Brave.

Sometimes I hear a song and apply it to my life and it's all cool-like. Sometimes I see music videos of these awesome songs and it's pretty much the best thing ever. 

Sara Bareilles 

And since your history of silence
Won’t do you any good,
Did you think it would?
Let your words be anything but empty
Why don’t you tell them the truth?

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

Nobody will know what you want, when you want it, or how you want it if you never say anything. Pick up a little courage and you'd be surprised at where you can get. Obviously things won't always go your way....what is is...Murphy's Law? :) However, we'll never know what we can obtain if we are always silent and unmoving. Get up and do something you've always wanted to, and don't be afraid to say what you want to say. 

Honestly, I wanna see you be brave.

Oh, the Places You'll Go!

 Congratulations!

Today is your day.

You're off to Great Places!

You're off and away!

I hope that you are all familiar with Dr. Seuss. If not, you probably want to work on that one. I've always loved Dr. Seuss, and I even tried to get a scholarship through a Dr. Seuss essay. It actually was on the book that I quoted above, Oh, the Places You'll Go! Recently I've been redirected to this book and it's really helped me to keep things in perspective.

A little over a month ago I moved to Alaska to work for the summer. It was difficult for me to come here hardly knowing anybody and be required to make the most of it. I'm not very good at being social and putting myself out there, so making friends was a little hard, and I was sinking into a little pit of despair. I talked with my parents often, and the one day my dad suggested I reread Oh, the Places You'll Go!, and apply it to my life. Many times this book is given at graduations to inspire people to go anyway that they choose, and that is really the only part I remembered about it. That's not a bad thing, but there is a lot more to the story than just choosing you're own direction. You're encouraged to aim high and be the best.

You won't lag behind, because you'll have the speed.

You'll pass the whole gang and you'll soon take the lead.

Wherever you fly, you'll be best of the best.

Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

However, I feel like the book is also realistic when it comes to life. Because who can be the best always? I know some of us would raise our hand if asked that question in a public atmosphere, but, honestly, I don't believe there's one person in this world who doesn't have doubts.

Except when you don't.

Because, sometimes, you won't.

I'm sorry to say so

but, sadly, it's true

that Bang-ups

and Hang-ups

can happen to you.

Isn't that true? Coming to Alaska was a bang-up for me at first. I was liking it here, but I wasn't sure I would be able to really become involved and love my time here. Then I thought to myself, Courtney. You. Are. Ridiculous. Seriously, you're in ALASKA. You drove here, and you have a great opportunity to make new friends, discover new things about yourself, and live in a beautiful place! How can you be negative about life when you are experiencing things you will look back on and never regret! Some people never have the chance to travel and see the world, and you're complaining because you are? Where is the sense in that?

So, I decided to be more positive. When things were looking down, I would find two things that were looking up. I tried to be more out-going so that I could make new friends. I decided to love everyday here for one reason or another. And you know what? It worked. It took me a while to get into the swing of things, but I did it. I won't say I'm perfect and I know everything and anything about Fairbanks, but I love it here. I've made a few friends that have helped me be more positive about me and to not be afraid of putting myself out there. I've found places that I love, and I continue to explore and love more things. I've told a few people back home that they should be thankful the mosquitoes are huge and the winter is horrible, because I would probably end up staying here if they weren't. :)

I mean, this is seriously what I get to see everyday. The sun is constantly up, there's always somebody who wants to have fun, and it's finally warm! I also have gotten to live with some great people, and become closer with Whitney. I mean, we see each other all of the time, so we share everything. Sometimes, it's a little crazy, but I love it.

Things may get rough, but there is always something to love. If you focus on the bright side, then the dark side will be out-shined.

Kid, you'll move mountains!

Alaskan Adventures

Hello! It's been a while, and I have been BUSY!! I moved to Alaska to work for the summer. My friend Whitney and I got jobs up here and hopped into the car and drove 49 hours to get to the little town of Fairbanks. We've been here for a few days and we start work today, which I'm a little nervous for but it will be good!

I was definitely nervous coming up here, and I kept stressing over everything. Right before I left my mom showed me this quote...

 

I think this is great because it is SO true (at least for me it is). I really try hard to enjoy each day as it comes, but I usually get hung up on the future and what it has in store for me and how my decisions now are going to affect everything later...and so on. However, I need to remember that I need to find joy in the journey. If I don't do that, then there is no point in living because we will just be worrying our days away.

Approach each new day with the attitude that everyday is an adventure. If you start out like this then you can't help but focus on the day and what's happening all around you. Don't forget the finish line, just remember to enjoy getting there. We have all the time in the world to reach the end; life isn't a race. Which reminds me of a quote from one of the apostles from my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

So get out there, and have fun enjoying your journeys!

