The Begining Of A New Chapter...

HAPPY EARTH DAY!!
It's one of my favorite days of the year!!!

I am once again a full fledged employee of Zions Bank.
To begin with, I was more than a little weary of this idea, but being in a branch (and Centerville especially) is actually a lot of fun! I'm enjoying myself so far! I even have my very own keys! Oh yeah.
One down side? I have to go to orientation next Friday again. Orientation is the most boring event a human could be forced to suffer through...they do serve lunch though....

Warmer weather is finally here! I think we might actually be done with snow for the season!! (Knock on wood...) that means that longboarding is once again a totally do-able activity! My life is looking better already. Jade and I decided today that we only get one more week of being lame and then we have to be fun again, just in time for summer haha considering my life has consisted of 30 Rock and The Secret Life of the American Teenager I think I'm about ready for some excitement!

Mostly these days I'm just trying to surround myself with beautiful things and beautiful people. I'm working on not letting my life be ruled by fear. I think that's a good thing. I have also been making efforts to be healthier and less bitchy...again, both good ides :) I guess what it comes down to is that I'm trying to live consciously. So far so good!

Aroha!

Love and Beauty...

Life is beautiful.

We get one shot at this.

Might as well make it count, no?
So I'm trying to appreciate LOVE and BEAUTY all around me.
I love my life.
I love my family, as screwed up as we may be as a unit, I'm glad that I have them.
I love my animals, they sure give me a run for my money, but I wouldn't trade the happiness and unconditional love that they give for anything.
I love my friends, without them I can't even imagine where I'd be, they stick by me through everything, they're simply amazing.
I love music and the way that it can touch my soul when it seems like nothing else can.

I love my desire for adventure, without it I'd be dull and there's nothing that I dislike more than a dull person.

I love my spirituality, I love the fact that I have spirituality, I love that it causes me to question things in search of a deeper level of meaning.

I love plants, every plant has it's own personality and they all bring their spirits into my life.

I love, adore, and delight in baby cows, I truly cannot think of anything that puts a smile on my face faster than a calf running, walking, laying down, standing...it doesn't matter, they're darling no matter what they're doing.
For that matter I just love cows in general.

Heck, I just love animals in general, I watch animal documentaries because they make me feel good, I would rather adopt/rescue a pet than anything else in the world, and I would give every single animal a home if I had the room and resources.
I love learning, from reading, TV, Internet, I don't care, I just love learning new facts and figures.
I love people watching, there are so many of us all running around on this planet and we do the weirdest thing...we ignore each other a lot of the time. How weird is that? People intrigue me.
I love creativity in all of it's forms, there's nothing better than creating art-through pictures, words, photos, all of it. The only thing that could come close to that is appreciating others art. When you look for it, there's art everywhere. It's great.
I think that rainforest's are beautiful.

I think that mountains are beautiful.

I think that beaches are beautiful.

I am grateful for the LOVE and BEAUTY in my life.

Aroha

This Is A Familiar Feeling....

St. George Utah.

One of my favorite places on planet Earth.
I absolutely adore the place. The people are friendly and generally outdoor minded which I love, the location is fantastic for weather and recreation activities, it's just the perfect place for happiness.

When I moved there this time last year, nothing at all went according to plan so I ended up moving home a few months later. I was happy to be back in Bountiful at the time, it's where I needed to be, however my heart broke when I had to leave sunny St. George. I hadn't really been back for a visit since I left...until last weekend. Morgan and I decided to take a weekend road trip down there with my sister Janae and her friends Val and Jessica.
To put it simply, it was AMAZING! I had forgotten just how in love I am with it down there.

Coming home was possibly the biggest let down of my life. Coming home from any vacation is a bummer, but while I was down there hiking Zions and catching up with friends that I made last summer among other things, the feelings of anticipation and excitement and adventure set back in. I want to move back!

Now, having grown and matured since I last went there I realize that a move like that would take 2 things...a solid job option there and a solid place to live. Basically it will take more planning than last time. At least, that's what I'm telling myself since I just locked myself into a stint at the bank (yes, I did commit to something, and yes, sometimes I do have almost literal panic attacks about it...).

The thing that kills me is that I can feel a shift inside of me. I think it's the adventure seeking part of me emerging. True, I did just spend 2 months on the road, but I was home a lot and I was with my Dad the whole time, that didn't leave too much time for raw adventure/exploring. So now I have to find a way to keep that feeling alive (because it's my favorite feeling/emotion to have going on inside of me)...but I really don't know how. This is all that I've been thinking about since I got home. Working and going to school may actually kill me unless I keep the adventure alive. I am happier when I have that feeling in my life and when I'm out of my element, the mundane sometimes kills my soul.

So what was a step in making me feel great? I bought a plant. Yes, another plant. But it makes my heart happy. It's like I'm keeping a little St. George happiness alive in a small corner of me :)

AROHA

xoxo

My Life Without Meat...

