Grateful

It's almost 1:30am, but it's been a great day. I've seen so many wonders of nature - there was a beautiful sunset and some well-timed wind, it just made it one of those choice fall moments. I've been seeing a lot of birds lately. I think I'll devote a whole post to that tomorrow. For today, I'll just recount some blessings.

I've been having pretty intense muscle tension lately, but thanks to a blessing and help from my family and a foam roller, it has gotten much better. I'm hoping I'm going into remission.

A presentation that felt VERY stuck has come leaps and bounds. Thank goodness, because it's due Wednesday.

We played knockout at FHE. It was a blast.

I laughed a lot with a girl I met today. I hope we become best friends, she's hilarious!!!

I felt satisfied. I felt happy too, but it was wonderful to feel at peace with where I am in my life right now and have renewed excitement for the direction my life is taking. I hope I have many more of these moments in the future.

Oh, and I burned my cookies. :) Whiiiiiich saved me from gorging on them. That's a blessing in disguise, I guess.

Anticipation

I have been really looking forward to this weekend. :) Why?

Because TWO of my sisters are coming down with their families. I haven't seen them in months and months. I am so very very excited to hang out with them and their fun husbands and beautiful kids!

I used to judge the "Utah people" out in school, who went home frequently on the weekends. "Wow, they're really having a hard time transitioning to being out on their own." I thought.  Now that I'm in a similar position, my viewpoint has softened! While I am happy to be on my own, I love going home and visiting. It recharges me. I laugh so much with my family! They're my best friends in the whole world. They've definitely been the good of my week, let alone day. But a definite good of today was my hot shower. Oh, my, how I love long hot showers. I think I clocked 35 minutes a few days ago. Oops.

The only bad thing about going home is that the mattress on Sarah's floor is really hard, but if I'm tired enough that usually doesn't end up being too much of an obstacle. Haha. :)

So it's been a full week, and I'm looking forward to a great couple of days with the fam. I hope I can squeeze in some HW, because I think I have a project, 10 page paper, presentation, handout, and chapter of my thesis due within the next two weeks. Yikes!!!

Don't Feed the Raccoons!!!

We have a raccoon in the neighborhood. Last night it was under one of our cars. A kindhearted person fed it, but the whole time I was thinking "Noooooooo!!!"

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What a sweetie, right? Wrong! Raccoons always look adorable, but they are very aggressive and territorial creatures. They eat ANYTHING, from anywhere, and your disheveled trash cans will be evidence of that. 

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Yeah, that's probably more realistic. The raccoon has been pulling stuff from our trash recently. I might borrow dad's raccoon trap, though it may take some courage after one raccoon accidentally gutted himself on one part of the cage. Yick. And so sad.

Still seeking the good! Today was a very good day, regardless of the raccoon. I got a 100 on my very first paper back from grad school (it was a total reflection/journal type paper, but hey! I can do this grad school thing!). I'll let let you know what happens to miko.

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Note: Do not try this (i.e., being friends with a raccoon) at home.

I heard

A story. A good story! So good that I don't even remember where I heard it. So this is a rough paraphrase (I don't remember a lot of the details, I had to make up  the beginning) and if any of you know the author or where I can find the real one, please let me know. Mostly I just didn't want to type "devil" into google. :)

"There was a young man walking down a lonely road, off to seek his fortune. He was joined by an old man. 'Let me show you the land.' said the old man. The old man showed the young man the houses scattered among the hills. The young man pointed to a grand house with rich gardens. "Old man," said the younger, "there is but one small devil sitting outside of that grand house. It must be quite a good man who lives in there." The old man replied, "Oh, no, that man cares so much for his riches that it takes just one small devil to keep him on that path." After they had walked a little further,  the old man and the young man came to a small cottage. "Old man," said the younger, "there are seven huge devils surrounding that small cottage. Surely this man must be the wickedest of them all." The old man smiled, and said, "Oh no. That man is so humble and good, that the devil has sent his seven biggest servants to try to bring him down."

I love that story! Sometimes it feels like there's a lot of shafts in the whirlwind or a lot of devils/wolves at our door. The nice thing is, God is stronger. The other day I had an insight - God is omnipotent and omniscient, so if we prayed to him all day, every day, it wouldn't distract him from giving equal attention and care to every other citizen of the planet/universe. Just as my parents would listen to me at any time and try to help me (love you guys!), so would my Heavenly Father. And, I like this video. :)



Satan wants us to think that Heavenly Father is too busy to listen to us - it's not true! I need to remember that.

Money Matters and Other Things That Matter More

Work today was...wow. I got called in by some supervisors about a semi-serious situation, and it was quite stressful! Let's just say I cried and I was super embarrassed. Everything's fine now, if you were wondering, but boy I needed a pick-me-up!

Cue miracle. Seeking the good today was easy, thanks to Heavenly Father. So a while back I had gotten my deposit back from my last apartment in Utah. It was a lot of money, and I was so grateful! It was a time of need. Anyways, I noticed a mistake in her calculations (the landlady had given me 25-50 more than I thought was coming to me). I'm embarrassed to admit that I thought, "well, I've been cheated by landlords in the past, maybe this is just karma on my side" or "maybe it's not a mistake, maybe I am supposed to get this extra money." I didn't really want to call (I'm ashamed to say) but I did, and I'm so glad because the landlady called and said she was so impressed and grateful that she let me keep the extra. It was extremely generous of her.

Now I do NOT share this story to make you think how awesome I am, because as I mentioned earlier, I was so very very near not calling. But I did call, and Heavenly Father gave me this pick-me-up exactly at the time that I needed it. It was nice to hear I'd done something right. I'm so grateful! And I shrink to think what today would have been like if I didn't. Speaking of money and pick-me-ups, I think I would love to get this $5.00 back at a grocery store.

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Anyways, this experience reminded me of how in high school when you went to tell a teacher they'd missed something you got wrong, they always let you keep the points. That's the way it works! If you do the right thing, it always works out in your favor (either here or there!). Simple, right?

Owl Eyes

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Seeking the good, even at a grocery store! I was at Giant getting a refund for some VERY freezer-burned chicken (they were great about it) when I saw this little ceramic owl in the fall/halloween section. I immediately thought of Sarah, of course, and then I thought about how great that owl would look on a bookshelf someday with lots of great leather-bound books (which, I am assuming I will acquire in the future). Price tag? $3.00. Impulsive and totally worth it.

Okay, that isn't actually my owl, because my camera isn't working, but it's similar (mine's cuter). Today was a rainy, fallish, cookie-baking, oil-changing, indoor efficiency, wishing-I-could-light-the-pumpkin-gingerbread-candle-but-we-don't-have-any-matches kind of day.

Hope yours was wonderful as well! :)

Time to Vote!!!

Not the Romney-Obama kind, although I am SO looking forward to the presidential debate on the 3rd, 16th, and 17th. Will you be tuning in?

Speaking of tuning, these videos have impeccable...tuning. Haha. For day four of seek the good, take a look at three versions of the same song. These are my three favorite versions of ALL TIME. Such a beautiful song. It's hard to pick my favorite duo. If you're interested, take a peek and see which you prefer.



Celine Dion and Josh Groban. Celine's got soul!



Andrea Bocelli (love him!) and Katherine McPhee. Why don't people talk about her more often? Such easy control of her voice. I think Andrea has a crush on her.



This is a pretty special duo. Two teenagers, the girl helped the guy with his confidence issues, turns out he has a FANTASTIC voice and they made it to the finals on Britain's Got Talent. Pretty heartwarming! I think Bocelli and McPhee win out for me, but bravissimo to all!