Thank you Jim

I think that there are times in your life when you meet people who you just fall in love with, not in a romantic way, but in such a way that it feels like a deep family connection. I have recently met two such people and I just adore both of them. It is hard to articulate how you feel about people that you feel this connection with, it is almost like you have been friends forever and yet in reality I don't really know them VERY well. These two people are called Susan and Jim. They are in all honesty my very favourite people that I have met since coming to America. I love them both so much.

The reason that I mention this is that I have had the most divine afternoon. I have had a couple of terrible days - not really dreadful, but I have just felt really despondent and not at all myself. Anyway, today a Jim took me for a little tour of Temple Square and it was exactly what I needed. I had the greatest time ever. I love Temple Square soooooooooo much, I even got to see the tabernacle - lots of the tabernacle - I had the best time. I just feel so blessed to be here and to know such amazing people. I will cherish them forever.

The City that I Love

The place that I miss the most in the world (apart from home) is Manchester. I just love Manchester, it is my favourite place to be. I was looking at some photos of Manchester this morning and I have decided that I am going to display my favourite ones on my blog in the top right hand corner just so you know how totally fab it is!!!!!!!!!

The Colours of Humanity!

I love colouring in. It is quite possibly my favourite activity and it is so relaxing! So imagine my joy when our Relief Society Presidency announced a humanitarian service project that we will be working on throughout the year... colouring in!!!!!!!! Cool or what?! In much of the developing world school children do not have books (this fact is quite shocking to me as I have a great love for books), this makes it very difficult for the children to learn important information such as the alphabet. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have designed a template for alphabet books that can be coloured and sent to those children to help them with their education. It is an amazing cause, and I love participating in it. The goal for our ward is to complete 100 of these books by the end of the year to be sent off, however, (because I have a cool job where I get to do whatever I like as long as I answer the phone) I have set my own personal goal of colouring 100 books this year.
If you are interested in completing some of these books, maybe as a family service project or just for fun, they are super easy and downloadable from the Church's website. In fact here is the link to the page http://www.lds.org/ldsfoundation/multimedia/files/pdf/80327_abc_pattern_pdf_pdf.pdf If you have younger children then you might prefer to do a few picture books instead, I really like these too! Here is the link http://www.lds.org/ldsfoundation/multimedia/files/pdf/68358_ChildrensPictureBook_pdf.pdf these are amazing projects that can really make a difference in people's lives. There are LOADS of great projects and exciting things that you can do to help, if you would like to do something but you want some more ideas then check out the website for inspiration! www.lds.org/humanitarianservices

Deseret Book: Addiction - no recovery!

So, it is official, I am addicted to Deseret Book and I can finally admit it. The good news is that I have never spent more than my allocated budget. The bad news is that my budget really is far more than it should be given that I have a whole bookcase full of books - most of which I have not yet read!!!!!!!!!

Coupled with my addiction of this store, I have a platinum membership which means that I get a certain percentage of points back on all of my purchases. This means that I can save them up and spend them at a later date, now this is excellent because my mom and my sister are coming to visit me from England in a few weeks and I have saved a significant amount of points which will be converted into money when I decide to 'cash them in'. Therefore I am so excited about going to Deseret Book when they get here because I have almost $200 to spend in that store. However, I am not quite at my goal of the full $200, so it is only fair that I keep striving to attain it, right???!!!!

Anyway, here is a photo of just today's purchases so that you can see just how far this addiction has gone. I was going to take a photo of all of the items that I have bought in there but I actually am a bit embarrassed of the size of the bookcase needed to store the items and am not yet sure that I feel entirely comfortable sharing it with the whole world!!!!

I'm Did, I'm Didn't

Ha! I just love my cousins so much!! On saturday night we had two of my young cousins stay over at our house. Getty is 8 and Cy is 5 - check out their families blog on http://www.evansedition.blogspot.com/. We have a large bowl of nuts on the counter top in our kitchen that actually no-one eats so we decided to make a little 'nutty family' by drawing faces on the nuts with marker pens. Cy drew some really cute faces but my favourite was a double sided face, he drew a happy face on one side of the nut and then a sad face on the other side of the nut. Cy told me that one side was nice and the other side was naughty. This reminded me of a song that my mom taught me when I was little, and I have had a request to include the words on my blog, which I have done. Ooo you are in for a treat!!!!

This is a song between two people, Mr Did and Mr Didn't (I am going to record Mr Did in Yellow text and Mr Didn't in blue)

I'm Did
I'm Didn't
I did obey

I didn't
I'm hap-hap-hap-hap-happy all the while
I'm not
I'm Did
I'm Didn't
I minded
But I didn't
That's why you'll always see me wear a smile,
Not me,
I hung my clothes up, washed my hands when Mother told me to
I ran and hid and said "That's something I WON'T do."
I'm Did
I'm Didn't
I did obey
I didn't
And everybody loves me cuz I did O-BEY
I didn't
You're funny Mr Didn't
What I really am is sad
You wouldn't have to be sad if you learned to obey
I'd rather be sad

You Gotta Have Faith!

This year a few friends of mine chose a word personal to them, that would describe their goal for 2008. I have decided that I would follow their example and (although it is a little late in the year to start with a New Year's resolution), I have come up with a word that I think sums up my goals for the year. That word is Faith. I obviously have more constructive goals than just that one word but that word is an umbrella term that everything else I am working on nicely fits into. Whenever I hear or see the word Faith then I am instantly reminded of my goals for 2008 and I remember what I need to be working on. Because of this fact I made a word block last night that I can display in my room to constantly remind me. It has turned out really well, therefore I have put a pic on here so that you can all see it too! Yey.

Blogs

This evening my family started to talk about blogs. My cousins have started blogs and were trying to convince me to start one also. I guess they won me over because here I am, blogging!!! I suppose that you could say that this is an experimental blog until I decide how this way of recording my thoughts suits me. I am not entirely sure that I am going to be very good at it - my life is far too boring to continually find entertaining things to write about. As well as this I am a journal keeper and I quite like my thoughts to be kept in a book on a shelf and no-one will know just how much of a bumbling eejit I usually am.
Therefore I have decided that if I am going to get into this whole blogging thing then I think I need to lay down a few rules for myself - so here goes:

1. This will not replace my regular journal which will be for my personl insights, revelations, feelings and other random rubbish.
2. This blog will be a more creative expansion of my views of society and additional musings that I feel may offer a little entertainment
3. I will also keep a blogging journal so that I can organise my thoughts before I put them into blog form. This is because I do not trust myself to coherently present my points of view on my first attempt.

Anyway, there you have it, my pathetic little list of rules that I hope will go some way to preventing me looking stupid. Ha - not bloody likely!!