"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion." Dalai Lama

For as long as I can remember I have considered myself an "animal lover" always having animals in my house taught me the joys of their companionship at an early age, and I'm totally that girl that won't kill the spider, I save it. Which is where I began to notice irony in my life. I won't kill a spider, yet I had no issues with eating a nice In and Out burger? Something began not sitting right with me, my conscious began nagging and when it starts to nag, it's nearly impossible to ignore. Now, I had done the whole "vegetarian" thing before in Junior High, however, I'll admit that I did it more to be "cool" and "different" rather than because it was something that I actually wanted to implement into my life. That's how I knew that this time I was in trouble...I was really considering whether or not this dietary change was something that I really NEEDED to undertake.  You see, I enjoyed eating meat. The tastes and sensations that it created were delightful, not to mention that it's everywhere and in everything which makes it a pain to try and avoid. So I put the decision off.

I did a really great job at ignoring my own inner Jiminy Cricket for a good couple months by just "cutting back" on the meat that I ate or offering up special prayers of thanks that I wanted to go directly to the animal that I was eating before I dug in. Then I started researching food and where it came from. I started having conversations with friends about our food industry and our eating habits as a whole. That's where it all started to change. It turned into a soul search for me. My morals and my ethics started coming into play, I began questioning every single morsel of food that I put into my body. I started reading books and magazines and essentially weighing all of my options very carefully.

I read a book called Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, which is essentially a run down of factory farming and a theme of his book really hit me-essentially that the compassion that is within us is like a muscle, it needs to be used in order to be strengthened. Now, compassion was not a new word for my vocabulary, but it was one that I had casually overlooked for many years. All of a sudden, almost overnight, it took a front seat in my thoughts. I started evaluating my compassion as a sister, daughter, neighbor, friend, human and spirit. In what ways was I exercising my compassion? In what ways could I aim to incorporate it into my life more? What IS compassion? I was pondering, meditating and praying about it. With it always in the forefront of my mind, how could I possibly continue to blindly justify the food industry that promotes inhumane treatment of ANY living creature, just because it was more convenient for me? The answer was obvious to me. I couldn't have a part in it anymore.

So, I decided to stop eating meat. The first couple of weeks were rough, meat is in EVERYTHING! But as I started learning which foods I could or could not eat, it started becoming easier and easier. When I went vegetarian for 6 months back as a teenager, every single day was a list of foods that I COULDN'T eat, I was always craving some cut of meat or another. This time was different. Because it has become something of a moral thing to me, I don't find it a burden to go without meat.

You see, companies that deal in meat spend lots of money separating the image of the cow from the hamburger, because then it's less of a deal to eat meat for their customers. But now my food has a face again. I hear the argument all of the time, "the animal is already dead, so you may as well eat it now.." but it's come down to the fact that I couldn't live with myself knowing that I played any part in the horrible life and death of that animal. Now that's not to say that sometimes I don't crave dishes with meat in them. I spent the better part of 22 years enjoying those meals and often times celebrating with those meals. So I imagine biting into a hamburger again, through the bun and the lettuce and the tomato....and then I get to the patty, and the desire is gone. I would rather go without eating something in the moment than to have to live knowing that I put my desires above the welfare of another living creature.

I have discovered an entire new world of tastes and flavors since giving up meat as well. Vegetables that never really appealed to me before and now delicious! And trying an array of different food items now allows me to enjoy more dishes. I feel lighter, and healthier since cutting flesh out as well, it really is a great feeling, not to mention that I feel better about myself for living something that I really believe in. I've found a new level of myself and my spirit through doing what I feel is right. I have a new sense of spirituality that has allowed me to delve deeper into my beliefs and my thoughts.

As I continue on this journey with the nourishment that I take into my body, I find that eating consciously is more rewarding than anything that may be considered a draw back. When people ask me what I classify myself as these days, I tend to say a hybrid of a vegetarian, a vegan and a raw food-ist. My diet is now under a constant state of scrutiny on my part, and you know what? I love it. As I sit on the brink of phasing animal products out of my life completely it doesn't seem like a chore, it is more of an opportunity to be true to myself as well as show my gratitude to mother Earth for the bounty of plant food choices that I have been given. I know there are some people out there who feel like I'm missing out on some of life's greatest joys by trying to avoid ALL animal products, not just meat. But rest assured, I'm not missing out on anything! All in all my life with meat was great, but having lived this new life without it, I'll never go back :)

Aroha everyone!

Things That I'm Loving...

MY room.

“A place of one’s own – where one can be alone – is essential. And that place, however small and humble or large and spacious, should be made one’s very own in the fullest sense of the phrase. That means not only should it be sacred to one’s self, but it should be used as an expression of one’s personality… It is no small pleasure, bit by bit, to make the room, by well-thought-out additions, more efficient, more comfortable, more native to one’s self, until it exactly expresses what one is and what one wants to do there, and reaches the acme of usefulness, beauty, and pleasure for its occupant. For just as the fish must have its water, and the bird its air, so you and I must have the immediate environment native to us for comfort, pleasure, and harmonious self-development.” – C.G.L. Du Cann, Teach Yourself to Live, 1955


Candy Chang.
Her art and her projects inspire me and make me want to do something to create change.
http://candychang.com/

This is an old abandoned building in her neighborhood before she got her hands on it.

This is the building after. I LOVE this so so much.
I wish I could be this cool.
Check her website out. She's inspiring, really.







   Gratitude.

I have so much. I need to keep it in perspective more often.

Street Art.

I love that people aren't out there just to destroy property. Stuff like this creates smiles. Props to whoever thought this stuff up.

I think I'm searching for inspiration...