a marked pathway

"The gospel of Jesus Christ is not an obligation; it is a pathway, marked by our loving Father in Heaven, leading to happiness and peace in this life and glory and inexpressible fulfillment in the life to come. The gospel is a light that penetrates mortality and illuminates the way before us." 

—President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

No way to better say it! As soon as I heard those first words about the gospel not being an obligation, but being a pathway marked by our Father in Heaven, I felt that wonderful and fulfilling spirit of the Holy Ghost. Those words are more than truth, they just are. 

This past week has been a bit of a blur, I cannot really recall everything that I did. I have been focused on being a happy person lately and I am! I decided to put my car up for sale on Thursday and the first and only person to call about it has purchased it, unbelievable. And for the price that I am more than happy to sell it for. Now for all the loan and mumbo jumbo junk, what a headache. I will be excited to see what kind of vehicle I end up with, but for now, I am carless. I will be hitching rides left and right! kidding. When I said goodbye to my car today, it felt unreal. Can I honestly have feelings toward a car? loving feelings? 

Last glimpse of the first vehicle I purchased and had my name on that I just signed away. Moving on, so after I was done saying farewell to my dear car, my mother and I took my precious baby Lily on a walk around the neighborhood. I enjoy walks and I enjoy nature. About 10 minutes ago, I got the sudden urge that I want to plant a tree. There is just one problem, where? I will have to do some future planning on that one. I did come across a sunflower though, and as the sun was going down the light was hitting it at just the right angle. 

Just a reminder, that life is beautiful. Life is what you make it. You can choose happiness, you have decisions to make. Listening to the testimonies that were spoken on Sunday during sacrament always helps to strengthen mine. Certain ones just reach and touch my heart on a different level. God is good. 

College? or my dog?

okay okay, this blog was a little bit emotion packed and I said some things that I shouldn't have, so I felt as if I needed to change what this blog said, instead this while be a blog dedicated to the love of my life LILY. The only one who is ALWAYS there for me no matter what :) I love her more than life!

this bedroom isn't my room, its HER room.

i'm on a high, on a high

and theres nothing more to it....

noooo you silly gooses, not a marijuana high. A life and spiritual high! Every time I get a little bit down for a day, I am reminded by the great Lord in the form of blessings. I am constantly strengthened with reasons and support with the decisions I have made this year to give my life and follow him. To be guided through the the scriptures and learning to be guided by the living prophet. I am so excited to be given the chance to sit in the presence of him and the apostles. To hear the words that they are speaking to this world. General Conference Fall 2011! During institute this week we were told to think of a question to take with us as we listen or are present in general conference. I have been thinking about it and I finally have come up with mine, I am excited to receive an answer and honestly think that I will. 

READ ME! Learn about General Conference and what it brings :)

I have been so blessed with job opportunities, guidance and acceptance to schools among many other things that I am and will be forever grateful. I found out last week that I was accepted to LDSBC and today I found out that I was accepted to Brigham Young University - Idaho! I can not even explain how excited I am that I have the choices between these two schools. Although, I am still anxiously awaiting the letter from BYU provo! Pray for me! I know you do not always gets what you really want, but I will trust in God to give me the right places to choose between. 

I can only wish these blessings and knowledge of the truth of the gospel for every person I know and people that I don't even know! I am extremely grateful for my health. Today at work we saw a patient who was bedridden and on over 20 medications, along with another patient who was schizophrenic. I want to be humbled down to a better person and I accept the hardships that will come with it. I pray for those who do not have the spirit with them and I pray for those who are of bad cheer. I am thankful to hear of two healthy births from two people I know of within this last week. I pray for people who think that they can just take other peoples hard earned possessions. My brothers car was stolen out of our driveway last night. I am thankful that I was raised in a home that taught me right from wrong. 

and I leave you with all these things in my mind... :)

dear heart

I have had nothing significantly interesting happen to me as of late, causing me to wander and write my thoughts aimlessly on this blog. So I leave you with this...

tales from the sauna...

Yesterday evening I made a conscious decision to take a seat in the sauna at LA Fitness. Yes, I have been in there before maybe once or twice within the last 5 years haha, but I thought to myself, a nice good sweat would feel great. So after my late night workout, I enter that steamy dark wooden smelling room. There is one lady already in there and I take a seat a couple feet away. From the spot that I am sitting in, I have a view of part of the girls bathroom and the hall leading to the pool. The door of the sauna is very reflective and sort of similar to a one way mirror.

