming to the likes of pinterest fanatics and crafty mormon moms alike, we have created our very own crayon art with our friends Audrey West and Sarai.  We had three hairdryers going at once and blew a fuse in our room...and then in the lobby...and then in the hallway.  We are now on the custodians "list."

Kelly put a lot of thought behind hers and it turned out to be artistic and meaningful.  I just lined the crayons up by color and started waving the hairdryer around with this kindergartenesque result:

And now Kelly's...

All these crayons made us think about our childhood...It's story time.

Audrey's Childhood

Kindergarten: (Washington D.C) The glory days. Playing double-double this-this, double-double that-that at the back of the bus, having the bomb-est sleepovers of all time, and going to Bush Gardens.
First Grade:  (D.C.) Dad said he wouldn't let go when I was learning to ride a bike without training wheels... HE LET GO.
Second Grade: (Hawaii) Days were spent making leis out of the island flowers, playing with millipedes, going to the beach, and discovering secret paths through the rain-forest in our backyard. (Sadly my parents later informed me it was a tiny garden)
Third Grade: (Washington State) Wore an ugly belt on the first day of school.
Fourth Grade: (WA) Our class played Survivor.  I made it to the top 15, until I lost my tribe an immunity challenge.  They all said they weren't going to vote me off the island but they did... I'm still not quite over it...
Fifth Grade: (WA) Petitioned the principal to start a school newspaper with my friend, Sharae. I wrote the political science column and the book reviews, but was strictly forbidden by one of the boys on the newspaper staff to write the fashion column... I guess not much has changed.
Sixth Grade: (WA) Waged a year long war against the evil Mrs. Davies with my friend, Jordan. We emerged victorious, yet her jean-dresses with kittens poking out of the pockets haunt me to this day...
Seventh Grade: (WA) Beginning of the dark days. Notable events include believing somebody who told me that the coaches of the Superbowl teams that year were both gay.
Eighth Grade: (WA) The dark days. I attempt to use tanning lotion and invent a boyfriend named Kevin Hill. (He went to a different school, but our love was deeper than the sea).
Ninth Grade: (WA) The dark days near their close. I purchase gaucho pants and several sparkly belts.
Tenth Grade: (WA) I join the swim team. I quit the swim team. Am baffled by the success of popular vampire novels. Discover that green gummy bears are strawberry flavoured. Spell everything the British way.
Eleventh Grade: (Kentucky) The days of high school smoke detectors going off every two minutes, painting my bedroom walls, and being the coolest kid at the social reject table. Notable events include running into my house with my car. Always thinking.
Twelfth Grade: (Utah) You start with the glory days, you end with the glory days. Skipping school to go hiking by myself? Yes. Getting the most glamorous job of all time? (Hot Dog on a Stick) Yes. Reading Anne of Green Gables and subsequently attempting to write nature poetry for a month? Heck yes. (Interestingly, in reexamining this poetry, I noticed that nearly all the titles begin with "oh." Examples: "Oh, Spring" and "Oh, That my Dreams Were Clouds." It was quality stuff.)
Thirteenth Grade (more commonly referred to as freshman year): I laugh about my childhood while simultaneously trying to forget most of it. Here's to life after high school!!

-Audrey

audrey and the not so super tuesday

For those of you who were unaware, today is Super Tuesday! If you don't know what that is simply google it and you will be greeted with thousands of recent news articles.
But this post has nothing to do with politics really,  but with all the reasons why today was NOT super.

1. All of my time since I woke up at 8:30 AM until 8 PM was spent either in class, doing homework or taking a test. This is completely unacceptable.  First and foremost because it means that almost 24 hours have gone by since the new How I Met Your Mother aired and I still haven't watched it.

2. I just went to watch the new episode of How I Met Your Mother and discovered it wasn't even on last night.

3. All I've eaten today is a muffin and some pizza rolls. I almost miss the guaranteed lunchroom meals we had every day in high school. (This is a joke. I do not and never will miss anything about high school. Whenever discussing those dark times I defer to this quote: "High school is like a spork. It's a crappy spoon and a crappy fork, so in the end it's just plain useless.")

