Thanksgiving #5

I am thankful for local church leaders. I am thankful for all the time and effort that they put into their callings with no pay, no recognition, and plenty of complaints, criticisms, and heartaches. We just had Stake Conference this weekend and I am thankful for all the stake leaders who do so much work behind the scenes when no one even realizes what they are doing. I am always thankful for my amazing branch president: I am thankful for how much he can make me laugh, I am thankful for how easy it is to feel his love for all of us, and I am thankful for how hard he pushes us to do our very best and how clearly he sees our potential when we don't understand it ourselves.

Thanksgiving #4

I was trying to make this posts about the little things I'm grateful for; the things I don't normally think about, but today I can't resist and I'm going to go for one of the big, more predictable thing.

I am thankful for my boyfriend. I've been getting over a minor cold these past few days and yesterday he picked me up from work and spent the evening with me. We made dinner together and then we were just hanging out and talking when the exhaustion of my full week of work and fighting off a cold caught up with me. So, my boyfriend wrapped me up in a blanket, went into the kitchen made us smoothies then held me while we watched what he calls an "Amber movie." I felt cared for, happy, and safe. Somehow it didn't seem right to write about anything else today. So, I apologize for my sappy, self-indulgent post today.

Thanksgiving #3

I am thankful for great books. For the stories that change the way you look at the world. For the characters that reflect your own strengths and weaknesses back to you from the pages. For the masterful sentences and paragraphs that you read over and over again just to revel in the shear beauty of the language.

I'm thankful to my parents who exposed me to the joy of reading in my childhood and for my boyfriend who will randomly call me in the middle of his literature homework to share some particularly beautiful passage with me.

Thanksgiving #2

Today I am thankful for hot showers. This time of year it is both cold and dark when I drag myself out of bed on work days and once I hop into a hot shower and suddenly my morning transforms. I wake up, I'm happy, and I can even see the beauty in the frosty sunrise. So I am thankful for indoor plumbing, for water heaters, for having my little apartment, and for living in this era of technology and comfort.

Thanksgiving #1

To get myself in the holiday mood for Thanksgiving I've decided to write a small post each day from now until Thanksgiving about something I am grateful for. So here goes.

I am grateful for my morning bus driver. I ride the same bus into work every morning and have had the same bus driver almost every morning for over a year. He knows my name (because I left my Penn State ID in the bus once) and always greets me with a smile and a "Good Morning, Amber." We exchange the basic conversational pleasantries and then I got to my seat. I'm not the only one he knows, he knows all the regulars - when they get on, when they get off, etc. More then once I've seen him stop even when someone forgot to request it because he knows that is where they always get off remind someone who has drifted off, or simply wasn't paying attention. These may seem like small things, but his happy face and cheery good morning are a great start to my day at work.

One Step at a Time

There has been a lot going on in my life lately. I'm still in training for my new position at work and working hard to get things done correctly and on time. I'm coming up on the last two weeks of the term at school so everything is coming due at once. On top of that I am trying to fulfill my church responsibilities, support others in their callings, do my visiting teaching, and be a good girlfriend.

Occasionally  I have moments when I start thinking about everything that needs done and a feeling of complete overwhelmedness wells up in me it everything seems to be slipping through the cracks.  Even while I am trying to accomplish one task my mind is racing to all the other things that need to be done and in that distracted state I cannot manage to complete anything well.  Then I remember the counsel that President Dieter F. Uchtdorf gave in the October 2010 General Conference: "When stress levels rise... too often we attempt to keep up the same frantic pace or even accelerate. ... It is good advice to slow down a little, steady the course, and focus on the essentials when experiencing adverse conditions. ...My dear brothers and sisters, we would do well to slow down a little, proceed at the optimum speed for our circumstances, focus on the significant, lift up our eyes, and truly see the things that matter most."

I am learning that when stress comes I can take a step back, focus on one things at a time and before I know it things are getting accomplished and my life in back in order again. I am also learning to focus on the things that matter most. I could spend a few more hours obsessing over my latest school assignment, or I could take that time and visit with a sister in my branch who is struggling and leave uplifted myself. I realized this weekend that one of the best things I did for my school work was to put it away on Friday night and go to a basketball game with my boyfriend. When I went back to my school work on Saturday I was refreshed, focused, and ready to do my very best work. I guess I am every-so-slowly learning to do "all things in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that [we] should run faster than [we have] strength. [But] it is expedient that [we] should be diligent." (Mosiah 4:27)

This One's For the Girls

Today's post was inspired by randomly hearing Martina McBride's "This One's For the Girls" on the radio.

"This is for all you girls about 25, In little apartments, just tryin' to get by Livin' on, on dreams and spaghettios, Wonderin' where your life is gonna go

"This one's for the girls. Who love without holdin' back, Who dream with everything they have, All around the world, this one's for the girls"

Granted it isn't great poetry or the best song ever written but it got me thinking about all the wonderful girls in my life who seem to fit right into the description of this song. So this is a shout out to the girls who are such great examples in my life. The girls I grew up with, the girls I went to college with, the girls, the girls I served my mission with, I hang out with here in State College.

I've learned so many things from these girls. I've learned how to be selfless. I've learned how to open up and be vulnerable. I've learned how to make the best of any situation that comes my way. I've learned the value of laughter. I've learned the joy of having someone you trust entirely. I've learned how to face and overcome trails. I've learned the value of sisterhood and the Relief Society. Those are just a few of the things I learned and these pictures are just a few of the girls I've learned it from. I feel so undeservedly blessed to have all these girls in my life.