Ok I Am Not Complaining, I'm Just Saying...

...that I hate boys.
Or more specifically I hate having crushes on boys.
They suck.
There's no other way to put it.
The worst thing in the world is when you're so enchanted by a boy that you can't even think straight. Really?
No. That is not how this goes. YOU are supposed to be intrigued by ME.
He obviously didn't get the memo.
All of a sudden you're doing things out of character to get him to notice you.
Really?
Ugh.
You can't go places without looking your best because he might or might not be there.
You should be going to those events because you want to be there. But you're going to be around him.
What are you supposed to do with THAT?
AND IT GETS WORSE.
No joke.
He's un-readable.
You don't know whether you're reading too deep into things or if he really is into you.
How are you supposed to decipher that??
And your friends are no help. Of course they're just saying those things to make you feel better.
Thanks a lot guys.
He should not be allowed to toy with you like this.
This is ridiculous.
Every little smile makes your stomach flip.
Seriously?
Then there's the fact that this was acceptable behavior when you were a seventh grade girl, but you're all grown up now and you shouldn't be acting like this.
You're more mature than this.
Moral of the story?
BOYS SUCK!

New Beginings? Yes Please....

Alright folks, here's the deal, I'm in need of a change. So what am I going to do about it?

Let me tell you.

First of all, I'm not going to talk about negative things anymore. I'm not going to complain about my life or my circumstances, and I'm going to look for the best in people and situations.

Second, I'm trying to get a new job. Probably just a branch posting. I had an interview at the airport branch of Zions today and I REALLY want the job! Haha it would truly be the perfect place for me!! If I don't get it though, I might start looking other places, I just need something other than peaktime, you know? It was good while it lasted, but I just feel like it ran its course, and that's totally fine! Maybe I really will just take the plunge and become a trucker? It is possibly the thing that I want most in my life at the moment. The only draw back? It's bad weather season. I don't know how I feel about that. Actually, I do know how I feel about that and I feel pretty terrible with it, so I'll hold off until the spring at least I think.

Third, well...I haven't really gotten to third yet...I'm still working on it. HOWEVER I'm VERY excited for the two that I have so far!

Also, do you want to know what I have for my bucket list so far? I'm going to tell you anyways...

1) Jog on the Great Wall of China
2) Pick pineapples in Hawaii
3) Join the mile high club
4) Go shark diving
5) Become a trucker
6) Learn a new language
7) Get my pilots license

And I'm still working on the rest, but I'm really feeling good about these ones so far :)

Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts...

You know what the best part of being alive is?
That you get to feel.
The best moments in my day are when something touches my heart and I feel real love for something or someone.
Like cows.

I was never very interested in cows, until I saw a herd at the begining of the summer who had just had little calves and I watched them grow every single day as I drove by that field. They were the sweetest little things.
I now love cows.
I guess that's not really shocking when you think about the fact that I love all animals.
They are just so sweet!
I truly cannot understand how anyone can be mean to another creature.
These innocent little critters don't do anything to harm us, and yet some people feel the need to torment them. All I can wonder is how terrible their little worlds are that they feel the need to inflict pain.

As I say that though, I realize that I'm not always super nice to the PEOPLE around me. I have the whole "loving animals" thing down. But shouldn't loving other people be something that I'm striving for? Probably.

I'm not going to lie. When I look at my life these days, I feel like I'm missing out.
Don't get me wrong. I have a good life.
But it's not the life that I want to be living! I want to be living for a purpose, not just living to survive. No no no.

This won't do. What am I going to do about it?
I'm re-vamping my bucket list.
I made a list when I was 15 years old...I don't know about you guys, but most of the things that I thought when I was 15 are moot points these days, as were some of the items on my list.
I've been thinking about the things that I want to do before I die and there's SO much to choose from!!
But I don't want this to just be a list that I have, but don't really ever do anything on it.
These things are going to happen!!
I will post the list when I finish it.

I want to just let you all know what's making me feel happy these days.
Dr. Pepper.
Semi Trucks.
My dogs.
Art Projects.
Singing Really Really Loud.
Jogging.
Flirting. This one almost always makes me happy ;)
Dressing to Impress.
Old Friends.
Disneyland.
Chocolate.
Blankets.
Longboarding.
Movies. It's semi shocking that this one is on the list...
There are more I'm sure....but these are the biggies lately.


I think that's probably it for now...haha

Love,
Jamie

In the Meantime...