So as I am sitting here, drenched in sweat stinging my eyes, I see a girl walk straight up to the door. You would almost think that she was about to enter, but nope. She was probably early 20s, very tight fitted pants and jacket, hair and make up all done up. In my head I thought, wow, way to cake it on, it is all about to melt off in here! To my surprise, or actually I shouldn't have been surprised at all, the girl took a good look at herself in the sauna door, aka mirror. A good loooooong look. Checking out her butt, readjusting her breasts, taking another look at her butt. This lasted a good couple minutes. I understand checking yourself out, I am guilty of making sure I am somewhat presentable to the world, but for that long? And specifically those areas? This girl was not about working out, this girl was about distracting the you know who's. Oh and I weighed a solid 125.6 this morning.

When I go to the gym, I refuse to wear shorts. I do not like to constantly worry about my butt hanging out, or views of things that shouldn't be viewed while exercising. Another thing, I absolutely despise hair being in my face while running, so it gets pushed back with an elastic headband or bobby pins. Also, I do not like to wear tight tops to the gym. I am not a fun of my stomach showing, since while your running it tends to ride up, or of the outline of my stomach bouncing up and down noticeably. You will almost always see me in a big t-shirt. You know, all those old ones you get from teams you were on and volunteer places. And more than half of those time, they are wrinkly. ITS THE GYM. You get sweaty and gross anyway.

Besides the girl who was a fan of her backside, I also overheard a couple girls talking about how, "trashed" they got the night before. I can't be a hypocrite because I have made lots of mistakes when it comes to drinking. But now that I know, how can that be healthy or attractive in any way? And even flaunting the fact that you got wasted off your butt, throwing up drunk. It's cute, real cute.

Annnnd moving on to something a little bit more uplifting, God our Heavenly Father and our savior Jesus Christ! Hello, talk about amazing and wonderful and uplifting! Met with the missionaries today, as I normally do on thursdays. They share some lessons, I share some things I have learned and it goes back and forth. I really enjoy my time spent with them. At institute on tuesday night, someone shared a saying that they had heard from a member of our ward. It was something to the tune of... Yes, repentance is great and we should always repent, but we should first and foremost be obedient. That way there is nothing for us to repent of. Talk about inspirational! Follow Jesus Christ and your paths and decisions will always be straight. You will feel the spirit and be able to make wise decisions and lead you back to him. He has blessed my life more than I can even imagine, and I have been lucky enough to realize those blessings especially this year since I have taken him into my life.

About 30 minutes ago, I found out that I was accepted into LDSBC. From what I have heard, it is not that hard to get into haha, but I am still happy. It is just one place that I know I will have the opportunity to attend. I am so grateful that that school has allowed me to join, now I am just hoping and praying for BYU Provo! They are high hopes, which I do not expect to be accepted into, but I still will be diligently praying.

Farewell and goodnight!
More than blessed... Brittney

And since this blog had no pictures, not very exciting, I know. Just my pitiful thoughts sprawled into words. Here is a picture my friend sent me, he is in Hawaii trying to make me jealous I suppose. God's beautiful gift to us!

you, my friend, are getting fat

Well, of course, I am talking about myself! How else am I going to get the will power to start eating better and drop a couple lbs? I need to continually remind myself that I am on the path to official chub! No no, I know I am not quite there yet, but the process has begun. First 5 pounds, then 10... this needs to be brought to a halt now!

So 5 lbs, in 2 weeks, that is the goal. It can totally be possible, so here we go! Light bulb. An idea just popped into my head to help my process. I am going to post my weight on here every time I write a blog. Since I have been avoiding the scale for the past week or so, I will ring in with the weight tomorrow. (First thing in the morning is when I weigh the least.... lol).

Didn't God say that our bodies are our temples?!

5 lbs is just 1 Lily!

September 11th

Today, is September 11th.
It is a day I spent at church. A day of birthdays. A day of rest. A day of remembrance.

10 years ago today, I was 13 years old. It was a school day, and I remember waking up to my mother fixated on the television screen. Watching on the news, planes crash into the world trade center towers, all I thought was, "oh, this is bad." Yet, it seemed so far away from me, the other side of the US.

