The Girls! Here's to my friends!

   I have the best friends in the world. This is the plain truth. Aren't they beautiful? After I moved to Utah in high school, I struggled to find where I really fit. It was only after I graduated did I really fall into this amazing group of friends! In our younger days, I could always count on my girls for a movie night, a cheer-up CD, or plenty of playing.  Now we get together as often as we can, and throw showers for each other, etc. After seven years, my mission, lots and lots of (6) weddings, one baby and one on the way, we are all still great friends. I love these girls! They have been with me through everything.

    Barbara Thornton is the best! Thanks for these pics!

School... HELP!

Another semester is underway, and I have been amply swamped with readings, assignments, and plenty of hoops to jump through! And I do certainly feel like a circus animal! Its all a little overwhelming, but if it doesn't kill you, it will get you a nursing degree! That's my new motto!! 

Also, I am happy to note that my car is running! Yay! So at least for the time being there is a little last stress and more independence! Hooray for independence!

QUOTES

  Lately I have been feeling a little less than wise, and thus drawing on others' wisdom.  I have been drawing a lot of comfort and guidance from quotes! I have loved quotes for a long, long time... but recently I have been collecting them anew.

  Here are some of the recent favorites:

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

--Albert Einstein

"The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved."

--Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

"I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me that trouble of liking them."

--Jane Austen

"Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs."

--Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

"Laughter is sunshine, it chases winter from the human face."

--Victor Hugo, Les Miserables 

"In the game of life, a second effort is often required."

--President Thomas S. Monson

"In this world you've just got to hope for the best and prepare for the worst and take whatever God sends."

--L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace…”

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

PLAY HARD!!!

So, it has been an interesting week. The highlight would have to be my UTES winning the Sugar Bowl! All those who doubted them should be ashamed!! It was an amazing game, and they simply schooled Alabama! LOVE IT!!!! GO UTES!!!
I have been playing really hard this week which has made the loss of a really good friend much easier. Don't worry, everyone is still alive... but it has been difficult. Let me just say that I have amazing friends who have made this all a ton easier!
Yay for parties, chocolate, snow angels, shrimp cocktail, movies, sledding, hot tubs, UTAH FOOTBALL, foot massages, mocktails, teaching moves, phone chats, dressing up, going to lunch, peace, a bloody nose, khakis and button-up shirts, rock band, "anything in quotations," and my pals! I love you guys!! May we live to play another week like this one, and many more!

Top Ten of 2008

TOP 10 of 2008
In Chronological order...

10. Graduationg from college (the first time technically happened in 2007, but really, did I blog about it then?)

9. Getting into Nursing school!! Fourth time's the charm I guess!

8. Adam going on a mission! FINALLY! Go Elder Webb!

7. Starting nursing school! It's really cool when you have no idea what you're getting into!!

6. Turning 25- still debating whether or not this is actually a highlight.

5. Surviving my first semester of nursing school- barely!!

4. Watching Nick (little bro #1) play football for Weber! Go Wildcats!!

3. Visiting with the Kokany family and Szandra this fall! Alegcsodalatosabb nekem!! Yay!

2. Being halfway done with nursing school!!!! Hooray for Breaks!!

1. Getting to celebrate the birth of my Savior rather than the hustle and bustle of the holidays! What an amazing blessing!

It's been a good year!! Who knows what 2009 will bring (other than the end of nursing school- that's the only for certain thing!)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Christmas time is here!

Now that finals are over, I am finally free!! And I can finally focus on Christmas- the most wonderful time of the year. I have really been pondering this year why it is such a heart-warming season. The birth of Christ is celebrated all over the world, and even if the hustle and bustle of presents takes over a bit, there is still a permeating feeling of goodness, joy, love and service that really only focusing on the Son of God can bring. I really love that for a day the whole world pauses to celebrate peace, joy and love.

In Hungary, where I served my mission, instead of Santa bringing the gifts on Christmas Eve, Jezuska (baby Jesus) brings the gifts! I am so grateful that one day a year, we can sing and praise the Son of God who died for us. And even if there is a whole lot of commercialism tied in, at least we can remember, in the midst of it all, why we are celebrating. May everyone have a wonderful, Christ-filled Christmas! I hope it is full of love!!

Finals...

<----- Me attempting to study, but really just blogging... see the buildings in the background? I am at school.

As I am in the throngs of what we call "finals," I am thinking that they are really counterintuitive. The educational process seems flawed by this crazy idea that a test will prove that we know our stuff. I am floored by the way this works. 

Let me outline the craziness for you. First, we learn something, then they test us on it.  This part I get. Then we move on, and we learn more and are tested on the new stuff, I am still good here.  Then as we are applying and working through all that we have "learned," they throw a huge test at us, contrived almost entirely to negate the previous x number of tests, as if we never learned anything before.  Because, if you do poorly, or even worse on the final than any of your other tests, you can tank the class. Conversely, if you have slackened your strength all semester, haven't learned a thing, and then cram for and do well on this final test, you could ace the class. Not that I am really concerned about grades here, I am just making the point. 

Education seems not to have learning at heart, but rather testing. SAD!! I wish it weren't so! But alas, it is! I guess if I actually want to LEARN something, it is up to me! I must now get back to my studying, because if I want to pass these finals, I am going to have to cram hard! Love the system!  Wish me luck!