My Simple, Happy, Beautiful Life

I feel like as Young Single Adults, we deal with uncertainty all the time. What classes should I take next semester? You sign up for them yet the schedule will most likely change. What are my plans for tonight? I feel like most plans are spontaneous.Your life is in this transition period where you feel uncertainty. Sometimes it can be fun to live with uncertainty because the options and door are open before you. You have so much choice and your decision matter because they influence who you will become. Yet, this is scary when looking straight ahead. I have touched on this topic a lot in my blog, but I feel like this is the problem that most people face in my age group. We all know that your choices know will affect our whole life including eternities. How do we deal with uncertainty? This is my most recent answer that may not help any of you but I think it helps me. We recognize that we don't know the answers and that answers will come over time. We know that our life will be ...

I learned a important lesson today. Have you heard of acute mountain sickness or altitude sickness? I never heard of it until today. It isn't painful, its just not what you want (especially on a three day weekend!) If you can prevent it then do it. I have done my research on it and the doctors aren't sure of what causes it exactly. They just know the symptoms, treatments, and prevention tips. Basically when you hike in high elevations, you are susceptible to it. Every body type can get it. I was hiking it Provo Peak today and had trouble breathing and then wanted to vomit. I thought it was merely because I am out of shape but my mom informed of altitude sickness. You get it from increasing elevation too fast and not receiving enough oxygen that your body wears down and becomes sick. The symptoms include: Difficulty sleeping Dizziness or light-headedness Fatigue Headache Loss of appetite Nausea or vomiting Rapid pulse (heart rate) Shortness of breath with exertion  Severe ...

I want to have a lemonade stand on Fridays right by campus. Do you think college students would buy my lemonade? It would be a good way to meet new people, make some quarters for laundry! I was just thinking about when I was younger and we set up lemonade stands. Those were the good days when we just had carefree moments and 3 dollars was so much. Maybe one day I will make a lemonade stand and cars will drive by and ignore me because it seems like all Utah drivers are in a rush to get to their destination. Seriously, why else do they tailgate and change lanes every other second? I know that there is construction, but just leave early to get your destination instead of cutting off other drivers.  Maybe, I will inspire some children to make their own lemonade stand and become millionaires. I will be changing one life at a time. Yes, lemonade stands have that power. 

Recently my attitude toward love is so different. I love chick flicks. I used to love "love". Last night I was talking to someone in my ward and they asked me what life would be like if we felt this love in the chick flicks. The first thing I thought was that it wasn't love but it was infatuation. Second, my response was interesting to him because its something he probably didn't expect. Here is my point of view on love: Take it or leave it. Love is hard work. Love is wonderful. Happiness in relationships can be achieved but conflict is inevitable. You can't avoid ever having conflict with a loved one because there will always be conflict. I was just watching a therapy session where the couple learned to "argue". There is a healthy and unhealthy way to argue. When you argue in a healthy manner, you take other's opinions into matter and have a clear rational motive instead of letting your emotions take over. There are so many things that we could ta...

I will explain my title right now. A repeated measures test is simply where you are tested on the same test multiple times and time is included as a variable. I feel like I experience the same problems over and over again. I fix the problem and then the problem comes up again. I get frustrated wondering why this same problem is occurring again. I came to a conclusion that we experience repeated measures statistical tests in our life because we are forgetful. We learn a important lesson but then we forget it. We need to experience it again in order to relearn it. If we could only learn it once and always remember it, our life would be easy. For example, as a kid we learn that hitting our brother is bad because we go into timeout. We learn this lesson once but then we forget the lesson. Our brother does something that annoys us and then what do we do? We hit him. We are sent to time-out and then relearn the lesson. If we simply remembered the lesson, then we wouldn't have to g...

I am in love with this song by Dixie Chicks. I heard it on pandora while working the other day and it just was amazing to me. I could just imagine a little boy with this love for life who loves his mother. I could imagine the mom singing to the boy and wishing for the best for her son. Her perspective is so large that she can see this little boy's potential. He is the little boy wearing his train pajama's, telling his mom about his play date with the neighbor and how they played puzzles and lego's. They will grow up and become fathers and preside over their families. It is amazing how we grow so quickly and have this potential to grow and learn throughout our lifespan. One day they are small boys who like to cuddle with their mother and then they like to cuddle with their wife and their kids. One day I will have a little boy that I can sing lullabies to and watch him grow. I will watch him love trains, lego's, sports, girls, his wife, his kids, and maybe his grandkids...