Marshmallow Madness

I work as an after-school teacher at a local elementary school everyday, and I absolutely LOVE it! It's right up my alley as an elementary education major, and it's just a fun job. Each session we change up the classes we're teaching, and this time I chose a Marshmallow Madness class. I figured the kids would love it and there was a lot we could do to experiment. We started out making things with mini marshmallows and toothpicks and competing to see who could build the tallest building. Then we transitioned into races: how many can you stack on a Popsicle stick in your mouth, how many can you stack on top of each other, how many you can catapult into a paper bag, how many you can get into a cup with a straw, etc. It was a lot of fun, but the suspense has been building up until today... the last day of the class.

I usually tell my students what we will be doing because they seem to find out one way or another.  However, I have kept my lips sealed tight for today, and I was excited to surprise them all. They've been constantly trying to pry it out of me, but I knew it would be more fun if they didn't know. So yesterday I spent some time preparing to have an awesome time today making (drum roll please)......

MARSHMALLOW SHOOTERS!

Seriously, I have been looking forward to making these from the very beginning. You could say it's the whole reason I even made up the class. I was almost crushed because another class was having a pine wood derby race that would overlap my class. However, we figured it out and both were able to happen. First off, the race was legit, and the boys had a blast competing with their cars. I was glad we were able to watch. Second, my marshmallow students wouldn't stop asking me what we were doing! It was finally time to start class and I gathered everybody around. I took out one of the shooters and they didn't understand what the heck I was doing. However, once I shot a marshmallow at my fellow teacher I had them hooked, and they couldn't wait to get started. I passed out a bag of marshmallows and a shooter to each student and we headed out to start playing.

Can you say crazy!? As soon as I said go marshmallows were flying everywhere and I was a huge target (not a fat joke)! It was so much fun, and I wish I had taken pictures! At the end of our little war we picked up all the marshmallows and the kids carried on about how much fun they had. Talk about feeling like a little kid again... I had a TON of fun! :)

Since this was one of the coolest things ever I figured I would show you how I made them. They are super easy and cheap!

What you need:
Balloons
Plastic cups (I used 9 oz)
Mini marshmallows

Take your plastic cups and cut about the bottom third off. I tried using scissors and, I don't know if I'm just inept, but I could not keep the cups from breaking. So, I just used a knife, but be careful! It also helped to cut two at once to make it a little more sturdy.

Now, set those aside for the moment and focus on your balloons. I took all of them and tied them up as if they were filled with air.

Next, take a pair of scissors and cut off the end opposite the knot (the smaller the better).

Now you're ready to make this thing work! Stretch the balloon as far as you can and put it across the top lip of the cup. Try to make the knot be in the middle for best accuracy.

Now all you need are some marshmallows to shoot around! If we had time I probably would have let my students decorate their cups to make them more unique. You could also do a bunch of different games with it too... have target practice on the cement, or distance competitions, you could even do a kind of basketball thing. We just had a little war and reused marshmallows off the ground. It was awe.some. Seriously. And the kids had a blast, so it was absolutely worth it.

That's that. Hopefully you try it out...even if it's with your family or friends. Pretty sure this is one of those things that you would be pretty boring to not have fun with it :)

Everything will be alright

Pretty much I've come to the conclusion that nothing stays the same. Shocker, right? I know it's taken me a while to figure this out, but we all know how I deal with change. I like to believe that everything will just stay the same. Obviously there will be little changes and I can manage that, but, of course, I always get proven wrong and HUGE changes come my way constantly. I'm slowly becoming okay with this, and I'm a little more willing to accept change head on. Slowly being the key word. However, along with my realization of nothing staying the same, I've realized that things will be okay in the end.

 

I like how this quote words it. When we go through struggles we always say everything will be alright. Everything is going to work out and we will get through this. However, just because we get through it doesn't mean that everything will be just as it was when we started. I know that's a simple phrase, and it seems really obvious, but I think it's important for us to recognize this in our lives. Things change and that's alright. :)

My Roomie ♥

Last semester I was getting ready to move in with five new girls...needless to say, I was a little worried. I moved my things in and met two girls right off the bat. Katie and McCall were crazy, but I already loved them. I was working a couple jobs and helping substitute, so I was hardly around for the next few days. When I finally was able to come organize my things, Karli had moved in and we became great friends. We were going to have six girls, but the sixth one didn't move in for a couple weeks, but I love Kadi just as much!

My room-roommate and I were never home at the same time so I had yet to meet her. Now let's have an honest moment... I was a little worried to meet her. I walked into my room and was bombarded with pink and Hello Kitty all over the opposite side of the bedroom. All I could think was...I don't like Hello Kitty, and I'm pretty sure pink is my least favorite color. However, I had signed a contract and I was going to be living with her for 14 weeks.

Finally I met Anna and I was a little overwhelmed. She'll tell you any day that her emotional range is WACKO, and I did (and sometimes don't) know how to help her. However, we soon became good friends and our semester was awesome.

