Day Ten [10] / Erika's Birthday Dinner

Your bedroom. (in it's current state)

Lucky for you guys I just cleaned up my room!! WOO! I might have know that today was the day where I show you my room, but I really was going to clean it today anyways. It's not spotless either. But here are a few pics of my room. Enjoy the feast your eyes are about to have...

 

My desk. Yep, dr pepper is there.

My closet. Beautiful.

 

The quotes and stuff on my wall. The fan is from Japan, and there are various notes I have received from people that I want to keep. They make me feel great!

 

And lastly, my bed. All made. Also my hamper, fan, purse/scarf on top of my bed.

 

Also, little mini blog, tonight I went with my family to Chuck-a-rama for Erika's birthday dinner! Her birthday is actually tomorrow, but we did it tonight. Sad that I will be missing the cake tomorrow because I have work, but happy birthday Erika! You are going to be the worlds best 17 year old. But for now, you are the worlds best 16 year old :) I love you! I can't wait to be home over Christmas break to be with my fam. So close!

 

Day Nine [9]

Your favorite book that you own.

There's two. First one is The Book of Mormon. I love it!

Second: All of the Harry Potter books. I know there are 7 books, but they count as a book in my mind. But if I absolutely had to choose a favorite it would be the first one. I love experiencing magic for the first time just like Harry did. I love his first time in Diagon Alley and meeting Ron, Hermione, and Hagrid.  It always makes me so excited. Favorite part of this book? When Harry has his first Christmas at Hogwarts. He actually gets presents! So good.

Day Eight [8]

A picture that makes you laugh.

This poor kid...haha. But hey, i'm laughing.

Day Seven [7]

Your favorite quote, in your handwriting.

This is my all time favorite quote. I don't remember how long I have had it with me, but it has been in my scriptures for many years. Sorry, I can't really write in straight lines. But you get the idea.

 

 



Day Six

A picture of a person you'd love to trade places with for a day. Well I chose a Lindt truffle chocolatier. That looks like heaven!!

Day Five

A picture of yourself from 10 years ago.

I am not sure how old I am in pictures..So I think if you average out my age in all these pictures it will give you a 10 year old me...

Day Four

A place that makes me happy. Well that's easy. Disneyland! :)

Day Three

A picture of the cast of your favorite show. Well, ok i'm gonna cheat. It is honestly a 3 way tie...

The Office. I find it humorous and completely original. The earlier seasons were the best, but I still love the new episodes as well!

Psych. The picture explains it perfectly.

And The Walking Dead. It is very well made. The best zombie anything I have ever seen. Did anyone just see the mid-season finale tonight? I hate it. What a cliff hanger...

There you have it. Once Upon a Time makes it up there too...

AHHHH!!!

So today has been a pretty great day! After work, me and Rosie taught hair and make up tips for a relief society activity. It was so much fun. I feel like we really taught so much to them! I taught the hair tips and Rosie taught the make up. Afterwards, we went to Pizza Factory to gorge ourselves on delicious food (Rosie had a gift card so we were able to afford this :) )

After stuffing ourselves, we were off to Tarjay (target). After all of our awesome make up tips and newly found self confidence, we wanted to look at make up. Rosie had tried my mousse foundation and really liked it, so we wanted to find it in a better shade. We ended up finding the PERFECT shade. She looks pretty rockin right now. I also got some new eyeshadow for 5 smackers. Rosie got a gigantic pallette for 15 dollars and it is so awesome!

Anyways, we pretty much just went silly with gettin stuff. It is e.l.f. brand so everything was very inexpensive. I am very pleased with that Tarjay trip.

When we got home Rosie tried out her new make up. She looks awesome! Here is a picture.

Have a great evening errbody. Oh yeah, and I straightened her hair. Looks great!

Day Two

Today is a picture of something that makes me happy...

This is a picture of my dog Kujo. She is always one to make me happy, so obviously a picture of her is something that will make me happy :)

This is the story of her life. Sleeping in a big snuggly blanket. Don't you just want to cry? It is adorable. I love that chica.

100 Day Photo Challenge [day one]

I am doing this thing called the 100 day photo challenge! I saw a lot of people doing this last year and I'm gonna jump on the bandwagon a little late...haha.

Day one is a picture of myself with 15 facts! Here you go...

Sorry, it's kind of an old pic.

