Friday, December 31, 2010

The Picture of Dorian Gray




So, my current {Current Read} was The Picture of Dorian Gray and it was amazing! Seriously, such a good book.  I'm not gonna lie, there were times it was a little hard for me to get through, but it was so worth it.

The gist of the story is this:  A painter, Basil, finds a boy, Dorian Gray, who is the epitamy of youth.  He is innocent, moldable, and very naive to worldly things.  You can see all this just by looking at him, and has a beauty that  can't be denied.  The painter becomes infatuated with him and paints a portrait of him.

Basil has a friend named Lord Henry who's purpose for living life is pleasure.  He has no regard for consequence or morals. If he likes it and it brings pleasure, he does it.  He fills Dorian's head with ideas of what beauty and pleasure is, and Dorian begins to take this views as his own.

After Basil had finished painting the portrait of Dorian, Lord Henry makes a comment about how Dorian will never look that good again.  That the portrait will forever stay young and beautiful and Dorian will just grow old.  Jokingly, Dorian wishes that the portrait will bear his age.

Dorian finds a young actress girl who he falls in love with.  He sees her one night performing and becomes infatuated with her and falls in "love."  After many times of seeing her perform, he proposes to her.  He brings Basil and Lord Henry to see her perform, and on that night she performs terribly on purpose.  Dorian is ashamed and embarrassed by her act and goes backstage and breaks it off.  He is cruel and mean to her, and later when he gets home, he notices the portrait of him has changed.  He no longer has the innocent look of boyhood, but he has a slightly evil look on his face.  The next day he finds out that the girl has committed suicide.

Dorian lives his life seeking pleasure and entertainment.  Years pass, and the portrait continues to bear his weight of age and sin while he remains looking young.

And then . . .

You'll just have to read it to find out :)

It has a freakin' amazing ending, and I really want to tell you it, but if you want to know how it ends (which is really good ) you should read it.  There are a lot of really interesting ideas to think about and a lot of amazing quotes.  Here are some quotes from the book.  A lot of them make more sense in the context of the book, but still good:

"None of us can stand other people having the same faults as ourselves."

"Each class would have preached the importance of those virtues, for whose exercise there was no necessity in their own lives."

"To get back one's youth one has merely to repeat one's follies."

"The only things one never regrets are one's mistakes."

"To be in love is to surpass one's self."

"The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves.  The basis of optimism is sheer terror."

"When we blame ourselves we feel that no one else has a right to blame us.  It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution."

"I am not sorry for anything that has happened.  It has taught me to know myself better."

"Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's face.  It cannot be concealed.  People talk sometimes of secret vices.  There are no such things."

"One has a right to judge of a man by the effect he has over his friends."

"The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world it's own shame."

"She knew nothing, but she had everything that he had lost."

Fill in the Blank






1.   New Year's is (awesome/lame/other)  eh, it's alright. It's not my favorite holiday, but I do like the fact that my dad usually does something embarassingly cool, like the year he took his amp and guitar to the porch and rocked out.

2.  Last New Year's Eve I  don't even remember what I did. It probably wasn't that exciting then, ha.

3.  My New Year's resolution is  to  train for and run a 1/2 marathon. And also be better spiritually.

4.  The best way to spend New Year's Eve is   with friends. And a cute boy so you can have someone to kiss at midnight. I've never done that but I would like to.

5.  My prediction for an up-and-coming trend in 2011 is  20's style. Wouldn't that be cool? Or maybe even the 40's. With the cool hairstyles? It's be sweet.

6.  This New Year's Eve I will   actually be doing something fun! So the plan is to go see The Tourist (which I am super stoked about because I love Johnny Depp) and then seeing the lights at Temple Square which I'm excited about because I didn't get to see them before Christmas and then my friend is having a little get together thingy so I'll go to that if I get back soon enough.

7.  A fresh start is  always good. I agree with thinking it's kinda silly to wait until the start of a new year to do something you want to do, but it's as good a time as any.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

The Last 3 Days

The Dinosaur Museum.













Christmas.


We always get new pajama's for Christmas and wear them that night and pretty much all Christmas day.  We also get poppers which have paper crowns and little toys and jokes that we pop on Christmas Eve.

    (haha, Briar looks like Shawn White. We kept calling her that all night. It's the hair.)








Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Where Are You Christmas?

“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,
stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons.
It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags.
And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before.
What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store.
What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”



Something is missing.
For some reason this year it just doesn't seem like Christmas.