We're both on the same track here at BYU-Idaho, and so we were signed up for another 14 weeks of good times. I absolutely love Anna, and I knew we were going to have fun. We're only 4 weeks in and we have become so close. She's already counting down the days until she can go see her family, but I'm so sad that I won't see her for five months after we say goodbye! We definitely have our moments....crazy, happy, sad, hungry, emotional, and the list goes on, but I'm pretty sure we have the best of times. So, this is a shout-out to one of the best roomies ever! Love ya Anna!

And I still don't love Hello Kitty, but maybe pink has gone up a couple notches on my favorite scale...

Who Moved My Cheese?

At the beginning of last semester I shared my reaction to change. I don't like it and I usually approach it with hesitancy. My dad has been advising me to read a certain book that talks about change. I'll admit, I wasn't too excited to read a book about change. I figured it would be boring, and that I wouldn't be able to really glean anything from it. This book is called Who Moved My Cheese?, and I'll be honest, the name didn't exactly make me want to read it either.

I mean, it seemed a little cheesy... no pun intended.

However, this semester I finally buckled down and read it...it took me about 45 minutes, and I felt like it was definitely worth my time. I don't want to give the whole story away, because this post would be a lot longer than you want to read. I just want to recommend it to you. If you ever feel like you are resistant to change (and let's be honest, who isn't?), you should read this book. It really put things into perspective for me, and I think everybody would benefit from reading it.

Although I don't want to retell the story here for you, I do want to share the insights that it gave me. One of the characters, Haw, writes his words of wisdom down as he is dealing with change. If you don't ever read the book, I think it would be good to at least see these thoughts.

Tree Skirt!

So this post is a little late in the making, but it is totally worth it!

Every year on the Saturday after Thanksgiving my family goes and cuts down a HUGE tree....this year it was 17 1/2 feet tall! We go scout it out, chop it down, and bring it home to decorate for the Christmas season. It's always a lot of fun, and it's a great way to jump into Christmas.

Every year we put up our tree and put a little tree skirt around it, and it does the job. However, we don't exactly love it and mom's been wanting to make a new one. We saw a ruffle tree skirt on Pinterest and decided that we were going to make it for our tree. Now, the appealing thing about this tree skirt is that there is NO sewing! You use a hot glue gun and just glue away until you are done. So this is what I thought we were doing. However, when I came home to help with it I soon realized that we were not using a hot glue gun. Mom wanted this thing to last if she was going to invest the time and money into it...we were going to sew it.

Now my grandma is a fabulous seamstress. She can put anything together...however, my mom and I have yet to fully develop this particular skill, so this very easy glue on project became a little more daunting. However, we kept our chins up and went at it.

First, we got a circular tablecloth to provide the base for our tree skirt. The other tutorial said to use your old tree skirt, which would work fine, but this was better in our case. We folded the tablecloth into a triangular-ish shape and used a plate to measure a circle at the center and then we cut! We also cut a straight line from the edge to the center so we could get it around our tree. At first we didn't sew around the edges of the tablecloth, but we ended up doing it because it frayed so much, so sew the edges!

We then got a yard stick and a writing utensil that would show up on our fabric. We measured five inches up and drew lines so that we could sew along them, however, our strips were five inches so we ended up sewing them about 3 inches apart...or whatever looked the best!

Next, we figured out the fabric that we wanted. The other tutorial only uses two colors, but we added a few more... we picked a main color, the first color, and got 5 yards of it (we do have extra though, so you could get away with a little less). We started with red and then our second color was green; we got 3 yards of that. And then we picked three other fabrics and got 1 1/2 yards of each.

 At first we figured that we wanted the pattern of the tree skirt to be in the order of the above picture with the red in between, however, we quickly realized that would be way to many layers, so we condensed it.

We were worried about edges fraying, so instead of just cutting 5 inches and calling it good, we cut 10 inch strips and called it good. Then we folded each strip in half and sewed down the edge to create 5 inch strips. We did this to every single fabric and then we were ready to move onto the next step!

 

I was almost willing to skip the next step...it's kind of time consuming and very delicate. We needed to gather each strip so that it would be ruffled. So we popped in a chick flick and got to it. Needless to say, we got it done and we were ready to start sewing onto our base! We laid things out so we knew how many strips we needed to complete the circle, and then we sewed that many strips together.

 Then mom just started sewing away! We added a layer at a time, and slowly but surely, the finish line came into sight.

For the finishing touches we added our main first color, the red, to the edges to end the ruffles. We didn't add it to the middle, but it would work there too.

Last, but definitely not least, we put our completed tree skirt around our beautiful tree and admired it for the rest of the season! Now we get to have an AWESOME tree skirt every year!

Pretty much, my mom is a boss for doing so much sewing, and we're pretty proud of ourselves for actually doing it. :)