Birthday Wishes

It has been well over a month since my actual birthday and I have had the best intentions of posting about what an amazing time I had but I guess it has had to wait until now. the thing about my birthday is that I don't hate it but I also don't like planning it for myself, it has always just felt like something someone else should do for you. Don't ask me why I think that, I can't tell you where that line of thought comes from. So now that I am older I just kind of go with the flow when it comes to my birthday. I might plan small things but no big parties, at least not until I am turning 30... only a couple years away *sigh*

This year turned out to be the best, somethings just came together and somethings I planned but overall it turned out pretty great and in the end what more could I really ask for. It turned out to be a weekend event type thing without me even trying, I had to work late that Friday night but still wanted to go out after work even if just for a little while. On the way out of work I found a $5 bill just hanging out on the ground. I feel like that was a good sign of things to come. I spent a couple of hours after that with friends at a local bar, drinking some cherry coke and listening to awesome karaoke. But I couldn't stay too late because the next day I had to be up early.

That Saturday was the day before my birthday, this year it happen to coincide with the San Francisco Color Run, also known as the happiest 5K on the planet. My friend and I got up early, especially for a Saturday and drove to San Francisco where we really did have a great time run/walking our first 5K. After we were tired but she wanted to take me to the Rainforest Cafe for dinner, neither of us had ever been there but it was great. We were sunburnt and tired, the robotic snake was ridiculous, and we got stare after stare from people because we were a pink color, but let's face it I would of stared as well. It was great!

Finally on Sunday, the real day of my birth, I went to church and then hung out with family. Well sort of my adopted family, that is what we are calling it anyways. We had pot roast for dinner, watched a movie, opened some presents, had some cake, and played Skip-Bo. All in all it was really a great day, I even enjoyed that my Dad used his Facebook to wish my an additional happy birthday. He is learning the ways of technology, I am so proud!

How does it feel to be another year older? Sometimes I wonder what the heck I am doing with my life. How did I get here and where am I going? But then I realize how very blessed I am, I may not have everything in the world that I expected to have at this age when I was younger, but I have a lot of things that I never could of dreamed of having at this age when I was 20. My own apartment and my little Guido, great friends and family, two jobs and a church calling, my health and the ability to do activities that I enjoy. I may not have everything I expected to have at this age, but I have come to realize that there are so many things in this life that I will obtain, I would just be spoiled if I got it all at once, and I wouldn't appreciate the things I do have nearly as much.

Puzzle Pieces

Puzzles can be metaphors for many things, but they work really well for the analogy of small pieces making up a bigger picture. With each small piece you can't necessarily tell what the overall image is going to be, it takes a couple of pieces together to start to form the begins of the picture. Sometimes a section to the right of the puzzle forms and then a section in the bottom corner. Slowly things come together.

It can take a long time to get the whole puzzle of our lives together, in fact it pretty much takes an entire lifetime and maybe then some to get it all completed. But what I am fast learning is that each of us can take away some happiness even from the partial sections of the puzzle that are beginning to come together.

I think most recently I can apply this concept into my life through a health stand point. I am no doubt far from perfect in the eat healthy, work out everyday mind set, but today was one of those days that I notice a small section of my puzzle coming together. At work our offices get cleaned once every other week and I can usually monitor what week it is by how much my trash is full. For a while I was eating out a lot at lunch but for the last while I have been working on improving dislike of preparing meals to bring to work.

I have eaten out very little in the recent past and it definitely reflected the hard work that I have been putting into making that change in my life. When the janitor came in to clean my office this morning my trash was less than 3/4 full. Usually when I eat out more often it it compacted at least twice by my foot and still overflowing but not this time. A sound purchase in some snapware, doing more dishes at home and staying in some nights to cook food to last a couple of days has lead me to better health and a positive step towards saving the environment from my trash.

It may not be a big section of my puzzle it may not even be all that important but it is the small pieces that make up the larger puzzle, and rejoicing the small and simple things is what is going to help get us all through until we are able to see the bigger picture and how beautiful that is.

