My Simple, Happy, Beautiful Life

I have had a fun and busy week. I have been out of my apartment pretty much all week. But I have experienced moments of joy and just seeing a different perspective. Tonight was my grandpa's birthday. My family from Boise came up and then my mom and my little brother were here to celebrate. We barbecued, ate cake, gave presents, and just spent time with each other. It was really fun. Even though I got a 71 percent on my psychology exam, I had a good day because I just enjoyed being with my family. These are the moments of joy I felt today. I enjoyed watching the joy on my grandpa's face when I knew he got his wish for his birthday. I could tell he just wanted to be with family. He wanted his loved one's around him. I love seeing my grandpa happy. Last holiday season, we decorated his house with neighbors and friends. After decorating, drinking hot chocolate, and singing hymns, I could just tell that he was happy. I saw him tear up tonight. We gave him a new computer for hi...

Don't make mistakes. We are trying to be perfect, right? Mistakes are bad. I was talking to my sister-in-law last night about something. We understood each other and we were able to talk openly about our feelings on the situation. She told me that I didn't need to feel bad about what happened. Even though it didn't turn out the best, I was able to learn from it. It made me think about our life experiences. We come here to learn and grow. My favorite thing about our religion is the idea that it dosen't matter if we aren't perfect. As long as we constantly try to become better and grow, then we are doing well. It takes off this pressure of perfectionism that I can carry sometimes. I don't mean to be a perfectionist. I just try to be perfect unintentionally. Then I realize that all I can do is my best. Even if I make a mistake, the important thing is if I can learn from my mistake and become better from it. My idea of this blog is not to encourage mistakes. Don...

Okay, I know this is the counsel to not look behind thee and look towards the future. The future is as bright as your faith. I understand this concept fully. I really do. But in money management this morning, a girl wanted to borrow a pen from me. I just grabbed the first pen out of my backpack and it was a Walt Disney World Resort pen. She smiled and asked me where I got the pen. I said I worked at DisneyWorld! Then we hit it off. After class, we talked for 30 minutes about DisneyWorld. She worked in the All Star Resort, and I worked in Magic Kingdom. But I miss DisneyWorld. I knew I would. I know that I think about it from time and time. I had a Disney reunion picnic a couple sunday's ago. I talked with my roommates and some other friends. I had my frustrations. I had my breakdowns. I had my moments of pure joy though, and that is what I remember the most. I miss it so much right now. I miss going to the parks when I was off work. I miss the characters. I miss the kids running ar...

In my communications class, we have learned about the need for social interaction. People go crazy when they are placed in rooms alone forever. Why? I understood but a couple of days ago I decided I would be more productive If I stayed in my apartment all day instead of going to the library. I was more productive. I was more depressed too. I sat there in my chair with my laptop and classical music writing my research paper about depression with college students. I didn't talk to anyone all day. It made me realize that I need a balance of social interaction and alone time. Being alone is great because I can reflect on my day and think about things. Being with people is when I am truly the happiest. I love watching people and interacting with them. They make me laugh. Even if it is a 5 minute conversation, I still need time with people otherwise I will go crazy. I find myself more self absorbed when I am with myself all the time.I think of others more when I am with more people. Serv...

This post is dedicated to my father James Kent Jensen. Well this is a picture of me, my mom and my dad. I have many memories of my dad. His dad jokes were a classic at the dinner table.His hard work to pay for my college education is appreciative.His dedication to teaching and the gospel inspires me to increase my learning about the church. I remember sitting on his lap and singing "Daddy I wuv you, Daddy I'm proud of you". I remember dancing on his feet. I remember playing the "fall" game where I would fall and he would catch me before I would fall on the ground. Sometimes he wouldn't catch me...but that is besides the point. His dedication to sports is impressive. His past of breaking windows in the church and his Ricks College days. Putting books in my mom's backpack so the sensor would go off when she would walk out of the library shows his sense of humor. He thinks he is so funny. The thing about my dad which is the most important is the fact that ...

I have been studying for my communications class today and I have learned about the different things that makes someone a good communicator. So here are some questions to ask yourself: Are you a good listener? Do you give your full attention when listening to someone? Do you give mixed signals that you care with your body language and your mind is thinking about something else? What do you value with communication? What is your tone like? Do you try to uplift with positive words? Do you know how different genders and cultures communicate? Do you show eye contact when talking to someone? There are different things we do that are rude with communication. We communicate at all times with our words and with our nonverbal cues. We can use clothing to send messages. We can use body language to show we are interested or that we don't want anything to do with the person. We can use our tone to show we are excited or angry. Communication is hard because we are all different and ...

I am trying this new thing called going to bed early. Most college students don't do it but my roommates are good influences on me. Here is my reasoning why going to bed early and getting up early is beneficial. 1. You get more sleep! 2. I can get up in the morning and run before class. It is a good way to wake up and bring a positive attitude. 3. I can read in the morning in bed before I feel enlightened. 4. My brain shuts off at night. I can't think and do homework. I dedicate myself to school in the afternoon. I play at night. I sleep early and get up early in the morning to do homework! 5. Nothing good ever happens at night. Trouble will start if you break curfew, you will waste time talking to people on facebook and watching videos on youtube. Your guard isn't up at night. You will give in to circumstances you normally wouldn't. 6. There is a strength from early to bed and early to rise. There is a feeling of being healthy and productive. You feel like you a...