The tree is decorated.
The lights are up.
I've done my shopping.

But the feeling isn't here. The excited anticipation of Christmas you got when you were 9 and couldn't sleep the night before because you were so excited. It's like the magic is gone.

But I think I know what the problem is.

Me

I've been so caught up with me, in my life, and what I'm going to do that I've forgotten what really brings the feeling of Christmas.

I remember when I was in 8th grade.  My dad had been diagnosed with cancer that November and that year just sucked.  I mean 8th grade is hard enough as it is, trying to figure out who you are and where you fit in, and it just felt like a lot to handle.  But I remember that Christmas being the best Christmas.  My dad was going through chemotherapy and trying to work to provide for his family.  He was doing the best he could.

I remember one night my parents were gone and I was babysitting.  Someone knocked on the door and when I answered it, there was a lady and her two sons standing there with baskets full of stockings and food and gifts.  To this day I have no idea who she was.  So many people did so much for my family.  The school did the Sub for Santa for my family.  I remember my little siblings donating food to the Sub for Santa having no idea that it was to be returned to us.

I've always wanted to do something like that.  Do something for someone else that just makes them happy.  That gives them the feeling I had that Christmas.  I'm always too selfish and lazy, but I've decided that that needs to change.

So I don't know what yet.  But I'm gonna do something.  Christmas is about giving.  Heavenly Father gave his Son.  I can give my time and money.


 

 

Mother Nature Doesn't Mess Around When it's the First Day of Winter


Holy Cow! Can you believe the snow? If you live in Utah, or Utah County you'll know what I'm talking about.  I woke up this morning to about 6 inches and it was still snowing.  Last night there was nothing.  It took forever and a day to get to work today.  The bus was 45 minutes late and then it took another 45 minutes to get from Lehi to Orem. 
BUT LOOK AT THE SNOW!! AHH!  This is perfect snowman building, sledding snow!

Taken on my phone at 7am waiting for the bus.



Happy First Day of Winter!



Monday, December 20, 2010

Love this song.


"You" Collective Soul

There's No Wrong Way . . .






(Yes, I know they are slightly blurry, because my focus wasn't working so well on some of them. And I ran out of Reese's to use in the photo :)

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Abominable "O Holy Night"

My sister showed this to me and I couldn't help but bust up laughing. Some people try so hard haha.  You need to listen to the whole thing because it only gets better as it goes on.

Merry Christmas!



Friday, December 17, 2010

Boys are weird

So last night I'm on Facebook and a guy I went to school with a few years ago started chatting me.  This is our conversation:

Him: I love you
Me:  haha aw thanks :)
Him: Do you love me
Me: sure
Him: Good
Me: lol
Him: Want to date Please
Me: haha do you even really remember who i am
Him: Yeah your Samantha
Me: haha yeah what else
Him: You hot and sexy
Me: haha where do you know me from
Him: School
Me: yup
Him: So you want To make it official
Me: hahaha what if i'm dating someone
Him:Your profile says single
Me: maybe i just haven't changed it
Him: Doubt it So babe I'm in love with you
Me: haha you're funny
Him: Please
Me: please what?
Him: Let's date
Me: you're gonna take me on a date?
Him: No let's be boyfriend girlfriend
Me: i'm not being your girlfriend if you don't take me on a date
Him:Why?
Me: because
Him: Okay I'm breaking up With you
Me: we were never together you can't break up with me
Him: I just did
Me: that hurts my heart
Him: You already have a bf night

Boys are weird.

Fill in the Blank




1.   Giving is  the best feeling.  It feels good giving to someone and seeing them get all excited.

2.  Receiving is  fun :) I like getting presents.

3.  The best gift I ever received was a camera.  I really wanted a film camera so I could take a photography class and my mom kept telling me not to be disappointed Christmas morning when I didn't get a camera.  But then I found film in my stocking :)  

4.  The best gift I ever gave was a quote book to my sister. Last year for Christmas we were supposed to make our gifts that we gave for our family drawing.  My little sister loves quotes so I made a pretty sweet quote book that had a button on the front to close it, and I had modge podged really cute purple vintage looking paper on the outside.  It was cool. 

5.  Something intangible that I wish I could receive is outgoingness.  Is that a word? I don't think so, but that's alright.  I'm pretty shy, so it'd be nice to be a little more outgoing and willing to put myself out there.

