Blessed

Today I’ve been thinking a lot.  Surprised?  Well, don’t be.  I happen to think about a lot of things.  It’s Sunday and time to reflect on a lot of things and today I’ve been reflecting on how blessed I am.  I think about this quite a bit and I surprise myself by thinking something new every time.  

As we were walking to church yesterday morning (it’s about a 30 minute walk) I was looking at the scenery around me.  It’s nothing like anywhere I’ve ever seen in America.  I can’t take my eyes off the sidewalk as I walk because I’m afraid I’ll step in some sort of Animal poop.  I suddenly because so grateful for how clean my country is.  I’ve always taken that for granted.  I’ve never thought about it before but I will think of it from now on.

(In no particular order)

I’m blessed to attend a university.  Just to attend any sort of university is a blessing but I’m double-y blessed because I attend BYU-Idaho.  I get to go to school and receive a temporal education that gives me so much knowledge about the world around me PLUS helps me grow spiritually.  I have friends there that share my values and beliefs and I am blessed to know they care about me and love me, no matter what.

I’m blessed to have a sound mind.  I learn things quickly and I can understand them.  Everything I learn in school is preparing me to make a difference in the world.  Whether I get a full-time job in my field right after graduation or not, I’ll have that knowledge forever.  I can influence those around me.  I am blessed to live in a place where I can express my opinion if I want and where I can teach others the things I have learned.

I’m blessed to have learned how to read and write.  I can’t even imagine what the world would look like if you couldn’t read or write.  Actually, I assume it would be much like going to a foreign country!  Except you’d be there all the time and always have to rely on others to get by and help you out.  I love books and I love reading.  I’m blessed to have a plethora of books at home to choose from, as well as a library close by to satisfy whatever learning cravings I have.

I’m blessed to live on the same continent and in the same country as so much church history.  I’m a three hour drive from Kirtland, nine from Palmyra and the Sacred Grove, 12 (?) from Nauvoo and Carthage and a mere 30 hours to Salt Lake City.  I’ve visited all of these places and benefited from the things they’ve taught me.  Most of the people here will never get to experience even one of those sites and I’ve been to them all.

I’m blessed to have a home and family.  I have a dad who’s always had a solid job and has been able to provide for us.  We’ve always had the temporal necessities and we’ve been able to have fun as well.  I’ve never had to worry where my next meal will come from, I’ve never had to eat the same thing every single day, I’ve never had to rely on only the food I could grow in my backyard and I’ve never gone a day without food if I was hungry.  I’ve never been without hot water, soap, a toothbrush or toothpaste, clean socks, shoes that fit me or anything like that.  I’ve always had chocolate in the cupboard and ice cream in the freezer if I was craving something sweet and delicious.  I have a mom who’s been able to stay at home and take care of me when I was sick.  I’ve had medicine stocked in the cupboard for any type of illness that arose, and if we didn’t have it I’ve always had a doctor close by who I could visit.

I’m blessed to have a house that is more than big enough to fit my family.  I’m blessed that it has hot, running water and that it smells good.  I’m blessed to have tile floors and carpets that clean easily.  I’m blessed to own cleaning products so that when I’m not feeling lazy I can clean the house (or apartment, or wherever I’m living).

I’m blessed to have my own bed.  I have blankets to keep me warm and a pillow to rest my head. 

I’m blessed to have parents that are married and who have stayed married.  I’m blessed they have continually worked on their marriage and persevered through any rough patches.  I’m blessed they both have parents that are married and who set good examples for good relationships.  I’m blessed to have both sets of grandparents still alive, working, and laughing.  They are all wonderful and have so much to share with me.  I know I don’t take full advantage of them and their knowledge.

I’m blessed to know how to operate a computer…and then to own my own computer.  You can learn so much about the world just by logging onto the internet!  Most of the kids I work with can’t operate a computer.  It’s almost incomprehensible that a child doesn’t know how to type or look up a useless, funny YouTube video.  

  

I’m blessed to have good health.  Besides the occasional cold and runny nose, there hasn’t been much wrong with me.  I have to go to the chiropractor sometimes but that’s almost a blessing since it feels so ridiculously amazing.  As mentioned earlier, whenever I do feel bad, I can go to a doctor.  A specialist if I have to.  And then I can get whatever medicine they prescribe.

I’m blessed with shoes that fit me.  I’m blessed with more than one pair of shoes.  I have my old tennis shoes for dirty work, my new tennis shoes (which aren’t looking too hot since they came to Peru with me), more than enough heels and flats, some sturdy winter boots for the cold months and even a nice cute pair.  I’m blessed that my tennis shoes have shoelaces and my shoes with straps and buckles have those in working condition.

I’m blessed to have grown up in an area with clean drinking water.  I don’t have to purchase or boil all water I ingest.  Even if I don’t like the taste of it, I can turn on a faucet and drink to my heart’s desire.

I’m blessed to have grown up in a country with peanut butter.  Seriously, how does anyone live without that stuff??  And nutella.  I’ve just discovered that in college and don’t know how I thought my life was complete before it.