"Some boys gonna break your heart into a million pieces,
make you feel like you wanna die.
In the meantime you're gonna wonder what's your purpose,
question God and tell some lies.

One day you'll figure out, this circus we call livin,
when that happens you'll be fine.
SO JUST TRY TO LEARN OR LAUGH OR LOVE IN THE MEANTIME.

So take in everything, go on and have your fun,
you don't wanna miss a thing, you'll find out when you're done,
you make your way into who you've become.

In the meantime you're gonna think you hate your parents,
take some stupid chances, swim against the tide.

One day you'll wake up wiser, tired of being tired,
find your eyes were open wide,
JUST TRY TO LEARN OR LAUGH OR LOVE IN THE MEANTIME.

So cut yourself some slack, don't overanalyze it,
the truth is somewher down the line,
just try to learn or laugh or love in the meantime,
I promise that will be enough."

Oh man, I'm LOVING this song right now! And I only found it like 5 minutes ago on itunes, but it speaks directly to my soul.
Really though.
Such a good life motto song.

You know what else I'm loving at the current moment? Endorphins.
Jogging may be killer when you haven't done it in a couple of months, but you sure feel good after. Not to mention that when you're listening to your music loud and pushing yourself you feel unbeatable. SUCH a rush.

Coming back home after a much needed girls weekend to Disneyland has made me sort of stop to think about my life and if I like where it's going. These days it doesn't seem like I have much choice about the direction that it's taking. So much is out of my hands. But I have realized that I can control how I handle my feelings. Being mad isn't helping anything or anyone. Granted, there are some moments where I ALMOST feel justified in my anger...almost.
So when I feel that anger coming on, I'm going to do something to get those good feelings going again. Go for a jog. Laugh with people I love. Call my Dad on the phone to say hi. Play with my dogs.
When everything started to peak a couple of months ago, I thought that I had myself under control. No biggie.

Turns out it is a bigger deal than I originally thought.

To say that I'm having an early midlife crisis is probably a pretty accurate statement. A lot is going on all at once and everything in my life is changing. I was comfortable with how things were. I LIKED how things were. I think I'm learning a life lesson here. Things will never go back to how they were, I have to take the hand I'm dealt and play it the best that I can. When that means questioning everything that you've ever know, or relied on, it can be super uneasy. Realizing that there is nothing in this world that is fail proof, even the things that were so beyond the possibility of ever falling through is a pretty big awakening.

And it hurts.
Sometimes it hurts so deep that you have to gasp just to keep breathing. This was your world, your whole life were built around these things, and all of a sudden they're just not there anymore? And when people around you are bluffing their way through with smiling faces when you're aching so bad inside, what do you do? Scream and rock the boat? No, you can't do that. The boat is already sunk. But still, you don't want to cause more waves. So you start to fake it too.
Is that any way to be living?
Faking it every day?
But what's the alternative?
Being miserable?
This is all such new territory. I don't really know how to handle it.
But "fake it till you make it" seems inappropriate considering the circumstances.

I guess I'll just go with
JUST TRY TO LEARN OR LAUGH OR LOVE IN THE MEANTIME...

Airports and Airplanes...

Oh, I just want to dedicate this blog to my love of airports in every aspect of them.
I love everything about them. If you're going there, it's generally for one of two things.
A) To go on a super fun trip
or
B) To pick up a loved one that you haven't seen for a while.
It's a win win.
Then there's the fact that I love airplanes. It's probably becasue I LOVE flying!
It's one of life's greatest joys, that's what I always say.
There's also the wicked people watching that goes on there. My sister and I filled an entire hour and a half watching people! I love doing that under normal circumstances, but doing it at the airport is even better!!
It truly made me want to go on a trip. Ok fine. I convinced myself.
In the meantime though, I think I'm going to apply for the position at the Zions branch in the airport, how sweet would that be??
I LOVE AIRPORTS.

Thoughts on my Mind...

Tonight I watched the news footage of the heroic efforts to save those 33 Chilean miners who have been trapped underground for the last 69 days.
I'm not ashamed to admit that I totally started crying.

Then, and this part was pretty cool, I said a prayer for comfort for all of those miners, as they're still underground, or on their way up or above ground. It felt really really cool to be adding my prayers to those of millions all over the world. SO COOL.