Fact 1: I LOVE BYU. If you know me at all you should have guessed that one already :)
2: My favorite color is cougar blue. Surprise!
3. I am am Mormon.
4. My favorite season is winter. The snow is so beautiful.
5. Dr. Pepper is my favorite soda.
6. I have the cutest little black chubby chihuahua ever! Her name is Kujo.
7. My family rocks! I seriously love them to death.
8. My favorite lotion scent is coconut lime. You can never go wrong with that :)
9. I am NOT a morning person. Never have been, probably never will be...But I am definitely a night owl.
10. I still have my baby blanket. It is pretty much torn to shreads. Some argue that it is not a blanket, but a rag. Feel free to disagree.
11. Clorox wipes were the greatest thing invented next to a car.
12. I love the smell of fabric softner dryer sheets
13. If I could live anywhere in the world it would be my hometown Orem, San Diego Cali, or France.
14. I have a nail polish addiction.
15. I freak out if I don't wash my hair everyday. It's a serious problem.

Good Times!

I don't know if anyone else does this, but I love the times when I listen to old music that brings back memories of good old childhood days. Me and Rosie are in our room doing just that. Right now it is Hillary Duff's c.d. It is crazy how much I remember the songs. It is seriously so much fun doing this.

Here is some of the music that I love listening to because of the memories:
1. Hillary Duff
2. Jesse McCartney
3. Backstreet Boys (if this is not on your list you did not have a proper childhood)
4. George Strait-this is what my dad would listen to when we were younger. It is so much fun!
5. Clint Black-for the same reasons as George Strait. My dad used to think he was a cowboy :)
6. Moosebutter. They are just weird and totally remind me of good times had.

And I have to throw in the Christmas music that reminds me of good Christmas times:
1.Johnny mathis
2. Ray Connif's singers
3. Trans Siberian Orchestra

I hope you all have special music childhood memories as well!!! If you do, listen to them. It really is so much fun :)

My Decision.

So I have been seriously thinking hard about serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ever since the announcement made in General Conferene. (Hasn't everyone?) And I have decided that if it is possible for me to put school on pause to serve a mission and then resume where I was when I return, I will most definitely be serving a mission.

I would have to stop school immediately and begin working my little tail off so that I could earn enough money, but I am not worried about the money. I find out tomorrow if it is possible to pause school. I just don't want to lose everything that I have worked for already in school.

Anyways, I thought I would share some of the things that triggered my decision to serve. First of all, everyone who has given me such good advice and insight on how to recognize answers from the Lord. There was also a night where I was just getting so frustrated with everything because I was praying about it constantly, fasting, and paying close attention to feelings during my scripture study and I still had no answer. I started crying and feeling so alone because I felt like my prayers were not being heard. Then I had a thought to read the quote for today from my Stand a Little Taller book. I want to share it with you:

Thank the Lord and Offer Sacrifice

 

Thou shalt thank the Lord thy God in all things. Thou shalt offer a sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in righteousness, even that of a broken heart and a contrite spirit. -Doctrine and Covenants 59:7-8

 

Before you make a decision against a mission, count your blessings, dear friend. Think of all the great and marvelous blessings you have. Are they not all gifts from a generous Heavenly Father? Out of a spirit of appreciation and gratitude, and a sense of duty, you ought to make whatever adjustment is neccessary to give a little of your time, consecrating your strength, your means, your talents to the work of sharing with others the gospel, which is the source of so much of the good that you have.

 

 

When I read that I felt like I was smacked in the face with an answer. Instead of asking myself why I should be serving a mission, I started asking why not? I have been blessed to have the truth my whole life. To be so happy with the knowledge that I have. Why am I not doing everything I can to let everyone else know and experience this joy that I have?

 

This is also another great quote. Another reason I decided.

 

Anyways, those are some of the reasons I have decided to serve a mission, if I can get the school thing to work out. If not, then i will be happily getting an education and serving after i graduate if it is the right thing to do :)



Pumpkin Carving

 Tonight for FHE in my ward we carved pumpkins! It was tons of fun. We originally planned to have 4 pumpkins and have teams of carvers, but people in our family ended up bringing some of their own, so we had 7! That made it was cooler. I was with a guy named Lee and we made a ninja turtle! Super intense, I know. Lee basically did all the cool and hard stuff and I was moral support, but hey, I enjoyed it.

 



This is our hot pumpkin all lit up. Don't you love his scowl? I do. I didn't get pictures of the other pumpkins...Now I wish I did. Everyone's turned out awesome. I really had a good time tonight :)

 

And just so ya'll know, after Halloween on thursday it is officially time to start playing Christmas music.