Once at school, my teachers had the news on all day. We watched the reports and updates of what had happened. Back then, while I was in 8th grade, I didn't really realize the importance. I now know. I now know that I was alive and witnessed on tv something that will forever be remembered in our nations history. That countless lives were lost. There are pictures of people jumping from 100's of stories high. I can't imagine the pain they were in to make the decision to take that leap. Knowing that their choice was of instant death. Maybe a better decision compared to a slow death. The loss goes deeper, as families were broken, children lost parents.

I am so lucky. I can't even imagine the loss. I am grateful for my family and friends and the safety we have had.

As I watch now, documentaries of live footage, people witnessing and pointing up at the towers, as they started to fall, give me chills throughout my body. I wish that my family were closer, that we could have spent today, together. In relief society today, there was a lesson on temple work and family history. I wish that my family could spend sundays at church and in unity. I think that everybody would be more happy and for sure more blessed. Today in my house, it was feelings of separation. Nobody was with anybody and that kind of makes me sad. I love my family, but when I have my own, we will have sunday dinner, we will all spend time together. We will become closer and be an active part in each others lives.

every bit of my day

...I awoke to the sound of miss Lily whining at my door, nose under frame and butt high in the air. Mind you, this is 7am on my day off. As I open my door, my mom is right outside of it and shooing me to go walk her, so on a walk in my pajamas I go!

Since I had been woken up so abruptly and been forced to go on a walk, by the time I reached my house again, I was wide awake. Feeling great, I got ready for the day and stalled my RCC trip. Once the period of stalling was over I drove down there. Online it said they sent my transcripts almost a month ago... However, they didn't! I walked up the window and asked for a copy I could send myself. When the guy saw my ID he looked up at me and was like, "wait!" He sorted through a stack of envelopes in front of him and mine was right there. He said they were waiting on the IGETC transfer certification and I was ecstatic! I went straight to the post office to send them. Im hoping they get them soon and I will get my answers soon!

Once I finished with school business, I went and spoke in front of all the missionaries that are a part of the Riverside mission. Let me just throw this out there, that I love the missionaries. I told my conversion story and the blessings that have come in my life sense the baptism. They have helped improve my life and I will forever owe the elders.

A couple hours later I started making my very first set of homemade hash browns. Boiling the potatoes, shredding them and cooking took me a lot longer than I expected. In my opinion though, they turned out pretty tasty! The feat of cooking something good, filled me with joy since I feel that I am an exceptionally bad cooker... Hashbrowns in hand I took them over to Phils where he was making everything necessary for breakfast burritos! Also, very yummy. All of this was in honor of Shelbys birthday and I loved dinner. I loved the people that were there and the stories that were told. He had cinammon sticky buns that I have an addiction too. Seeing them I thought to myself,
noooooooooooooo!

After dinner and dropping off Elder Marshall and Elder Park (the missionaries were at dinner as well), we made our way to Icetown in Riverside. The minute we stepped inside I knew it was time for my sweatshirt and scarf! Oh, my favorite clothes. I did a whole bunch of laps around and eventually felt pretty comfortable. Thankfully there were no falls on my behalf :)

Shortly after we drove down the rode to iHop. It was too late to really eat anything, so what did I get? Ice cream sundae of course! Once I asked for my kids menu so that I would be able to color, I felt instantly disappointed. There was nowhere to color! Flipping my paper place mat over, I proceeded to figure out what to draw. So what are iphones for? youtube videos of course! I youtubed videos of how to draw things and it was pretty funny. Me and Dallin both drew the same things, and his were better, but it was still fun!

Yesterday, was a great day. My mood, the constant busyness that came with it, just great. I hope its the same way today, just great.

INSPIRATION

This woman is an inspiration - Stephanie Nielsen
This episode is powerful. WATCH
This blog is one of the best reads. READ
This youtube video is wonderful. WATCH ALSO

remember when you were little and you used to wish upon these things? Pick these weeds from random lawns and blow as hard as you could to knock off all their fuzzy things. I can't quite remember what my wishes were then, but as a 23 year old adult who just picked and wished, my wish was quite intense. If only wishes on weeds would come true...

random saying in a song i liked... "...the kisses got sweeter, and the feelings got stronger..."