Then I started researching the whole story and I got a new hero, a man named Manuel Gonzalez. This guy is amazing. He's the rescue worker who volunteered to go down 2,050 feet below the ground to help out these miners. I watched the video clips of him getting down there and started crying again. This guy is amazing. I can think of very few places that I would rather be less than being lowered in that super claustrophobic space that far underground. Oh man.
Then, before I knew it, there was some message about another Hollywood divorce taking place.
That just didn't sit very well with me.
There are these men going through all sorts of hell and this Hollywood couple is worthy of sharing the same news feed?
No bueno.
This got me thinking about how we idolize the wrong things a lot of the time. Who do we look up to and admire and strive to emulate? Most often it's all of the wrong people. I know I do sometimes.
Then I remembered a picture that I saw in an institue class a while ago and I googled it and found that there is a whole "Real Heroes" campaign from this LDS artist and I fell in love with this idea!! (Not so much all of the artwork, although some are really awesome, just not all of them are my favorite...)
Who ARE my heroes?




Manuel Gonzalez is my hero for today.
(And there was also a Navy paramedic who went down too. He is my hero too.)
But who will my heroes be tomorrow? I'm going to make a concerted effort to pick them more carefully from now on. God bless those miners :)

Semis, Simplicity, and Slumber Parties...

You know those times in your life when you are tired?
I know you do.
The ones where you're not necessarily faking being happy all of the time, but over all you're so sad that it keeps creeping up on you (and you know it's coming dang it) until it finally catches up to you and it's all you can do to pull yourself out of bed in the mornings?
Yeah, me too.
You really don't see how you're ever going to be truly happy again.
There's really no light at the end of the tunnel, not even a glimmer of a light.
There just appears to be nothing.
You're not getting any inspiration from anything around you.
And you can go ahead and forget about divine inspiration.
The things that you always knew were there for you to count on have completely changed.
They're no longer constants.
Pieces of them, maybe.
Fragments of the whole that you thought would be the thing you could always fall back on.
Then you wake up one day and it's gone.
What are you supposed to do then?
PRAY.
I don't care how you do it; whether it's on your knees, in a yoga pose, or through writing music or poetry. Whatever floats your boat at this point. Whatever allows you to feel connected in any way, shape or form to a higher power.
Because I have come to see that, no matter what on earth happens to you, the one thing that you can ALWAYS do is pray.
To God.
To Buddha.
To the Universe.
I don't care.
Just pray.
It's the one place that you can truly let every feeling, every emotion, every secret out. There's no one waiting to judge you. There's no one there vocally giving you advice. There's no one giving you empty words of comfort.
There's just occasional peace.
I say occasional because it doesn't happen all of the time.
Sometimes you don't feel anything different.
But every now and then you'll have a MOMENT.
A second where you truly forget the aching that your heart has been non stop doing.
A second where you feel like your old self again. Where you're not hurting. A second where the pain ceases, for just a moment.
It's the moment right after the one where you're wondering what on Earth you're doing sitting among thousands of people in a church gathering, for a religion that you don't know if you can even handle at the moment because of all the talk of eternal things. Then a man stands up, the heavens open and he delivers an entire twenty minute talk on simplicity. One that was crafted by that higher power to speak DIRECTLY to me. In the very second that I needed it.
Simplicity.
The moment that you hear the truck engine running outside of your house even though it's supposed to be on a highway somewhere other than here and you go for a twenty minute ride in one of the most majestic machines ever crafted, with some of the most important people in the world to you.
Semis.
The moment where you're all hunkered down among pillows and blankets with your popcorn, candy and sodas watching a comedy. A comedy that makes you truly laugh. (You remember, that feeling that you had almost forgotten about?) You're laying there surrounded by people that are never in the same room together anymore. People who you used to spend time with carefree, but who those moments don't happen with anymore.
Slumber parties.
Those brief, fleeting answers to prayers.
The ones that you want to hold on to so bad that you almost cry when you think back to them.
The ones where everything seems so simple again.
The ones that are truly sent from God to remind you that there is hope. That things will turn around again. That you won't always feel so filled with dispair. That you will be truly happy again. That there IS someone up there who truly cares about you, however foreign that concept may seem at the time.
The ones that allow you to get up off of the ground and put just one foot in front of the other just one more time....
Thank God for those moments.

I Am So Embarrassed...

Oh my gosh. I meant LonGboarding is the Love of my Life. Seriously. You'd think if I was really that in love with it that I could spell it right.
I suck.

Lonboarding is the Love of my Life...