6.  Something intangible that I wish I could give is happiness.  I wish everyone was happy with life.

7.  The one gift I always wanted as a child, but never got was I actually can't think of anything.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

8 Things

8 things I'm loving right now.

1. This CD.  It's Death to False Metal from Weezer.  It's all their unreleased songs from over the years.  It's pretty awesome.  My favorite is Odd Couple.  And they do an awesome remake of "Unbreak My Heart" originally by Toni Braxton.



2. The fact that it's almost Christmas.  I love seeing all the lights on everyone's houses.  I haven't gone up to see the lights at Temple Square yet, but I'm hoping to before Christmas.  Christmas isn't complete unless you've seen the lights.



 3. This stuff is a life saver.  Seriously, my lips would probably be falling off if it weren't for Burt.




4.  I've been doing my hair curly with my flat iron lately, and I'm really liking it. It's so much faster than straightening it.  Which you wouldn't think it was, but it is.




 5. This book.  The Picture of Dorian Gray.  It's in my {Current Reads} section, but it's taken me awhile with finals to finish.  Now that it's the break and I don't have to study my brains out I might actually get some reading done.  This book really is amazing though.  I'm not gonna lie, it's kinda hard to get through just because the language is a little bit different from today's writing, but it's so worth it.  So many great quotes and things to think about.





6. Inception! Ok, I know I've mentioned this movie many times before, but I seriously can't get over how amazing and brilliant this movie is.




7.  The fact that FINALS ARE OVER on Friday.  I can't wait.  And this cartoon pretty much explains how I feel right about now.  But I do have to say that I created a freakin awesome WebQuest about the weather.  It's pretty sweet. 


8. When I get home tonight, BRIAR WILL BE HOME!! And I get to spend the next three weeks with her.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Love is . . .

My dad wrote this awhile ago for a talk he gave in sacrament meeting, and I remember loving it.  The other day I was thinking about it and so I went to our old, ancient, incredibely slow computer downstairs and was able to find it in the documents saved on there. I was pretty happy. My dad's a pretty good writer if I do say so myself.


So here it is:


Love is remembering the first time I saw my wife.
Love is not noticing the time past since that first time.

Love is the silence of a meadow just before dawn.
Love is the roar of the ocean during a storm.

Love is all things.

Love is the birth of our first child.
Love is going to our first graduation.

Love is the gentle falling snow.
Love is the thunder that mother nature may show.

Love is all things.

Love is a still summer breeze.
Love is a powerful tornado.

Love is all things.

Love is holding hands at the grocery store.
Love is holding hands at the hospital door.

Love is the rain that brings forth growth.
Love is the lightning that splits the oak.

Love is all things.

Love is a familiar voice with encouraging words.
Love is feeling sorry after a fight has occurred.

Love is the birth of lion cubs.
Loce is the life taken to feed those same cubs.

Love is all things.

Love is a day filled with joy, a day filled with sorrow, a moment of passion, a moment of anger.
Love is nature giving life and full of beauty, or wielding it's strength and proving destructive.

Love is all things.

Nothing shows love like a man by himself, standing in line at the Wal*Mart with feminine hygiene products.



(image from www.corbisimages.com - quote and editing by me)










365


I especially love today's 365 picture. To see it in color click here.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Someday We'll Know.

"When we were five they asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up, our answers were things like, astronaut, president or in my case a princess. 

When we were ten they asked us again we answered, rockstar, cowboy or in my case a gold medalist. But now that we've grown up they want a serious answer.

Well, how about this, who the hell knows! 

This isn't the time to make hard, fast decisions. This is the time to make mistakes, take the wrong train and get stuck somewhere, fall in love...alot. Major in philosophy, because there's no way to make a career out of that. Change your mind and change it again, because nothing's permanent. 

So make as many mistakes as you can, that way someday when they ask what we wanna be we won't have to guess, we'll know."

(I'm embarassed to say, but this is Angela's graduation speech from Eclipse.
Don't judge.)

I really like this. For multiple reasons.  I just can't even begin to tell all the experiences in my life that make this quote ring true for me.  

Do you know how many times I've changed my major?

7. At least.

How many times I said I was going to go on a mission?

3 or 4. Maybe more.

I was engaged. That didn't happen.

I felt like I was a mess who didn't know what I wanted with life.  I always thought I should know.  That I would be able to easily figure out what I wanted or should do.  I never could and I felt lost at times.