Today while cleaning out bins that sit in my closet, I came across mounds of schoolwork from these past years in college. First, there was a notebook of chemistry notes and assignments. I sure do miss chemistry as bizarre as that sounds. I just felt like my brain was challenged and that I was constantly learning. The past year of dental assisting school sure put a damper on my learning capabilities, it was just loads of information with no real thought. The next folder I came across was an array of miscellaneous work, essays I found on different religions I had, "studied" or more realistically googled random things to BS my way through my World Religions class. Sure enough, an essay written on the LDS faith was written. It was so bland and computerized. These were just words, that people had written online with no faith in them. It as just a reminder of how important the missionaries are. People whose sole purposes are to teach and explain. Explain to people of all ages with open hearts and open minds.

Something I have been struggling with lately is my location and money. As much as I love my 8-5 job, it is only monday-wednesday. I need a means of income that will allow me to relocate in the future. Relocate to a place where I can grow as a person, as an adult and in faith. I know that it is just a waiting game and I am being impatient because my application for school in winter will eventually go through. Im just struggling as I watch other people living what I want in life right now. Im hoping that I will be able to find random work to help keep me afloat and busy on thursday and fridays. I feel as if God is teaching me a specific and important lesson on patience and selflessness. I am always thinking about me me me, but I need to think about what is best for the people I care about as well. And I am also sitting here impatiently waiting on news from school and impatiently waiting on the end of the year to come so that I can move.

This past sunday, yesterday, I went to the Redlands singles ward. Not really my type, I felt kind of awkward there. It's hard to even think of dating because my mind wanders to somebody else. Besides all of those points, we sang hymn number 124 and I really enjoyed it, so here it is sang by David Archuletta....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAQOgzKgxXM

...and so it begins

The month of September and lots of changes. It will finally turn to fall this month, even if the weather doesn't agree with that. It's a new school semester, and this is the first year I wont be taking any classes. Fran will turn 17. Lily turns 2 on Labor Day. Waiting to find out this month what will happen with school. And so on...

This month has started off with the gift of allergies. My right eye and nose will not quit watering and it is making me lazy and sleepy, or that could just be the medicine I am taking. The 2 days in Oceanside was a nice vacation. I caught my first fish! Little fun things like that can just make my whole day and I'll be excited about them for awhile.

It was goodbye to Sam for awhile and this time it was a different goodbye. We aren't together, so we will see what the future holds for us, if anything. Nonetheless, I am glad I was able to spend a lot of time with him this past week regardless of what kind of feelings he has towards me. This up and down emotions I have been having due to this situation, will change. Today a friend said something that made me realize I was in a kind of slump. Just not as happy and outgoing as usual, more quiet likeesq.

September just seems like the start of something new! Im hoping for a great month :)

summer is fading fast

....well not the weather. I am still feeling as if it is in the record breaking 100's, even though it most certainly is not. It's just HOT.

However, on this very first day of September I made the easy and short drive out to my parents condo in Oceanside. At this very exact moment I am laying in bed, laptop on lap, trying to not think of this weird sickness I may be catching. Kind of a weird from your nose, stuff leaks back to your throat kind of thing. Gross, I know.

I feel as if I am on some sort of mini vacation in a far far away land. Driving out here, I gave myself my own private concert, singing along to everything I knew the words too. I must say, I thought my concert to myself went quite well. Upon arriving, my lack of sleep caught up with me and I decided I wanted to nap... on the beach. So to the beach I went, but to my dismay, there was no beach for me to nap on! Just solid concrete. The tide and waves were too strong and high and made it clear up to the sidewalk. Since, I had already gotten there, I decided to make due with the situation and I sat in the heavenly sun and read.

It is just nice, to be alone with your thoughts and at peace outdoors. This work week was pretty simple, but I had just about had it and needed a break. Throughout the week, I started realizing some of my little quirks. After folding and stuffing letters and x-rays into envelopes, I proceeded to put the stamps on them. Now let me tell you, putting stamps on them may sound easy, and it is, but for me, I have to have them perfectly aligned with the corner. About a centimeter out. No crooked stamps here or else I will be bothered. There was another one, but it must have just slipped my mind. I will write about it when it decides to make an appearance again.

Anyway, cheers to a labor day weekend here in CA 2011! 5 day weekend, hopefully relaxing, yet so very fun at the same time. Ciao.

And wow does life change, here I almost exactly a year ago for labor day weekend...

Las Vegas. Thank God for stepping into my life and sending someone to help me change.