The truth is

Pamela and I aren't handling Sierra's departure very well. And by that, I of course mean that one of us is sobbing at all times. (Okay, neither of us is sobbing right now. But any brief reminder as to why we're so sad, and the waterworks are going off. I swear, it's been like Niagra Falls coming out of our eyes all day.)

It's going to rain tonight. Or it looks like it's going to rain. Pamela and I keep looking out the window and saying things like, "I just want it to start raining already so I can make tea, and we can watch sad movies and cry together."

I texted Sierra, and I made it sound like she had died. But with the amount of tears coming out of Pamela and myself, you would think she had died. We are messes.

We'll be skyping her later tonight when she gets back to her home. So that's happy. But it's not going to be the same.

I'm also moving my stuff into Pamela's room, because she doesn't think she can handle being alone/sleeping in the room alone. Really, we are being so crazily dramatic about this you'd think Sierra had died. Really.

Anyway, I just thought I'd write about how I hate goodbyes. They're my least favorite thing ever.

s.e.

In honor of my 50th post....

you get a video of me opening my mission call! Hooray!

I am still so deliriously happy! I can't wait for August!

s.e.

I finally got my mission call!

Yesterday was the happiest day of my life! I got my mission call! Finally. After such an incredibly long time of waiting.

The mail trailer called me at 8:00 am to tell me that my call was there. And I was so excited. I couldn't go back to sleep, even though I was 99% asleep when I was on the phone with them. I knew I wasn't going to be able to open my call until 4:00 pm.

It was the longest day of my life. Seriously, that's the craziest wait is knowing that your call is here but you can't open it yet! I didn't even let myself go to the mail trailer to get it until 3:30 because I'm pretty sure I would have opened it by myself. I would have had a lot of people be really upset with me.

Anyway, so then 4:00 rolled around. And I was having lots of technical difficulties trying to skype my mother. Then it all got worked out and I was able to open it.

I was shaking, and I couldn't breathe. But I was so excited.

So guys! I'm going to the COLORADO DENVER SOUTH MISSION. I'm going Spanish speaking, so I report to the Mexico MTC on August 27. I am so, so, so, excited!
Also, Sierra (mah best friend) and I will be in the MTC together for FOUR WEEKS!!

We are so pumped.

Okay, I'll post a video of me opening it maybe tomorrow? Okay. Bye.

s.e.

day thirty-one

day thirty-one: self portrait and explain what you liked most about this challenge.

There's me. The freckles on my face are already there in abundance. Because it's sunny in Utah. :) Yay for freckles? haha. Also wide eyes and no makeup. :)

What I liked most about this challenge: It got me blogging! It got me reading other people's blogs! It's been a fun 31 day journey! It's kind of crazy that it's over!

Guys! MY MISSION CALL CAME TODAY! So I'll post again later today. Or tomorrow. We'll see how everything goes down.

s.e.

day thirty

day thirty: what's your favorite flavor of ice cream?

My absolute favorite flavor of ice cream is peppermint. Which is a really hard flavor to pick for a favorite since it's only out around Christmas time.

I like lots of different ice creams though. I've only been getting it from the Creamery on campus, so I only get BYU flavors which has actually been lovely. Some of my favorites from there are:

• Earnestly Chocolate (Chocolate ice cream with marshmallow cream, caramel, and caramel cups)
• Peanut Butter Trails
• Mint Cookies & Cream
• Raspberry and Cream Cheese
• Graham Canyon 
• German Chocolate Crunch 

I'm off to study all day, people. Wish me luck. 

s.e.

day twenty-nine

day twenty-nine: what is your favorite time of year and why?

FALL is my number one favorite, and then Spring is a close second. I really love the "in-between" seasons because I don't like extreme temperatures. I hate hot and I hate cold.

Fall is my favorite, because who doesn't love fall colors? PS the fall colors are SO much better in Provo than they are back home. Really. It's lovely. Fall makes me the happiest.

Spring is my close second because it's starting to warm up and the spring colors are beautiful, too, just in a different way.

Spring makes me need to take my allergy medicine every day though. (Curses seasonal allergies.)

GUYS! I'm almost done with this blogging challenge. It's kind of fantastic.

ALSO MY MISSION CALL SHOULD BE COMING TOMORROW!!!! I AM BEYOND ECSTATIC!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

s.e.

Is it terrible that I hate writing assignments...

...that I feel could better be explained just through talking? Because don't get me wrong. I love writing. Really. I do. In my writing class last semester, I absolutely loved my writing assignments, because they had such great purpose and I could see exactly how they fit into the class.

But I'm currently trying to write a paper for psychology. And I'm just wishing that I could just talk about the book we read instead of writing a paper about it. Because sometimes, when it's an assignment, I absolutely loathe writing and the ideas that I have in my head will not come out the way I want them to in paper.

And it's frustrating.

I only have a page left to write now. So I'm going to be okay.

Also, the lunar eclipse is happening tonight. And that's really exciting. Makes the paper writing slightly less painful.

s.e.

day twenty-eight

day twenty-eight: what's your guilty pleasure?

You know, I have been learning (lately) to absolutely loath the term "guilty pleasure." Because if something brings me pleasure or joy or happiness or whatever term you want to use, why would I feel bad about it? Shouldn't I love the things that bring me happiness?

So, I don't have any guilty pleasures. I do have a large number of things that bring me happiness though.

s.e.

day twenty-seven

day twenty-seven: list 3 online friends you've never met, but hope to soon.

Hmm, well, the thing is that I don't have online friends that I've never met. Everyone in my social media realm I have met. And I don't really see that changing anytime soon.

If I could meet people that I follow on Twitter, though, that would be a whole new story. I would love to meet Tom Hiddleston and Amanda Abbington.

I have a thing for British people.

:)

s.e.

day twenty-six

day twenty-six: what is your favorite food?

Italian, Mexican, and Americanized Chinese. :)

Also desserts: ice cream and cheese cake and all desserts really. PAVLOVA.

And carbs. All carbs. Bread. Pasta. All of it.

POPSICLES are my life.

the thing is...

i really LOVE food. 

You can't ask me to pick one favorite. 

s.e.

day twenty-five

day twenty-five: describe your location

I am nestled between a mountain and campus. It's actually a really lovely place. Except they're doing construction outside of my window, and it's REALLY ugly.

In a more broad definition of location: Provo is lovely. I have absolutely loved having the opportunity to live here. I'm kind of in love with Utah. (Nowhere even close to being as pretty as it is back home though.)

And in a narrow definition of location: I'm nestled into a corner of our couch. :) It's my happy place.

s.e.

p.s. I'll write a post about my experience at a concert last night later today.. :)

day twenty-four

day twenty-four: describe your most embarrassing moment

Oh goodness. If you know me, you know that my entire life is composed of one embarrassing moment after another. And I mean that quite literally. So to pick one of those moments and label it as the most embarrassing moment is actually really difficult. Because there's a lot that might reach up to that level. (Really. I could write a book purely on the embarrassing moments in my life. A really big book, guys.)

Okay. The most embarrassing moment I can think of right now is a bit difficult to tell, because it requires that you have a knowledge of the layout of my first high school. I will do my best to explain it, I promise.

My school was set up kind of like an "L" - if you've ever been in an "L" shaped building, you know they're all kind of set up the same way. Generally, in the point where the L meets, there's a big sort of common area thing. In my high school, that's where the office was located AND where any lunch time sale things were happening. (Formal dance tickets, puppy chow sales, what have you...) To get up to the main part of that, you go through the main doors and up like..three steps I think. Then you can go either way, or up another set of stairs to get to whatever class it is you're going to. There is another way to get into the school and to the office area as well. You enter a door on the end of the L, go up a series of slight inclines, and walk straight ahead and you'll get to that area. I promise, all of this is important to the embarrassment of the story. Really.

Okay. Keep all of the above information in mind.

This is my junior year in high school, a pretty rough year for me up until...February/March. I had knee surgery in November that year and had to be on crutches for a month, non-weight-bearing. (Seriously awful.) My high school always holds a winter formal within the first couple weekends of December, and it is a HUGE deal. My sister, Jay, was a senior at the time, so she got put in charge of helping me get around school (because I didn't have friends besides her. This is a very true story.) She was a saint, she really was. And because she was my only friend/in charge of taking care of me, we would eat lunch together. I think we would usually just go sit in the car while eating the lunches our mom had packed for us. Kind of pathetic, but that was my experience in high school. (Which is embarrassing enough as it is.)

So one day, we were walking back into school after lunch. Usually we would walk in through the door at the end of the L and I would walk up the ramps to get to my class, because it was gloriously easy that way. But for some reason that day, we took the main entrance at the intersection point of the L, on a day when they were selling dance tickets. It was the busiest day for sales on those stupid tickets. I swear so many people were hanging out there buying their tickets, or discussing their super great formal plans. I wasn't very good with crutches + stairs, and my sister wasn't paying very close attention to me. I make it up the first two steps perfectly fine. But on the last step, my foot caught on the edge of the stair. My crutches fell out of my hands, my knee was in an immobilizer so I couldn't even do anything to try to stop myself. I fell. On my face. (like a board.) In front of everyone.

After the fall, only my sister and my former biology teacher came to help me. (Jay only helped me after she laughed for a minute, and helped me in fits of laughter.) Everyone else sat there staring/laughing. It was really, really awful. And when you can't move your knee at all, it's hard to get up off the ground. It was awful. Luckily though, my classroom was the first or second room right off the L, so I just got in there as quickly as possible and let my face burn crimson in the shame I felt.

It got worse though. I only had like...two minutes of alone time after the fall to calm myself down. And I don't calm down easily. (My face was bright red for at least an hour after the fall.) People started coming into my class who had witnessed the fall. And they couldn't/wouldn't stop laughing at me. None of them said anything. None of them asked me if I was okay. They just laughed. (Mocking laugh, not fun laugh.) The worst was that my best friend (who was not my best friend at that point, there's a long story with that) laughed at me, too. It hurt. A lot. When we rekindled our friendship in March, we talked about my fall. He still thinks it's hilarious, and I still think he's a jerk for laughing at me. I mean, we'd been through a lot, there was lots of tension between us, but you couldn't have asked if I was okay?

So. That's one of my most embarrassing moments for you. This took me a really long time to write, because the bad feelings came up again. The nightmares of high school are all returning to my mind. (I had a really bad experience. A lot of people say that, but I really did. Maybe I'll tell you about it sometime.)

Okay. Have a good, hopefully non-embarrassing day!

s.e.

day twenty-three

day twenty-three: do you have a hobby?

Good news, gang! I do have hobbies!

1. Guitar 
2. Singing (ranging between really good and really awful. it's a gift.)
3. Netflix marathons 
4. READING 
5. Photography 

There you are, my pets. A sampling of my hobbies. 

I'm under an insane amount of stress today, so I'm keeping this one short. Wish me luck.

s.e.

day twenty-two

day twenty-two: what do you do when you're home all alone?

I'm home alone a good majority of the time. Even if there's one other person in the apartment, they probably are in their room with the door closed (and by that I mean also my room...) and because I'm pretty much not allowed in my room when she is there, I hang out in the kitchen/living area by my lonesome.

In that time, I'm probably watching Netflix or reading a book or doing homework or eating food or cleaning.

That is pretty much the spectrum of things I do when I'm home alone. Though, I'll be honest. About 95% of that time is Netflix + eating. :)

s.e.

Going to BYU....

...makes your computer go a little bit crazy. All of the names from the Book of Mormon aren't registered as real words, so you always end up with the annoying red squiggle under them. It makes me crazy. I just want to be able to do my BOM homework without getting red squiggles!

My computer wanted me to change Moroni to moronic today.

And that just made me sad. 

s.e.

day twenty-one

day twenty-one: what is your biggest fear?

I think right now, my biggest fear is that I'm never going to figure out what I want to do with my life. Meaning what I want to study in school to lead to a career. Basically. Because I've almost completed an entire year of college (which is crazy -- time really flew) without getting any closer to having even an idea of what I might like to do.

And it's just, you know, terrifying to not have any idea at all what you want to study. So, I'd say that's my biggest fear for now.

s.e.

p.s. My declared major right now is Pre-Music. So basically, I wasted away an entire semester before figuring out I didn't want to do that. And you can't become "undeclared" if you've already declared. Is that not the dumbest thing you've ever heard? Because I think it is.

day twenty

day twenty: what do you collect?

I think the word "collect" is weird and I feel like I don't "collect" anything.

That being said: anytime I travel anywhere I buy a Christmas ornament! (: So I have a lovely assortment of Christmas ornaments for someday when I have my own tree to decorate!

in other news: looking back on high school makes me sad.

s.e.

day nineteen

day nineteen: list 5 blogs you read on a regular basis and why.

Weeeeeell. I'm not much of a blog reader, I am sorry to say. There are only two that I've been reading lately.

One: My friend/roommate Courtney's mission blog! She's serving in the France Paris Mission. And she's just absolutely wonderful. (You can read it here.)
Two: My writing teacher from last semester has two blogs that I'm aware of. One blog for serious issues, another blog that's more personal that she writes for her family/friends. Both are fantastic. They can be found (here and here). Both are wonderful. I love her, she's fantastic.

I need to read more blogs, but I just haven't gotten around to searching for some that I want to read. Or have time to read. You know. It's difficult.

have a lovely day!

s.e.

day eighteen + news

day eighteen: where are you happiest?

There's a lot of places where I'm happy. I'm happy when I'm in Provo. I'm happy when I'm in Montana. I"m happy in Idaho.

I think though, there are two places where I'm at my absolute happiest.

1. The Temple. Any Temple. The Spirit felt there is so strong and lovely. Would bring happiness to the most troubled of souls.
2. When I'm about to board a plane/on a plane ready to go on an adventure. The adrenaline, and excitement just knowing you're going to do something amazing. It's a great feeling. 

GUYS! I had an appointment with the urologist today. It went well, my kidneys are fine. Which means... MY MISSION PAPERS ARE BEING PUSHED THROUGH!! 

Today is just a really happy day

!!!!!!!

s.e.

these are my best friends

and i love them a lot. 

like really, a whole lot.

s.e.

day seventeen

day seventeen: why and when did you start blogging?

To answer that question, I'll direct you here. My very first blog post on this blog.

As for now, I'm just trying not to be awful at blogging. It's hard, and I feel like I should have better and more interesting things to talk about.

But All In Good Time.

s.e.

day sixteen

day sixteen: what is your biggest accomplishment?

I honestly think my greatest accomplishment thus far is just growing up to become who I am today.

 High school was really rough on me. I mean really, really rough. I had people pressuring me to be someone I wasn't. It was hard. To this day I'm not entirely sure how I survived.

 But I did. It helped me grow.

Moving to Utah was hard. I didn't know how to be an adult. I didn't know how to take care of myself. I didn't know how to live with 5 girls I had never met before.

But I learned. It helped me grow.

I feel like a majority of my life I was searching to find out who I was. But I always knew. Because it was always inside of me. I should have been searching for the courage to be who I was/am. I had a hard time with that in high school. Now I can't picture myself being anyone else.

I am who I am. I know who I am.

Do you know what else I know?

I know that I'm going to continue growing/learning/changing. And I love it. I'm going to be a really amazing person by the time I get to being an old lady.

s.e.

day fifteen

day fifteen: list ten things that make you awesome.

1. I sing and play guitar. Which, you know, is pretty cool I think. 
2. I am a fangirl, which you will either think is fantastic or weird. So. I think it's great. 
3. I am Mormon! Which I think is super, super cool. 
4. I'm really funny sometimes. Or maybe it's all in my head. But people have been known to laugh when they're with me. 
5. I'm an awkward person, and I am proud of it! If that doesn't make me awesome, I don't know what will! (I have a shirt that says, "Hi, I'm awkward." And I wear it. In public.) 
6. I feel things strongly. It comes with the artistic personality deal. It can be super awesome, or super hard. But generally I think awesome. To feel is an experience, and I just happen to have a lot of it. 
7. I love to read. (i.e. I'm really just a nerd. And this is what John Green has to say about nerds. “…because nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff… Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can’t-control-yourself love it. Hank, when people call people nerds, mostly what they’re saying is ‘you like stuff.’ Which is just not a good insult at all. Like, ‘you are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness’.” He also has a quote about how nerd girls are the most underutilized romantic resource. All of which is awesome.) 
8. I love to travel! Hopeless wanderer. Restless heart. You know. All of the things that make me sound like I'd be awful in a relationship. But I'd actually be fantastic. Which has nothing to do with traveling. 
9. I love to laugh! Obviously if a person loves to laugh they're awesome. But I'm also really self-conscious about my laugh. So it's a bit of a problem. 
10. I know who I am as a person! And that is seriously the thing that makes one the absolute most awesome. Because it's a long and difficult journey. And I'm sure I'll obviously grow as a person, so the journey is never really over. But for now, I know who I am, and I am PROUD of who I am. And it's awesome. 

Sorry I got off on little rambles. That's just how I do it. I can't control myself. 

s.e.