But I can say that answers do come.  Slowly, but surely.  I tried all the things I didn't want to do (school wise) and now I know teaching is what I want to do more than anything.  I know that I am exactly where I need to be right now.  

I always thought making mistakes was bad, but now I realize that mistakes were what got me here.





"It's not about who you've been with. 
It's about who you end up with. 
Sometimes the heart doesn't know what it wants 
until it finds what it wants."

Pam Beesley

AHHH! It's Monday.

It's Monday! The worst day of the week.  I remember watching this Garfield cartoon when I was little and he was trying to escape Monday because he didn't like Mondays.  He was trying to get to a different country with a different time zone so he could skip Monday all together.  All this bad stuff happens to him on the way to the country and by the time he gets there, it's just barely Monday there so he has to go through two Mondays.   That is just a bad day right there.

But, on a much happier note, I am 1/2 way done with my finals. YAY!  I have my two hardest ones out of the way: Math and Children's literature.  I just have my project for my Technology in Education class and my test in Exceptional Students.

And on an EVEN happier note: Briar comes home in 2 days. 2! That's it! I can't wait to see her!

So I saw this on someones blog and busted up laughing because it's pretty much hilarious.  If you haven't seen Inception you won't really get what it's talking about.  And also, if you haven't seen Inception you really should go see it because it is AMAZING! Capital amazing. That's pretty amazing.


Isn't that just great?

Friday, December 10, 2010

Fill in the Blank

So yesterday I was visiting a blog and saw where it said "Click here to enter." So I did. But I'm thinking now I should've done the Fill in the Blank, and then entered it.  So here it is:

1.  I wish my car was fixed.  It's been out of commission since August.  The engine is sitting in our garage.  I've been driving the mini van lately, and I have to say, I hate it when I pull up and there's a cute guy next to me and we make eye contact and then I remember I'm in the minivan and he probably thinks I have six kids or something.

2.  Yesterday I  went to class and worked. I also  procrastinated studying.

3.  Today I will  do the studying I procrastinated yesterday. 

4.  Tomorrow I will  go on a blind date. That's a funny story.

5.  Maybe  it will snow! I sure hope so because I want a white Christmas.

6.  Someday my prince will come :)  

7.  I love our family quote wall.  It makes me happy everytime I read it.

Thursday, December 09, 2010

Santa drives my bus.


I sneakily took this picture of the bus driver today.  He looks like Santa! I wanted to pull a buddy the elf and yell "SANTA!!!"

like this:



But don't worry. I refrained.

2010 statuses

A year in facebook statuses.

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

You were only waiting for this moment to arise

This is what I did when I was supposed to be studying for a final.  I don't know which one I like better.


This one:


Or this one:






7 days until Briar gets home!

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

What goes around comes around: we all need a push sometimes.
If you're the one pushing others up the hill,
there may come a day when you need a push, too.
Maybe when you help someone,
you're that much closer to the top yourself.

Lance Armstrong

(This is from his book "Every Second Counts."  If you haven't read it I would recommend it.  It's a great read.)



How many until . . .



1.
The number of times I have to go to math again.

8.
The number of days until Briar comes home.

10.
The number of days until I am officially done with this semester.

18.
The number of days until Christmas.



Here's some Christmas tunes from Weezer for your listening pleasure:







And when I have my own house I'm totally doing this! #1 because I love this song. and #2 because this is just cool!



It reminds me of my first date. So for my first date it was around Christmas time so we went and saw lights and did a couple other things, but that's not the important part of this story. So afterwords we decided to give awards to houses for their Christmas decorations. So we got a notebook and tape and would write things like:

"Congratulations on winning the best blowup Santa.
From the First Annual Christmas Decoration Commitee"

or

"Congratulations. You have won the best lights on the garage award.
From the First Annual Christmas Decoration Commitee"

On one of the houses we wrote:

"We apologize to inform you that you have placed 56th place in the First Annual Christmas Decoration Contest because of the lonely wreath on the door.
Better Luck Next Year.
From the First Annual Christmas Decoration Commitee"

I kinda feel bad about that one haha.

Friday, December 03, 2010

Thursday, December 02, 2010

Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being in love which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found
that we were one tree and not two.


-- Captain Corelli's Mandolin





(I really just wanted to use this picture for something because I took it today and liked it, but I absolutely love this quote. I've been on a quote kick lately)

Briar



Today I want to dedicate this post to my sister Briar.
Because I miss her.
A lot.