Life is Short

So, anyone who knows me understands where i'm coming from here. I have a problem with buying shoes. And clothes in general, but shoes mostly. You know why? They are the perfect accessory to an outfit, and they will almost always fit and look fantastic. And you know what? This quote completely justifies my obsession :)

 

Don't you agree? 

Frankenweenie

Hey it's Friday! Never thought you'd make it, huh? Well you did! To celebrate me and my sista Erika went to see a movie together tonight. Hold on, back up. Before the movie we went to get some food at Chick fil A. Delish. Then off to the theater we went.

We were buying our tickets and I said, "2 tickets for Bourne Legacy at 7:15 pm please." I said this because on their website they said it would be showing TONIGHT at the above time. But the reply was, "we don't have that movie anymore." I was a little bugged because the website was wrong, but I wasn't going to let it ruin my evenin. So we got some tickets for the movie Frankenweenie. That show started later so we went to Target to look around.

That ended up being a good thing because we got some candy to enjoy during our flick. Frankenweenie is such a cute movie. I thought it was going to be kind of lame, but I truly and honestly enjoyed every second. Definitely reccomend it to all looking for a good and fun family Halloween movie.

I wanted to share this pic though. I got some peanun m&m's, and the bag inside the box was white. How cool/weird is that?

High Five!

I don't know why, but I always have a hard time thinking about what to write on this silly blog of mine. So I decided to just give you a list of 5 awesome things to update you on my life as of late.

1. School is going really good. I've learned perms (included in this are shampoo sets and chemical relaxers), coloring, different curls, dreads, and begin learning how to cut hair this week! I got my scissors today and am totally excited .I have 2 pairs of scissors, some feathering shears, and a razor. All of which are a bit intimidating. I learned that my kit of scissors is worth aproximately $900. I better take care of these babies :D

2. Work is going really well too. I feel very confident with what I am doing and absolutely love the people that I work with. I feel so blessed to have a job where I love working. I really don't think I would like it if the people didn't rock as much as they do :) My hours have definitely been cut back because I need time to focus in school. But still, I have a pretty decent income so that I can eat more than mere ramen noodles.

3. Living here at Glenwood apartments is totally fun as well. I love my roommates to death. They are all so awesome. I was worried at first that I would get weird people, and they are so not weird. And of course I love my roomie/cousin/bestie Rosie. She is so genuinely happy. It really makes living away from home awesome. Poor Erika is home alone this week because my parents decided to go to Disneyland this week. I hope she stays alive. I called her 30 minutes ago and all sounds well.

4. General Conference was amazing!! I know every single girl is saying this right now, but I feel so inspired to serve a mission. I have not yet made a decision like many of the other girls. There are so many different factors to consider. I will definitely be praying and fasting and giving this decision a great deal of thought. Anyways, I think my favorite talk was by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. He is so bold. When taking in what he was talking about, I was brought to tears. We need to show our Savior how much we love him. I had never thought about it so deeply until this talk. It is a great insight.

5. I was able to go home this weekend and see my family! I especially loved seeing my sweet dog Kujo. She is too cute. I loved spending conference with her and my family. I don't think I could ever go a conference with out my family. Unless it was  completely necessary. We also had the opportunity to go to my Grandma Gustafson's house for our semi-annual Sunday afternoon conference session dinner. I love this tradition. My family is great.

Thanks for reading! I encourage you to make a list or at least think of the cool things that have happened in your life lately. It is amazing how good/blessed you feel when you reflect on the positive things that happen ALL the time. Have a great Monday everyone!!! :)

Future Me

So school is going really great so far! It is really hard right now because I really don't know what i'm doing yet. I have no muscle memory in my hands yet. I am learning perms and they require a lot of focus hand muscles.

So we got a homework assignment to make a poster with our goals on it. They are goals for my career and life. So I made my poster tonight. It made me think about where I want to take my career after school. Here is a picture of my poster, and then I will talk about some of my goals.

Here are my goals:

1. I want to have a lifestyle blog-like a blog about hair, make up, clothes, and just different things that happen day to day. I would want it to be an inspiring blog. I have been following a hair/lifestyle blog I found on pinterest for awhile, and it really has changed the way I see myself.

2. I want be happy, enthusiastic, and satisfied with my life.

3. Married in the temple!!! I want to have a happy Christ-centered family.

4. I want to focus a big chunk of my career doing hair and make up for weddings and other events. This is a recent interest of mine, and I am really excited. I think that would make my career a lot more personal. And I have always enjoyed experimenting with different hair techniques. Up-do's are so much fun.

5. Eventually I think it would be nice to own my own salon. That is not a priority, but I think eventually that would be what I want.