So, I have recognized people's reactions when other people have happy news. How do you react when your friend/boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse/family member tells you happy news? Are you sincerely happy for them and show joy for their happiness? Do you act happy but secretly have jealousy in their success? Do you just ignore their success and change the subject to your well-being? I don't know research on this, although there is probably research on this topic. I just find it interesting people that people vary to their reactions to other's success according to their own personal self-esteem. My personal theory is that when you are satisfied with who you are, you will be happy for others. For example, I had a friend in high school who I knew wasn't happy with who she was. She was extremely insecure and would compare herself to others constantly. Whenever I would tell her happy news, she would act happy but I could always sense "fakeness"in her response. In contra...

Seriously, sometimes I feel like Once Upon a Time has consumed my life. The show is AMAZING. I learn new perspectives on fairytale characters. I love watching how they tie in new fairytale characters with modern day applications. We can understand what Snow White had to deal with because we see how it would look like in modern day. I know this is super cheesy, but I have found so many applications to the gospel. Emma is the Savior of the town. The whole town forgets about who they are and they have to reminded of who they are five thousand times in a row and even more. You can find true happiness but there are always trials that you will have. There is a wicked leader that has a plan of taking away agency. The Savior teaches agency and tried to make people's life happier with more freedom and emphasizes making the right choices. During church, I will turn to my roommate and say "Once upon a time" and we will both make a connection. It is amazing. If you are looking fo...

My roommate is talking with her friend about people from California. They are talking about how one of them wants to marry someone from California because they will live there and one of them wants to avoid it because they would hate living in California. Let me tell what I have heard from others when I tell them I am from California. 1. Do you go to the beach every weekend? 2. Do you see celebrities? 3. Do you get tan over the summer? 4. Do you go to Disneyland a lot? 5. Which part are you from? 6. "I have only been to Southern California but I love California". Here is my response to these stereotypes: 1. No, I only went a couple of times year because the beach was far away and crowded. We would go to Lake Tahoe but that was cold and not on the coast. 2. No, I never saw celebrities. The only time I have seen a celebrity was when I worked in Disneyworld when I saw Christina Aguilera. 3. I did get tan over the summer because I was outside a lot. But I do get tan ...

We all have our individual conflict styles. What is yours like? Most people don't know what their is so it can create conflict in marriage and relationships. Today, I watched a therapy session where the couple misunderstood each other's conflict style and their fighting was continuous. They didn't get why they couldn't come up with a conclusion. Some examples of conflict styles include immediately solving the conflict. Individuals who are like this often can't feel peace until the conflict is resolved so they immediately want to talk about it and solve it. Another example of a conflict style is individuals who want to wait to talk about it until they have had time to think it about it and calm down from their heightened emotions. An individual with this style has a hard time addressing it immediately as it will create more stress for them, so they need time apart and alone so they can figure everything out. Understanding your partner's conflict style will gr...

I was talking to the graduate assistant today about my specific interests in marriage and family therapy about pornography. He has the same interests as me, so we were talking about specific applications and books I could be reading. He showed me a new journal article that was just published about the wife's reactions to the husband's addiction. This is a field of research that hasn't been looked at very much: the effect of pornography on the spouse. Most of the journal articles talk about the consequences of the individual with the pornography addiction. Interestingly enough, the article said that the spouse of the individual will lose self confidence as they assume they did something wrong in the relationship. They believe that something they did made the relationship low quality and to the point where their spouse looked for satisfaction in other areas. The article also talked about other consequences that may occur within the family and the spouse. I just think this...

Last night we had a "magical" night with my ward. We watched Tangled and then we went to the park to go watch the full moon and light the floating lanterns. It was amazing to watch them fill up and let them fly (kinda scary the same time). What if we set a fire in the mountains? I would add this to my ideal date idea on the rooftop. It is really cool to watch them just fly away and disappear in the sky. And to think all of this lantern fascination came from tangled. I know that this happened before Tangled, but I think it is much more popular now because of Disney. Here is one video that shows 11,000 lanterns floating. It looks amazing. http://youtu.be/7LKinfQ7-Cw If that dosen't work, then just look it up youtube and there is hundreds of videos. I have a new item on my bucket list, travel to somewhere where they have a big floating lantern festival. I am going to do it and love it.

I am currently doing research on marriage, attitudes toward marriage and marriage trends. Let me tell you, I am getting such a good education about marriage from my research jobs! I know that actually being married probably will give you the best knowledge because you can actually apply things you learn. It is so interesting to  me because research shows that people realize that marriage is important but they are afraid to commit or they feel they are unprepared to commit to someone forever. I know it is a big responsibility but it can be done. Healthy marriages can be achieved through certain principles and behaviors. Especially with LDS young single adults, there is a fear that you will marry someone and then they will end up the wrong person for you. There are financial, emotional, and spiritual worries that all contribute to why people aren't getting married. All I can say is to those who are afraid that they will never find someone they are compatible w...