Fear is the opposite of faith. We talked about developing talents today in Relief Society and Sunday School. There seemed to be a common theme of not letting your fear take away from your opportunities to grow. It made me think about how fear will stop growth. We fear of failure so we don't try. What would you do if you knew you could succeed? Would you do a dance competition? Would you ask out that cute guy/girl you see every once in a while? Would you try to repair that one broken friendship? Would you go after that one scholarship or internship? Everyone has their own fears. I fear being alone, spiders, having my food touch on plates, failure, and not reaching my full potential. Sometimes I feel my fear creeping in and stopping me from trying to reach my goals. I find myself wanting something and then thinking of the possibilities of what could go wrong. That is the wrong kind of thinking. Of course something could wrong! There is no promise that your life will turn out perfec...

After a hard week of just feeling down, I have taken a different approach to my school work. Normally school work comes first, but I have tried to calm my inner sadness and then worry about school. It has worked! I haven't done homework in three days. I went to the temple. I have worked out. I have slept. I have talked to friends, and finally today I felt this urge to rearrange my bedroom. I can't really rearrange my room because I live in a apartment but I did the best I could. I searched through all of my clothes and rearranged them by color and style in my closer. Let me tell you it made feel so much better. I found the brand new sweater I couldn't find. I found some random things I had been looking for. Searching through all of my things just made me realize all the things I have. I rearranged my drawers and picture. I saw pictures of friends and family. It made me think of all the people who love me and all the good memories I have had with them. I asked my roommate wh...

I thought that the quote on my header was quite appropriate to how I am feeling right now. I have just had a down week. I have had good moments but I have just felt overall down. It is not a fun feeling. I felt like I had nothing to look forward to all week. I felt like I had no social life. I didn't feel needed by anyone. My mind was playing tricks by telling me negative thoughts. I heard all week that I wasn't good enough to write my research paper. I would never reach my goals. The reason my friends don't talk to me is because they don't like me. Of course, I would try to counteract these negative thoughts. I do have friends. I have family. I am single but my world won't end because of my relationship status. I didn't really tell anyone I was feeling down until today. All week I was walking around with these negative thinking. I tried to keep a happy image. Everything was okay. I was fine. I could handle my emotions by myself. Independence is a good thing r...

I am struggling to get through my chapter on Size Perception. As much as I love psychology and  neurons, I fall asleep while reading about how neurons respond specifically to different visual angles! Anyways, for my Interpersonal Communications class, we observed other people's nonverbal communication today. So we went to the 3rd floor of the library, the cafeteria, and the gym to watch people. Oh, the joy and fun we had breaking social norms. Want to know what we observed? Of course you do! Women use body language to capture attention. They will lean in closer when they are interested in a conversation. They will laugh more when they like a guy. They will smile more. They will play with their hair or accessories. I could tell when a girl was flirting much more easily than a guy. The guy will use body language as well. He will get closer when he is interested. That is common sense. You want to become closer to those you like. Couples are territorial in a way that they c...

This morning I was walking by some buisness project and they were playing this song. It was in my head all day. There is no point with the video to the song. The song can be catchy. It can just make you happy and want to dance. Just watch it and just kinda groove along with the beat. Yes, I did just say groove! Anyways, this song kinda went a long with my day. The day was nice and sunny in the morning. I wore no jacket! Then it started pouring rain in the middle of the day. Rexburg is bipolar weather. The summer here can be summer and then turn to winter next minute. I was just doing homework and the rain was making me supppperrr lazy. I didn't want to go to FHE. I wanted to just sit in my sweats and watch the Bachelorrete! But when I was making my classic french toast, my roommate wanted to go play soccer in the rain. So we put our swimsuits on and played soccer in the rain. We showed up to FHE with wet hair. It was fun. I would reccomend playing in the rain because it makes you ...

I was bored this Sunday Afternoon and so I decided to make some cookies! They were extremely sweet and I didn't want to eat them all by myself so I decided some service would be good with visiting friends and family. I took some to my Family Home Evening Brothers who said they were delightable. I was talking to my mother and talking about how I was trying to thicken my frosting. She suggested I go visit grandpa and bring over some cookies. So I did. It was delightful. I went with my roomate and we went on a nice sunday walk over to his house. We talked about BYU-Idaho and just about family and life. It was a nice visit. I forget that to go over there just to talk. I go over there a lot to eat lunch and do homework when I get tired of doing homework in the library. But I don't go over there as much to go visit with him. I should go over to just talk to him. For my communications project, I am going to interview him about his life and his advice for young single adults. I am exci...

This scene always touches me. I cry in it every time and I was just listening to the soundtrack from this movie. It has beautiful music and then I remembered this ending of the movie. How would I react to this? Would I feel the same way? Would I sacrifice as much as he did to help others? How would you react if you were him? His love for humanity is so touching and motivating to me to show that there is good out there in the world. We see all the bad. The good is within these kind of people who sacrifice everything for people not seeking for glory. They only seek for other's happiness and safety. Maybe I can become like him when I am older.

I guess this is something I have found out by just having it repeat over and over again. I come home and either my friends, family. or people at church always ask this same question. I always smile and try to act like I don't get it all the time. But we all know that it can get annoying yet funny the more it is repeated. I give them this look asking them if that is all that matters. They always ask me: Are you dating anyone? They ask me why I am not dating anyone. I feel like my self worth depends on whether or not I have a boyfriend. I want to ask them, does my education not matter? I have friends. I have a social life. I have a life. I hate this philosophy that you have to have a boyfriend in order to have something to talk about to people. I get it. Having a boyfriend is nice. I like dating, sometimes... :) But there are other things in life that are important to. Should we forget about everything else that is important and focus on the fact that someone is single? What is wrong...