4. I seriously bombed my basic conducting class today. And this after the fact that I had already been late to class, then realized I had forgotten my SD card to record myself conducting and had to sprint back to the dorms to get it.  I'm serious when I say conducting is not as easy as it looks once you move beyond your basic 4/4 down, left, right, up shiz. It may come easy to some, but I look more like someone trying to signal a plane from a deserted island (or a bird caught in wire?) than a conductor. To give you some idea, we were grading each other this time and I caught a glimpse of the sheet of the girl next to me. It looked like mostly 7s and 8s, except for the giant 4 next to my name... well at least I have an A in American Heritage. Take THAT music lovers. Just kidding- in reality I would probably exchange some of my smarts for an increase in musical talent. (or for any common sense whatsoever)  The only plus is that someone told me I had a really pretty voice today. Ironically it was the same girl who gave me the 4, but I'll take it. P.S. my SD card didn't even work.

In other news I starred in the proposal video of a random Asian couple in the library the other day.  Guess that's what happens when you stay at the library until 11:45 on a Wednesday (okay Friday) night. (It's what all the cool kids are doing)  Also I have taken to making up parodies to crappy songs in the shower. Let's just say my version of "When I Grow Up" by the Pussycat Dolls contains far more important goals than being the "number one chick when I step out on the scene."

Have a great day ya'll! Don't forget to smile. And if you see Kelly, tell her to pay her taxes.

Also if you go to BYU and were not able to attend the INCREDIBLE forum by Dr. Ben Carson, I highly recommend you purchase one of these books: http://www.amazon.com/America-Beautiful-Rediscovering-Nation-Great/dp/0310330718/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331094787&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Gifted-Hands-20th-Anniversary-Carson/dp/0310332907/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1331094787&sr=8-3

-Audrey

So.

Saturday was not like any other Saturday.

Saturday we decided to be spontaneous and get our hair cut.  We thought it would be fun to walk in, ask the hair dresser to do whatever they wanted, and walk out as new women.

Boy were we wrong.

Before. So naive. So happy.

After...

But after some tears (mostly from me), we realized that hair was hair. Which will, in fact, grow back.

"Beauty is a light in the heart"

-Kahlil Gibran

-Kelly

maybe we have a couple things to say...

FACTS OF LIFE

1. Men should have periods too. It's only fair.
2. You only need two friends. Your roommate and Jesus.
3. We are about as wild as they come.
4. Remember what happens when you feel lucky... you drive over a cat. (This stems from a truly horrible story that shall not here be related.)
5. "No it won't all go the way it should, but I know the heart of life is good."
6. The church is true.
7. The DMV is a horrible place and every effort should be made to reform it.
8. Always smile -Kelly (It should be noted that Audrey thinks you should smile 97% of the time. The other three percent should be spent glaring at DMV workers)
9. You should brush your teeth every day. Preferably more than once.
10. Sometimes life is difficult. It is unexpected, it is unforeseeable. But though our lives may seldom go according to our plans, perhaps that is because our lives are following far greater paths than we could have ever envisioned. We believe that our Heavenly Father has a plan for each of us.  It's just up to us to not mess it up! Ben Behunin once said, "I have learned that life is never as you expect it will be, but if we listen, it can be infinitely better."
11. A person who prefers red grapes over green grapes will be far more successful than the one who prefers green grapes.  A person who prefers green grapes over red grapes will be far more awesome and will always find good parking spots and probably marry John Mayer.

-Audrey

we realized we have nothing to say

Yesterday an interesting thing happened.  My roommate Kelly and I were sitting in our bedroom when we had the sudden realization that we ought to create a blog.  And so we did! It was 2 AM but out came the computers and up went the blog.  There it was, at the top of the screen, a URL that read justkellyandme.blospot.com. It was a blank tablet, a place where we could unleash our creativity to the world.  Thoughts would be shared.  Tears would be shed. LOLs would be had.  In that late hour we sat at the computer, dreaming of all the possibilities.  It would be remembered as the night that two internet stars were born.  But alas, every magical night eventually succumbs to the bitter day, and as the sun rose on us the next morning, we realized that we had nothing to say. And thus died our happy dream.  Farewell.

-Audrey