Tough Decisions

Always I hate making tough choices in life. Sometimes I even hate making the small ones. But right now I strongly dislike that what dictates my life is finances.

Coming up I have the wedding of a very dear friend. I met her in college and even was around for when she and her soon-to-be husband first met. I got to watch their love grow and really just love being able to be with them whenever I can. I always feel close to them even though these days we don't get to spend much time together. I remember when they first got engaged and I swore that I would be at the wedding no matter what. I was originally planning to use my tax refund to fund my trip to the wedding. Now that I am going to owe the government money I am not sure that I can make it at all.

Even more difficult is knowing that the following weekend is General Conference and knowing that I have been planning to go in April since before I even knew the wedding date. However with this new debt that I will be owing I can only really choose one trip, and even that might be a stretch.

So I am feeling very torn, in my heart I know that going to conference and being with my branch will bring untold rewards. I want so much for things to work out all around, but I know that things don't always work that way. I guess this will take more thought and prayer and a little bit of planning before I know what is really going to happen. Wish me luck!

What's Good For The Goose...

I get so upset when there are double standards in life. I get even more upset when they directly effect me. Case in point growing up my brother was always allowed to walk around the house in his boxers for the simple fact that he was a boy. My sister and I however, always had to be wearing some type of clothing to cover ourselves up.

Today, grown up and out of my parents house, I make the rules but at the same time I find that this basic concept still remains outside of my control. I don't understand why people still get it in their heads that it is an okay thing to do. And even more so when they know that they are doing it.

I know it is hard to stop yourself from doing those, perhaps not so great, habits that we have taught ourselves to do, and no one is going to stop their habits overnight. That is just not how it works. But I am constantly faced with trying to change those things about myself that maybe others don't find acceptable. I try my hardest to make those changes if those changes are to better myself.

But when others seem to not even try it gets to me. I do believe that we all have the ability to change, if we really want to. The key being if they really want to. So all I really want to change is the double standards that are applied to my life by others. Just be honest and respect me and I will show the same courtesies that is all I ask. 

What's Hidden Inbetween

I was going through the profiles of suggested friends on Facebook today. There are many people that I don't know but there are even more that are friends from church and school when I was younger. Sometimes I like to see if people's pictures are available for viewing just so I can see what is happening in the lives of the people that I grew up around.

Once in awhile I get to see people's happiest moments. Everyone is happy or getting married or having babies and it is great to see. But sometimes all the happy pictures really start to make me think that everyone else has such a perfect life and my life is lacking somehow.

When I was pondering on what was so wrong with my life, as I usually do, I had the epiphany that the thing about basing people's happiness on the pictures that they have posted on Facebook doesn't give anyone the correct overall assessment of others lives. These pictures show the happy times, the party times and the fun times, and although those are important times in people's lives, Facebook doesn't show you the times inbetween.

Those pictures never show the arguments, the fights or the not so great times. But everyone has them and it can be hard to remember that at the end of the day we are all the same. We face challenges, many of us the same ones, but when we face them it is at different times. And not many of us post pictures of the sad times on the internet.

I realized that this means that I am no different than any other person. Everyone has a life inbetween those photos that are posted. What those moments consist of I am not quite sure, but I have a feeling that those moments are actually just like mine just with a couple of variables.

Starting A New Blog... Again!

I always get into my head that I could just start a new blog at anytime and that it is gonna be the most amazing thing that I will ever do. Everyone will read it and think I am intelligent and funny and they will be inspired by my unique view of the world. Maybe that could happen, mostly likely it won't though and that is okay with me.

The main thing that has been stopping me from starting this venture is fear. The fear that everyone will just see a young kid trying hard to just not drown in this crazy world.  In the end I will have to realize that this is okay because in all honesty that is a little bit how I feel sometimes.

But when I sit down and really start to think about all the reasons I want to post my thoughts and feelings, it has very little to do with impressing anyone else and more to do with me needing to find another way to express myself. Of my many hopes for this blog I wish to work on perfecting myself as I have been asked to do, and just maybe in the process of helping myself grow, I can help others as well.

I guess I will sooner or later find out how this venture goes. :)