6. Inner beauty is on the poster as well. I put that on there because there is no substitute for what beauty you have inside. Hair and makeup and clothes are so much fun, but they are no substitute for that inner beauty. I hope to inspire that in people with my career path.

7. I don't know if you saw this on the top of the poster, but it says "BYU fan forever!". I put that because I will forever be a BYU fan. I had to put that on my goal poster. You know me.

8. The last thing I want to always work hard. It is going to take A LOT of hard work to get my career to where I want it to be. I still need to graduate from school and establish myself. I have always admired people who can work so hard, and I want to be one of those people. I have always looked up to my dad. He works so hard and is always so positive. He is the pefect example of how a person should be. I love him.

So there are some of my goals! I just wanted to put them up here because they are real. I want to accomplish these things. I hope to some day lead up to this. I am really happy and excited with where I am at right now, and I hope to continue to be happy and excited :)

Autumn...:)

I am so excited that it is fall. This is a post to tell you about all of the things that I am excited for. And hopefully make you excited for fall as well :)

I am in love with the changing leaves! I hope to be able to go up to the canyon and see these colors!!

I am so ready to be able to wear scarves. Just like good old Harry Potter here. I want his scarf.

Pumpkins are the BEST thing that happened to this world. They are so cute and make fall official. I can't wait to buy some.

You can't forget pumpkin cookes. They complete life. I just might make some of these soon.

Oh yeah, did I mention it means football season?!! The season continues with BYU. I am so excited. I am loving it so far :)

 

I hope I just make you all excited for fall :)

Sundays.

This morning was the Brigham City Temple dedication. I was able to attend it with my family in the home stake. I feel like feeling that spirit with them was exactly what I needed after this week. The first week of school is always a doozy ;)

Anyways, the dedication. It is amazing the spirit the temple can bring you. As soon as we walked into the chapel I felt a calm spirit come over me. I was able to think about the different things of my week and see them in a different light. My mind was calmed and Heavenly Father helped me to see the areas of my life that needed improvement.

We are so blessed to be surrounded by a lot of temples. We can add one more to that! And 2 more temples coming soon :)

I hope everybody else had the chance to attend this dedication today, and if not-please go to the temple. It is so necessary to happiness. I have a solid testimony of that.

 

I also had a great weekend with my family. They are awesome and make me feel so good. But I also love being at my apartment with my awesome cousin/roomie Rosie. She is what makes my apartment feel like a second home :) And my Sunday wouldn't be complete with out a letter from my awesome missionary brother. Read his blog hereand feel the spirit.

 

Enjoy your week everyone.

Happier Than a Bird with a French Fry

I had a pretty full day today. I had school and then went straight to work. I feel like that stressed me out more just because this is my first week of school, and that kind of stresses me out. At work I think I just felt overwhelmed with different things that were happening because of the stresses I have. I went home to do homework and my internet wasn't working. I was complaining so bad!!

But then one of the coolest people I know told me to think of a positive thing that happend in my day. At first I thought, "there is nothing." But then I remembered that I got a big paycheck. My internet started working and I was able to do my work. I learned really cool stuff in school today. My family sent me nice texts throughout the day. I work with the coolest people ever. I had a car to drive me where I needed to go. I was able to read my scriptures and write in my journal tonight.

So many good things happened. I am making a goal to do this everyday. I will find all of the positive things I can think of! I feel like doing this will help me to see the joys that happen all around me all the time. There are going to be bad moments, but they won't ruin my day.

Thanks for making me think about this Julie :)

Homecoming!!

So this weekend I was able to go home! I did Erika's homecoming hair on Saturday. I practiced on Friday night so I knew what I needed to improve on for the real hairdo. Here are some pictures of my BEAUTIFUL sister!!!

This is me doing her hair. We're watching Kung Fu Panda.

 

Isn't she so beautiful??

Side view of all her pearls and stuff :)

 
Kinda sassy.

So grown up!

The full look.

Success!! Yes I made that flower.

I hope she had so much fun! I really think she looked nice. I love first dates.

The Holy Temple

I found this quote on pinterest and feel so inspired.

 

I live so close to so many different temples and still find that I don't go enough. I need to go to the temple more. That is my goal right now. I will go to the temple at least once a month. It is such a simple thing that makes an incredible difference. I invite everyone who is able to go to the temple as often as they can as well. As our prophet Thomas S. Monsen said as we go to the temple we can "...be more able to vear every trial and overcome each temptation...we will find peace, we will be renewed and fortified."