She is an amazing girl. She is currently going to SVU in Virginia and is on the soccer team there. She is a freakin' amazing goalie! And I'm not just saying that because she's my sister, she really is. She has been blessed with so many gifts and talents. She has the biggest heart of anyone I know, and would do anything for anyone. She gives 100% at whatever she does whether it be with school, soccer, friends, whatever. She puts her whole heart and soul into something and she loves and cares with all her heart. I wish I could be more like that.



She recently had to give a talk in church and she sent me a copy and I wanted to post on here what she wrote because she's an amazing writer too.

____________________________________________________________________


Throughout high school it was difficult for me to focus on heavenly things. There were so many goals that I wanted to achieve; wanted to be good at and I never saw past that. It was my goal to win a state championship my senior year in high school; I think it’s safe to say that it is a lot of high school students dreams to achieve that. To be able to wear that ring that says “I am a champion” to everyone who looks at it. Not only did I want to win the state championships, I wanted to shut down our soccer team rival Timpanogos High. I worked my tail off six days a week during the summer, attended soccer camps and workouts and mentally prepared myself to play the season of a lifetime. Once our season started everything else was placed second on my list of priorities, except for school of course. I would go to school, go to practice, work on homework then prepare for our next day’s game or practice. Our preseason was a bit discouraging for our coaches and even me. We weren’t winning the games we were supposed to, and the games we did win weren’t meeting our expectations. As our season came our progression flew. Finally our team clicked like planned. One of our first games was against our rival Timpanogos and we won with flying colors; a 3-0 game. One of my goals was now met half way; only later on my goal of shutting them out failed with a 2-1 loss on our own field in over time. I felt like my world crashed. I wanted to win; I wanted to be the best. But as a team, we failed.

After that, our winning streak began again, undefeated by everyone in our region but Timp. The relationship between us as teammates grew tremendously. We were always together or at least with one member of our team. We all knew the importance of being cohesive with one another. Our coach preached it to us all the time. And we lived it; everyday. Little did I realize the discipline I was learning everyday at practice, or during every game. Soccer was teaching me lessons on trust, friendship, and motivation; and I couldn’t see it. I didn’t recognize it. I was so focused on the things of the world that I didn’t realize that what was to be the outcome of my season was not a state ring; but life lessons.

Our season was coming to an end quickly, and just as before we were determined. This was it; everything was playing out just how it was supposed to for us to take it all. The third to last week of our season was supposed to be an exciting one; we were scheduled to play Westlake (our newest rival) on Tuesday, along with celebrating three birthdays the same day; one being my own. We were then planned to playing Mountain View that Thursday, a challenging but accomplishable win.

Every team has speed bump in their season; little did we know that ours had not yet occurred. In the middle of our supposed exciting week, I was kneed in the face and had to have surgery with a recovery time of about two to three weeks. Once again, I was crushed. How was I supposed to get my state championship now? What I realized later was that this injury was one of the best learning and growing experiences of my life. I recovered quickly. Being the stubborn person that I am, I didn’t want to miss out on any of our state games, and began practicing as soon as I could.

As our playoff games began, I felt uneasy about playing, but I was selfish and couldn’t give it up to our back up keeper. There was no way. I had worked too hard not to play. It was mine. Win after win after win; we made it to the final four. We were now closer to our final goal then we’d ever been my four years of playing. And as the ball was kicked high into the air, I rose my hands up to catch it. But miss judged. As the ball slipped through my fingers and into the goal, I was yet again crushed. Both of my goals were unmet. And for months after that game I blamed myself for not achieving them.

It was months later that I had realized what it was that my soccer career had given me. It had given me the opportunity to build who I am today. It drew me closer to my family, my parents especially. It created a bond between us through sharing these incredible experiences. It showed me that to fail is part of life and that you become stronger from it. It taught me to look for help from others when it is needed. And most of all, it taught me that worldly things only matter here on earth. I wouldn’t be able to take that championship with me to heaven. But I can take the relationships I gained and lessons that I learned.


____________________________________________________________________


We celebrated Melissa's birthday today. It was on the 26th, but we didn't do the cake until today. She's turned 18. Legal! I just love her :)




This is Aubrey looking at me eating my cake. She didn't get any cake until she ate 5 carrots. She did not want to eat her carrots, but she sure did want cake.

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Quotage.

I made some picture of a few of my favorite quotes or other pictures.









































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