Post Christmas Reflection

So I was thinking about a lot of things last night as I was going to sleep. One thought/idea that kept coming back was that I wanted to write a little more about Christmas so that's what I'm going to do.

Megan and I have spent some time talking about what makes Christmas Christmas and what the best part of it is. We both agreed that one of the best parts of Christmas is giving gifts. I think it's so amazing how that has changed over the years. I remember so well the pure excitement leading up to Christmas morning and opening all my presents. Gradually I started to enjoy watching people open the gifts I'd given them more than opening my own. That's not to say that I don't enjoy being on the receiving end, it's just that there's a different feeling in giving a gift than in receiving. 
I've been working on Meg's present for a while. Over the course of our relationship we've taken a few pictures and a large number of them have been on my camera. There have been a few of them that I've kept for myself for the express purpose of giving them to Meg as gift. So that's just what I did. I know she loves to scrapbook so I made a bunch of 4x6 prints and put them in a little photo album. I also made an 11x14 print of my favorite picture of us and framed it. So on Christmas Eve we sat down by the fire in my front room to exchange gifts. We both had two part gifts so we took turns. I opened one first and found a scarf/hat combo and a pair of sunglasses. It made me smile because I'm always borrowing Meg's sunglasses when we're driving because I misplaced mine a few months back. I've also wanted a scarf for a while. She opened the photo album first. Next I opened her second gift. The first thing that was really neat was that she made the box for this gift via origami out of wrapping paper. Inside was a deck of cards. At first I was a little confused but after a little direction from Meg I turned the box over to see what was written. "52 things I love about you." I was slightly shocked, it a very good way. This was hands down my favorite gift of the season. It just reinforced my already powerful love for her. She opened her framed 11x14 and judging from her response I think she liked it. It was such an amazing evening.

Once all is said and done however, the most amazing gift we have all received is that of our Savior Jesus Christ. Only through Him can we be forgiven of our mistakes. Only through Him can we hope to live with our families and loved ones forever. Only through Him can we receive the ultimate gift of Eternal Life. Because of what He went through and suffered He is ready, willing and able to run to our aid durning the trials of this life.

Finals and Christmas

Well finals have come and gone as have a few other large events. I feel bad about not writing in so long. I wish I could go back and write about everything but I feel that if I were to try it would end up being a very boring post filled with lists of things I've done.

Yesterday was Christmas and what a Christmas it was. I realized that it had been three years since my last Christmas at home. That's a long time but it really didn't feel that long. In the past on Christmas morning I would usually wake up fairly early and because of this I would do a lot of sitting around waiting for the rest of the family to get there so we could have our Christmas brunch and then head into the front room to open presents. However, this year was different. Anne and I opened presents in the morning, then went to church (which was great) and then the family came in for dinner and more opening.

I spent most of Christmas Eve with Meg and her family up at her grandparent's house. It was so much fun. I find it so interesting how we're on such different ends of the spectrum. I'm the very youngest in my family and Meg is the oldest, or there abouts. It was fun to see another set of family traditions. Meg and I learned a piano duet which we were able to play at her family party and then again at my house. It was a very fun weekend.

Sorry this is such a short and somewhat boring post but I really felt the need to get something new up. For some reason I felt like I couldn't start writing again until I'd caught up and the longer it went the less I wanted to do it. So here it is and I'm just going to call it good.

"Sam, you can do better."

Okay, so this is a post I wrote yesterday (Monday the 5th) and I'm just now getting around to posting it. Enjoy!

Yesterday was such an amazing day filled with my favorite person in the world. My Sunday morning meetings weren't too bad and then it was choir practice. We were supposed to be practicing in the young womens room but some committee from the 1st Ward was using it for a board meeting. We ended up having to meet in a tiny room above the bishops office with a tiny little keyboard. I'm not quite sure what's going to happen with this Christmas program. In Priesthood Cody Lundgreen gave the lesson. He shared a personal experience he'd had while back and it really touched me. He said that he was praying and felt like there was a wall between him and the Lord. As he knelt there pondering why this was happening he had a distinct impression come. "Cody, you can do better." I wonder if that's what I've been feeling these past few weeks/months. "Sam, you can do better." I know that I can. Especially with my gospel study. I love Sunday School and Sacrament because I get to sit with Meg.

After church Meg and I headed up to her home in Syracuse. I was a little nervous because being around her dad stresses me out a little. I feel like I need to prove myself to him and I feel like I'm failing. It scares me because I'm in love with his daughter and I want his approval to be dating her. I feel that I get along with the rest of her family really well even if we do have pretty different interests. One great thing from last night was I being able to listen to Meg and her sisters practice a song they're going to be singing. They all have amazing voices and I was sad that I wasn't going to be able to hear them sing this. I felt kinda bad because I think Adrianna was a little self conscious with me sitting there listening to them especially when they broke it down and had each of them practice their own parts one at a time.

I have a migraine today which is really messing with my emotions and memories. It's really interesting that I have one because I just finished writing a paper for biology about migraine headaches. I think that last night I had a dream about something going horribly wrong between me and Meg and the emotions from that dream and bleeding over.

I'm really stressed about finals. I had my first dream about failing my finals last night and it's got me really worried. I feel like such a bad student because I haven't been studying up to this point and I really need to start. Mostly I'm worried about Math and Biology. In a few minutes I'm going be headed into Biology to start the review days. I missed a good chunk of math this morning because of my migraine and over sleeping. One week from tomorrow I will be done with finals and winter break will have started. Oh what a much needed break that will be.

I can be happy

So I woke up this morning and felt pretty rough. My head was hurting and I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open. They felt so heavy and dry. I forced myself out of bed and walked down the hall to the bathroom only to realize that I needed to get some clean garments which are sitting in a pile of clean laundry on the chair in my room. My shower helped to wake me up a bit. As I got upstairs to start pulling together everything for school my sweet mom had a great breakfast just about ready to eat. While rummaging around trying to find my notebook I realized that it was gone. I looked high and low and couldn't find it which is a major problem because I have ALL of my notes in there for my classes. This is a major problem because I have finals coming up and I am totally ill-prepared for them and now without my notes, I don't know what I'm going to do.

During math, Meg texted me and reminded me that I can choose to be happy right now. Even though it was a bad morning, I can still have a good day! I figure that if I can get my room and locker all cleaned out I will have a much higher chance of finding my notebook so that's what I need to do. I also have FHE to look forward to tonight at Temple Square to see the Christmas Lights! Life is good and I can be happy right now!

Mountains and Laugh attacks

It has been a while! So this last weekend was such a great one. The only problem with it was that it seemed to make the beginning of the week go by so slowly as I was anticipating Friday. It did finally come and it was up to my cabin to spend the night. I was looking forward to spending some time up in the mountains because that always seems to do me good and on top of that, I was looking forward to a storm that was supposed to roll in on Friday night and drop some serious snow. I was happy to share my beloved cabin with my friends and I hope they enjoyed it. I'm always a little worried bringing people up there for the first time, especially in the winter because of the small and simple fact that there is no running water (therefore you have to use the outhouse up on hill beside the cabin which can be a little uncomfortable in the winter) and it tends to be a bit on the chilly side in the cabin because of how old it is and how poorly insulated. (as a little side note, I hope everyone reading this enjoyed that crazy run-on sentence.)
Sunday evening I headed over to a great pre-Thanksgiving dinner which was pretty great. Following this Meg and I headed up to "the house" to do some homework. I was working on my Religious Diversity in America assignment and Meg did some Spanish and some studying for Anthropology. After a bit Meg decided it was time to get going on her muffins so we went on a walk up to her grandparents house to borrow some eggs and say a quick hello. It was actually quite enjoyable. They were happy to talk for a bit and I ended up with some amazing cookies and a little ice cream sunday. Once we got back I headed over to game-night. I felt bad I was so late because I'd promised to come...which I guess I did but I didn't make it in time to play any games.
Then it was back to Meg's and I got there in time to help her pull together everything for her muffins. She let me separate the egg whites which is always fun. They were super tasty muffins. The best part of the whole evening, and possibly the whole weekend was when Meg had an uncontrollable laugh attack which promptly spread to me. To say the least, we both ended up sitting on the floor of the kitchen a bit worn out.

(Photo taken by Meg)

Now, today has been a crazy day and a bit to stressful for my taste. I think it has to do with how tired I am. Once I can get some of these homework assignments out of the way the burden of life will be so much lighter to carry.

It's gone....

So sad story, I lost my iPod. I'm hoping it may show up but I'm not so sure if it will. I have no clue where it could be. On the bright side of things, this my give me an excuse to get a new one which means I'll have more space on it which will be an amazing thing. I've had that little guy for a good four years or so. It was two gig nano and it was getting to be pretty beat. The other sad part of losing my iPod was my headphones went a long with it...or at least I think they did because I can't find them either. All in all it's okay.
Life is still amazing. I also might be getting sick but it's really not bothering me as much as it usually does.  I think it just comes down to the fact that I can choose to be happy in any situation. This is something that I have to be reminded of rather often but I'm getting better about just doing it on my own. Life is just so much more fun when you're happy. That's not to say that there aren't things that can and should cause grief and sadness. It just comes down to what we choose to do with those feelings. Are we going to let them build up and dominate our lives or recognize their presence and whatever is causing them, fix it, and move on? It's so much easier to dwell on the unhappy things in our lives but it sure doesn't do anything good for us.
Last night at Institute we were talking about the power of scripture in our lives and someone brought up Mosiah 3:19 which talks about how the "natrual man" is an enemy to God. It comes down to the fact that we are always going to struggle against that "natural man." The natural man is what entices us to do wrong, to be unhappy, to hurt others, to be prideful, and every other thing that is contrary to what God wants for us.

On Sunday I ran across my boss at church. Normally this is an okay thing...but not this time. I've been growing a beard for a few reasons and I've really enjoyed it. However, I've been a little worried the whole time because at work facial hair officially isn't allowed. I thought I just might be able to get away with it because I work on the grounds the whole time. Not so....my boss asked what the deal was with the beard which was his way of saying, "you need to shave or you wont have a job." So off it comes. One day I'll be able to grow it out again....maybe even later in the winter season once I'm not working anymore. So in short...all my facial hair is gone!

Birthday

So yesterday was my birthday and yet it already feels like it was forever ago. I think it may have something to do with the fact that it wasn't such an amazing day. Now don't get me wrong, it wasn't horrible or anything but it was just....not really that good. I feel that this needs some further explanation.

For the past couple of birthdays...well maybe starting at around number 17 or so, my birthdays have gone down-hill a bit. I've spent a lot of time thinking about why this is happening because I really wish it wouldn't. I mean birthdays are supposed to be these awesome happy days.

Funny enough, I think that's where part of the problem lies. Ever since I was little I've had pounded into my head that birthdays are these special days where you are almost king of your little part of the world. When I was younger, this worked out alright. I had birthday parties, lots of presents, and everything else that comes with a birthday. (It's amazing how self centered birthdays are!) However, now life doesn't slow down in the least for your birthday. It just keeps going.

Every year I try to not get my hopes up for anything to special on my birthday but every year I fail. This year was no exception. I tried so hard to not have any expectations but somehow I must have because yesterday was a bit of a disappointment. Once again, I must say that my birthday wasn't a terrible day, it just wasn't what I was hoping for. One of the problems is that I don't really know what I was hoping would happen so I don't know how to fix it.

I need to point out that there were some very good parts of my day. There were two main  highlights of my day. First was when Megan came to say a quick happy birthday before she had to head off to Chrony Class. It was something I'd been looking forward to for most of the day. The other highlight was going home teaching. It was such an amazing spirit filled visit. In all truth those two happenings made the day pretty great.

Anyway, I don't know if this made any sense at all but I thought I'd get it out there. All in all, life is still great. It's crazy to think that I'm now 22. I was still getting used to 21, not to mention 19 and 20....