Oh there is so much more I could write about but I’ll stop there.  These are just a few of the things I was thinking about.  Now, don't think I've never realized these before and I'm having some huge epiphany because I'm in Peru.  I've known my entire live how blessed I've been and I try not to take it for granted.  BUT some things I now have a new appreciation for and feel even MORE blessed.  I don’t know how I got so lucky, but it’s the cards I’ve been dealt and I am so grateful!!

The Emotional "Norm"

Are emotions weird or what?  One minute I'm happy and the next I don't know what to do with myself.  It's been a roller coaster of emotions since being in Peru and I'm not even that emotional of a person!  Seriously, I don't know how boys deal with girls.  How do girls even deal with girls?!  Wait...how can I even stand to deal with myself?!  It's insane.  It can be a fun insane and it can be the crappiest insane there is.

You know what stinks about emotions?  No one has the same emotion at the same time in exactly the same way.  There's no way to EVER know EXACTLY what someone is feeling like.  It's kind of a depressing thought.  People handle situations in different ways and then we (including myself of course) judge them based on how they react if it isn't the same way we would.  Then I get mad when people judge me.  Get this, I get mad when people are inconsiderate which, in turn, makes me do something slightly inconsiderate.

Being in Peru has had me thinking about a lot of things.  It's strange to see a little kid fall down and start crying.  I know that sounds ridiculous but I subconsciously thought kids in Peru should be tougher than American kids and wouldn't ever cry.  I forgot they were normal kids for a second.  I see the old women carrying loads on their backs I could NEVER carry and I wonder how they feel about that.  Are they happy with their life?  Do they wish for something more?  What kids of things to they think and feel?  I think it's human nature to wish for more no matter our situation.  Not necessarily in a bad way, just that we want to progress and keep making our lives better.

Do they feel upset when they look back on their life and see that they're in the same small town they started in?  Do they have regrets?  I wish so bad that I could talk to each one and hear their story.  I'll bet some have been in similar situations I've been in.  But at the same time I feel like my life experiences and theirs could NEVER be compared.  We could never have had the same emotions.  I've always had everything I could ever need or want.  But, what if they have too??  Their standards are surely different than mine but who's to say that because they have less they haven't always had everything they've ever dreamed of.

You want to know what's most frustrating about this whole train of thinking?  I'll never know the answer!!!!!  Even if I could talk to them I don't think I'd get it figured out.  Heck, I've lived with roommates for a year or more and I still don't understand their thinking and I know they are sure confused about mine.  I need to be less judgmental about people and their emotions.  I also need to cut myself a break.  Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't have certain emotions because it's "the norm" and I don't enjoy being "the norm." I want to be different.  I feel like showing certain emotions is a sign of weakness or lesser thinking...like conforming and not being my own person.

Well, Abigail, it's okay to be normal.  It's okay to cry when things are hard and it's okay to want to curl in a ball under a blanket and never want to come out.  It's okay to be jealous and it's okay to want to scream at the top of your lungs.  It's okay to hide your face in your pillow and it's okay to punch your pillow.

It's also okay to comfort someone when they're down, even if you have no idea what's going through their mind.  It's okay to laugh at someone's joke and it's okay to jump up and down with excitement.  It's okay to give a hug to a friend and it's okay to just remember the good times.  It's okay to do those "normal" things.......Wait, didn't I just talk earlier about how there are no "normal" emotions since we are all different and we could never know how anyone else is feeling?  Is "normal" just something we perceive in our lives or is it something real?  I feel like this post has just gone in a big circle and I apologize. 

I've come to the conclusion that we all feel the same general emotions and are hence "normal" and yet we experience them all in such different ways it makes nothing "normal."  So when we experience emotions we should embrace them as our own!  No one else is going to feel this way EVER.  There aren't many things in life that you can have just for yourself, but your emotions are all yours.  If you want to cry, then I say "go for it!"  I'm not perfect and so if, from my life experiences, I think you're crying for a dumb reason then I will most likely silently judge you.  Hopefully, as these times come up, I will remember what I've thought about today and try to be more understanding, but when you don't know what's going through a person's head it's just near darn impossible.  I don't know if this sounds like I'm rationalizing my judging of people (and maybe I am) but I'm not trying to.  I'm more trying to put into words why I think, I think the way I think. (Think is a really funny word if you say it a lot in one sentence.)

Okay, I've babbled enough without making any sense and now that I'm about to publish this I feel like I may have blogged on a similar subject previously.  Oh well.  Let me know if you have any thoughts on the matter.

       

Every so Often...

Every so often you make a small, little decision that ends up impacting the rest of your life.  Most of the time we don't even know what these little decisions are until months or years later, and sometimes we never know.  It's interesting to look back at your life and pinpoint those decisions that made such a big difference.  It's also interesting to have someone else point them out for you. 

This may have happened to me late last night.

