A whole slew of exciting things

What is so exciting about this post, you may ask?

It is my 200th published one!
Also I turned old today.
But that is besides the point!

As a... present to myself, I'd like to ask you all a favor.

Ask me a question.

Really, truly, anything. 

Something silly, something serious, truly, I want to hear (read?) whatever it is that you have to say.

I often tell people that I have no secrets, and with that being said, I will answer your questions as honestly and in the very best way possible.

Thanks everyone! Loves!

Thoughts from Devotional

"I have yet to find a verse written that says, 'Thou shalt be mediocre.'"

This was said at a devotional last week. Everyone laughed as the speaker continued with his talk, but I just couldn't stop thinking about it. 

There is so much truth spoken in this simple sentence. How often do we sell ourselves short. And more importantly, why?

I was thinking about this the other day. Thinking of how, essentially, we are all programmed the same. Yes, we all have our unique consciousness, but we all have two arms, two legs, and we all have a brain composed of different loves and synapses.

Some are shy, but the potential to be out going is there. They can be outgoing, but it just isn't a dominate trait, and they choose not to exercise it or act that way.

I hate people who say, "Oh, I could never wear that." "Oh I can't do that." It's ridiculous! Each of us can do, can be whatever we want. It's just a matter of want. It's a matter of wanting to do that thing.

Exercise those things you want to grow and they will grow more than you ever thought.

"Have you lived your vision?"

My vision is me being a missionary. Working as a nurse. Married happily to someone who loves this gospel as much as he loves me. I want to be sealed in the temple. I wan to travel the world. I want to act and dance and sing. I want to be in a musical. I want to be a writer. I want to be an EFY counselor. I want to offer myself for humanitarian work. I want to save someone's life. I want to have those days where when you lay in your bed you feel every single ounce of tiredness on your body. But still feeling success in all the tasks that you were able to accomplish that day.

I want to smile.

Attention boys: are you taking notes?

I realize I haven't been here for a while.
Yes, I've been posting, but not quite... writing.
I have so many thoughts to share with you, but for now this beautiful piece I just found will have to suffice.

loves.

"Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes."