HAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLL THE UTAH AGGIES

We beat BYU. Awesome. Too bad I lost all ... ok ok, most of my enthusiasm and excitement for the Aggies last week with the dozen injuries that we have incurred. Let's pretend that I took this picture at the game we actually won shall we?



Good times good times. Good work Aggies, let's see what you can do next Saturday and maybe I'll regain my enthusiasm.

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”

Ok, so I usually try to keep my blog pretty light-hearted, often goofy, and anything but serious. But in treating this as a journal of sorts, I just wanted to share a story from school that really touched me the other day.

In working with 6th and 7th graders, I'm periodically quite frustrated and irritated at how selfish and just plain mean these kids can sometimes be. In my Language Arts class, we're working on organizing and writing simple paragraphs. We had a day of brainstorming of what we wanted to write about. Of course most of the kids threw out random things like: tornadoes, snakes, video games, vacations, etc. But then, one of my students actually threw out helping people. First of all, this floored me. Wonderful I thought to myself. Helping people!

I then continued on with the lesson assigning the class to pick their topic and then write three supporting details and then two facts for each of those details. All they had to do was make an outline. Details on one side facts on the other. This usually is a catalyst for whining on the amount of writing mind you.

This same boy who chose the topic of helping people proceeds to then recount the story President Monson told at the General Relief Society meeting, in so simple but so meaningful words. He wrote out the entire story of a lady taking in a man who didn't have the best appearance, but she helped him anyway. His writing took over a page and a half. No, he didn't really follow the directions, but I didn't care. It made me smile and reminded me why I went into special ed in the first place. That even though this kid is so goofy sometimes (poking holes through his entire workbook, pretending to have harry potter wands, and bringing legos to class) I saw something really special just in talking to him- an innocence that touched me.

It was just what I needed on a long frustrating day. I'm there to help the kids and I need to quit complaining and judging. :)

Here's the whole story if you missed it and are curious:
A woman by the name of Mary Bartels had a home directly across the street from the entrance to a hospital clinic. Her family lived on the main floor and rented the upstairs rooms to outpatients at the clinic.
One evening a truly awful-looking old man came to the door asking if there was room for him to stay the night. He was stooped and shriveled, and his face was lopsided from swelling—red and raw. He said he’d been hunting for a room since noon but with no success. “I guess it’s my face,” he said. “I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says it could possibly improve after more treatments.” He indicated he’d be happy to sleep in the rocking chair on the porch. As she talked with him, Mary realized this little old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body. Although her rooms were filled, she told him to wait in the chair and she’d find him a place to sleep.
At bedtime Mary’s husband set up a camp cot for the man. When she checked in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded and he was out on the porch. He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus, he asked if he could return the next time he had a treatment. “I won’t put you out a bit,” he promised. “I can sleep fine in a chair.” Mary assured him he was welcome to come again.
In the several years he went for treatments and stayed in Mary’s home, the old man, who was a fisherman by trade, always had gifts of seafood or vegetables from his garden. Other times he sent packages in the mail.
When Mary received these thoughtful gifts, she often thought of a comment her next-door neighbor made after the disfigured, stooped old man had left Mary’s home that first morning. “Did you keep that awful-looking man last night? I turned him away. You can lose customers by putting up such people.”
Mary knew that maybe they had lost customers once or twice, but she thought, “Oh, if only they could have known him, perhaps their illnesses would have been easier to bear.”
After the man passed away, Mary was visiting with a friend who had a greenhouse. As she looked at her friend’s flowers, she noticed a beautiful golden chrysanthemum but was puzzled that it was growing in a dented, old, rusty bucket. Her friend explained, “I ran short of pots, and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn’t mind starting in this old pail. It’s just for a little while, until I can put it out in the garden.”
Mary smiled as she imagined just such a scene in heaven. “Here’s an especially beautiful one,” God might have said when He came to the soul of the little old man. “He won’t mind starting in this small, misshapen body.” But that was long ago, and in God’s garden how tall this lovely soul must stand!