It's Peru, and Noelle, Brittany and I had some girl talk where we were able to get to know each other a little better.  I loved talking with them and I know we're going to be great friends by the end of this.  We were actually laughing at how well things were going and how we work perfect together even though we've lived together less than a week.  Anyways, a lot has happened this past year and a lot of decisions were made.  There are so many stories that I've laughed at with roommates over the past few semesters that I thought were JUST funny stories.  Things that happen that can't be written on a blog for sheer embarrassment purposes.  Turns out (since Noelle and I know many of the same people), at least one of these unmentionable stories was one of those little decisions.  Had I done/ said something different in that one moment, my whole year could have changed.

Now, I wouldn't change this past year for anything.  I loved (most) all the ups and downs and I've definitely learned and grown from every experience.  But "what if's" are sometimes fun to think about and this one has had me thinking.

I wish that at the end of my life I could look back and see exactly the decisions that got me to where I was, and the places I could have been had I done something different.  I mean, by now I could have been married, flunked out of school, never even finished high school and living under some bridge, gallivanting through Europe, studying at Harvard, starring in the next major motion picture opposite Zac Efron or living in an igloo...who really knows?!  I can't think about it too much though...it'll hurt my brain and that's already fried from this learning-a-new-language thing.     

So Much Stuff!

Can you believe I got all this stuff to take?!?!  Well, if you know me at all then it's not too hard to believe.  And this is just the stuff for the center!  Not pictured are my clothes, shoes, towels, sheets, hair necessities, and everything else that I need to survive for three months.  Yikes!!!

What's in this picture?  Let me list some of the stuff....books, paintbrushes, sharpies, markers, pens, dry erase markers, pencils, puzzles, scrapbook paper, feathers, recorders, Chutes and Ladders, cotton balls, pipe cleaners, balloons, pompoms, coloring books, jump ropes, sun catchers, whoopee cushions (they're kids, they'll love them!), paint, hair clips, headphones, colored napkins, bulletin board boarders, fun scissors, regular scissors, sticky tack, paint-by-colors, googly eyes, hand sanitizer, stickers, paper letters, velcro, glue sticks, hot glue gun, hot glue sticks, tops, hooks for the wall, spinner games and probably some other things I'm forgetting.  I went a little crazy at the store and I don't even care!!!

I'm in the process of getting this all into suitcases.  I can already tell I'm going to look like an idiot at the airport lugging these heavy suitcases around....

6 more days!!!!!

Finding Myself

....more like finding my blogging self.  If you're a regular reader of my blog you'll notice in the next week that some construction will be going on.  I just can't figure out what I want my blog to look like.  I liked my old one but felt like it needed a change and after a few weeks, it doesn't feel like "me."  So I am on a quest to Abigailfy it.  Thanks for your patience :)  This will be like Daisy Abigail's 4.0!

World Class Travelers

It has begun.  My friends are finally coming home from their two-year missions!  Not that I haven't had other friends already come home, but the guys that I grew up with and went to school with are in the home stretch and it feels so good!  I miss them more than I let on.  The two that I was closest to are in South America and in a week and a half I get to be on the same continent as them :)  It's a rather exciting thought. Our countries will be next door neighbors.  I've been so jealous of them getting out of the states and experiencing a new culture and leaving school and everything behind to serve.  Now it's my turn.  Not quite the two years and not quite the same service but it's serving nonetheless.  I'll have some "interesting" food stories to swap with them, stories regarding frustrations with a new language, stories about being with people you barely know 24/7, and a slew of other things.  Hooray!!!  Things are going to be so great, and when things get hard I can look to the example of my spiritually giant, amazing friends and know that if they can do it, I can do it.  Thanks to Nathaniel, Myles, Taylor, Joshua, Aaron and Austin.  You guys rock my chacos.

Nathaniel and Taylor-- "The Christmas Carol" 2008

Taylor and Nathaniel-- Graduation 2009

Aaron-- Stake Conference 2010

Joshua and Myles-- Kirtland 2010

Nathaniel, Myles, Joshua, Taylor -- The last week they were all together.   2010

Nathaniel (Sao Paulo, Brazil)

Myles (Guatemala City, Guatemala)

Taylor (Cali, Colombia)

My apologies for not having pictures with and/or of each of the missionaries.

My Inner Geek

If you've never listened to the Radiolab podcast you are missing out.  Let me tell you, I've learned so many awesome, but slightly useless, things from that podcast!  You don't even need to be a geek to enjoy it because there's something for everyone.  I can't pick a favorite episode because they're all just so stinkin' delightful.  I've learned about the origins of outhouses, how babies think logarithmically, the limits of the human body and mind (and if there are limits), how liar's brains are different from normal brains, where AIDS came from, how words affect our daily lives, what stochasticity means and a slew of other things.  It's incredible!!!  Seriously, you need to go to radiolab.org and then find their podcasts and download as many as possible.  Most episodes that are an hour long have three or four stories within them.  I used to listen to them while working out but they're great for long car rides too.  Did I mention they're totally free??

To make this easier, I'll just link you right to their site!

Radiolab Podcasts---BE EXCITED!