Well, well, well, it's been a long couple of days haha
I thought that cutting up my leg was the worst of the longboarding injuries.
I was wrong.
Jade and I went longboard window shopping and, wouldn't you know it, we walked away with two brand new longboards! Oh man, don't you just hate it when that happens? Me too.

So, of course, we couldn't wait to try those babies out!! So we did what anyone would have done. We took them down Provo Canyon :)
The first run was super great.
The second run, not so much. I may or may not have fallen. Don't worry though, my face broke the fall. Oh man, oh man, so we went to the ER in Provo and it turns out I have a concusion as well as a super nasty black eye. Hell yeah. Haha that on top of all of the other longboarding injuries make me look pretty legit!

The sucky part here? Oh yeah, that I spent money (that I probably didn't have in the first place) on a longboard, then I got slapped with the ER visit costs AND I have missed 2 1/2 days of work because of it.
I think this is one of those "learning curve" experiences that you always hear about.
I've only been off of my board for a day and a half and I'm already itching to get back onto it...much to my mothers dismay.
I just LOVE longboarding!

Granted, I should have probably been wearing a helmet. The ironic part here? That before we even went on our first run down the canyon I even said, "Hey guys, we should probably wear helmets like those guys!" Ugh. Point taken.
The doctors and nurses in the hospital were very vocal about how everyone should never longboard. Yeah...right... (they were talking about it right outside of my curtain 'A longboarding accident...' 'Wasn't wearing a helmet..' Thanks guys, I GET IT.)

Then there were the more reasonable ones who, instead of suggesting that I burn my longboards, simply told me to wear a helmet. Then, when they could see that they weren't getting through to me, told me horror stories about people dying or becoming quadriplegics. Yeah, I don't really like either of those options. So my solution?
I'm going to wear a helmet!!!

...it's weird really that my longboarding hat didn't break the fall....
You may be asking yourself right about now if ANYTHING good has come of my longboarding love affair.
Yes.
What?
Let me tell you.
First, WEAR A HELMET. Not only do I look ridiculous, but my entire face is sore and I have a headache like you would not believe.
Second, don't wear shorts when longboarding. That's how my leg ended up looking slightly bloody.
Third, when going slowly, beware of large cracks. Your wheels WILL catch on them, and your board will stop without you. Hence, the road burn on my elbow.

Fourth, when longboarding at night, either use a light or don't, don't use it every now and then. Your eyes won't adjust fast enough and sometimes that leads to minor crashes.
Fifth, when you see a fellow longboarder eat it, don't laugh. The karma gods don't like it much and it will come back to bite you in the butt, sometimes quite literally.
And finally,
Fifth (and most important) I have learned that longboarding can be compared to life. It's an awesome ride, and most of the time, it's super fun, even when it's a bit scary. Then there are the times when you wipe out. And it hurts. But you get up, you dust yourself off, you laugh at how embarassing that was, and you hop back on and continue because the ride is far too great to miss out on.
HAHAHAHA HECK YES I just finished that blog with that super cheesy life analogy! HA! Take that concussion, you may be able to make my head hurt and my eye swell shut, but I'm still super funny! ;)

Shake It Up...

There are times in life when you feel like you've gone stale.
It's in those times that I like to listen to Michael Franti's Shake It song.
That and I try to find soemthing new to do, or to learn, or to make.

What have I done lately?
Well, I finished a book called the Greatest Knight. It was a super good book and it helped me learn more about a period in medieval history that I didn't know very much about at all. The main character was loyal and true to himself and his word, both attributes that I would like to cultivate more. Did it make me think? Check.

I went longboarding in Provo canyon with some friends and may or may not have eaten it. I don't know. I guess this was a lesson for me in humility. I was getting far too confident in my excellent longboarding skills and ended up being my own downfall I'm afraid! Did it make me feel something? Yes, pain. Check.



I attended the Saturday morning session of general conference, and although I haven't really been feeling much of anything along the "spiritual" path lately, I did enjoy being there. I felt peace, which is a feeling that I don't get much of these days. That and Elder Uchtdorf gave an amazing talk about simplicity. I love that man. Did it inspire me? Check.

I also picked up a copy of David Wolfe's book "Eating for Beauty" and I am going to read it, and then rededicate myself (for like the 3rd time) to eating better foods that will allow me to think better and feel better. Did it get me thinking about a rut in my life? Check.

None of these things were super huge, but at least they're something, right? Even if it is just reminding me that I'm alive and there are still things to be thankful for in my life :)