To run.. or not to run...

I have picked up the bad habit of running. Not far mind you, but I've come to quite enjoy it (better put, I enjoy the feeling I have when it's over.) I am however stuck at 4 miles, not so much because I'm totally done and about to die when it's over- That's just how much time I have to set aside. Which can be frustrating.

btw.. These are the best shoes that you could ever own in your life. Not exactly this model but mizunos in general. However, after losing my hookup I haven't had the money to buy my next installment. My asics can't even hold a candle to the Mizunos. Should've just shelled out the extra cash. Oh well.

My point is, winter is just sitting back right now, laughing because it knows how all too soon it will be making our lives hell. Really the question is, to suck it up and buy under armour or not to buy under armour? And just take a break for 9 months of the year, gain back my 10 pounds and enjoy the challenge of losing it again. Tough decisions I know.

well it's that time again and my apologies for the lamest post EVER

It was a rough day today. So instead of talking about the day's events lets discuss something meaningless, self-centered and shallow. Thanks.

To dye my hair again or not to dye my hair again... notice the two tone-ness.. yikes.. but notice how much cheaper it is...
Now forget that it's my wedding day and I'm trying extra hard to look nice...


well I've got the winter itch to change the hair and I don't know what to do. My thoughts for the day.

You all inspire me.

First of all, my blog stresses me out. If I would update more than I wouldn't worry so much. But after months and months AND MONTHS of nothing I feel like I have to have this huge grand post. Well, I'm over myself and will do what I can and try and be better from now on.

I can sum up this summer with two words: Free time. Maybe thr

ow in lack of motivation as well.To start off, I've had this incredible job where I've only worked for like 12-15hrs/week (and not been allowed to have another job, which is weird) with a set p

ay regardless of hours worked. I've done summer schools for at risk kids and kids with special needs as well as art and science camp. SO FUN! It's been the perfect job for what I want to do with my life.. well.. let me rephrase, what my major suggests that I want to do with my life. I wish I would've taken pictures but I worried about confident

iality stuff so i didn't want to even risk it. I met some of the cutest and most fun kids and loved almost every minute.Stan and I have done tons of hikes and bike rides... which is basically what all of my photos are... "the great outdoors"


Tony grove in June (seriously.):

Tony grove in July? Augustish? Gorgeous.

Park City:

Hike to the wind caves:



In northern Idaho Schweitzer ski resort:



Random Hike one saturday:







Teton backpacking trip of awesomeness:



Tried to recreate someone else's photoshop fun with slight success:



New toy (and so excited for a new hobby!!!!):



So that was a large chunk of my summer in photos. :) It was fabulous and I'm sad to see it gone. More later.

p.s. I'm still trying to figure out photobucket... things will be better next time.

QUESTION

Just because this is driving me NUTS, how do I get rid of the floating bullet points above our heads in the picture above? No one else has them and I'm making myself crazy trying to get rid of them. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks! Happy finals week!

Running Score: Chelsey - 1 Computer - 264

I finally conquered the computer and got my pictures to load! Muahahaha! Just turns out that all the little card reader things were too dated for my sd card. Go figure. I actually have something that's too new for a piece of hardware. That never happens! So i enjoyed trying to figure out how to make collages in photoshop. (P.S. I'm working 8 hours straight today, hence my sudden acquisition of free time - ironically enough).
So the entire time I was going through all of these I was singing "It's a small world after all, it's a small aaaaaaaaaaafffffffterr alllllllllllllll, iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttttt's aaaaaa sssssssssmmmmmmmmmmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllllll wwwwwwoooooooooooorrrrrlllllddddddddd aaaaaaafter all, it's a small SMALL WORLD!!!"

I now give that song permission to never be in my head again. I shall do my best to come up with another post, however finals weeks is coming soon and I worry I may not make it. Good luck everyone!