'Tis a Gift to Be Simple

Every week my family attends a class about an hour and a half away. The past few weeks I have been taking a laptop to work on assignments during the drive. I didn't have anything due this time, just a book to finish for class next week. I read that on the way to class while it was still daylight, but it was dark when we left so I was not able to read the last six pages. I'll finish it when I'm done here :-). I was going to pull out the laptop so I could do some pleasure writing (like, my blog!), but my mom suggested that since we were in a more rural area I look at the stars until we got back to the city area and couldn't see them anymore. I agreed with her and did some stargazing from our van.

It is amazing how beautiful little white dots on a dark background are. I have always loved the stars, but don't normally get to see them for all the light pollution where I live. At girls' camp I have never missed a stargazing night, even though you only have to go during your fourth year. The first time I went the person teaching did such an awesome job, and knew so much, that I was hooked. While in the car I didn't recognize any constellations besides Orion, (I really only know summer constellations from camp) it was still amazing to see how many stars I could see just outside my window. My younger sister was looking too and said that she saw a bunny in the stars, after she said that I happened to see a cluster that resembled a carrot.

Looking at the stars reminded me of one of my family's favorite scenes from a movie:

" Pumbaa: Timon?
Timon:     Yeah?
Pumbaa: Ever wonder what those sparkly dots are up there?
Timon:     Pumbaa. I don't wonder; I know.
Pumbaa: Oh. What are they?
Timon:     They're fireflies. Fireflies that uh... got stuck up on that big... bluish-black... thing.
Pumbaa: Oh. Gee. I always thought that they were balls of gas burning billions of miles away.
Timon:     Pumbaa, wit' you, everything's gas."1 

It's amazing to think about how little things, like stargazing, will bring up memories. Just sitting there, enjoying the stars and the dark, hilly scenery left me with lots of time to think. My mom had just put in our Sting album (the British singer), and the song "When We Dance" started playing. Because we hadn't played that CD since our vacation to California a few months ago, my mind went back to the last specific time I remember hearing it, which was when we were either at, or headed to the beach for the first time for my siblings and I. I think that I am going to correlate that song with the beach for a long time. The funny thing is, if you had asked me what we were listening to when we went there, I probably couldn't have told you, but music tends to stir up memories and emotions that may have been sitting stagnant for a while.

After I finished reminiscing in my flashback, I got thinking about the stars again. I got thinking about how awesome it will be when I can make stars, constellations, and worlds. In my religion (the LDS or 'Mormon' religion) we believe that (in a nutshell) if we live the way we should, repent, get married in the temple and keep our marital covenants, and endure to the end, we will be able to become like God, live with Him again, and become gods and goddesses with the ability to create worlds. I think that is really cool, and I want to live my life in a way that I will be able to do that. One of my favorite scriptures is Psalms 82:6 which relates to that thought. I don't consider myself an extremely creative person, but I still like to create things.

I decided that I liked the feeling of riding in the car on a rural highway in the dark, it reminded me of childhood trips to my grandparent's house, which took three hours and was often in the dark. I began to ponder how amazing it is that we used to take trips like that a lot, and didn't have much to do, but were fine with the long drive (as long as we had a pit stop or two). Now I, and some of my family, had a hard time with this weekly drive we take. My brother kept bothering my mom to give him the iPad because he didn't have anything to do. I wanted to do stuff on the computer. I decided then that I would not pull out the laptop, and would contently look out the window.

Sometimes it is a good thing to be able to be amused or awed by the simple things in life, like the stars, a favorite quote from a movie, or recalling memories from small things. I think today we get so caught up in all this technology that we don't stop to think about the little things in life. We don't stop to smell the roses, we don't take the time to just find a book and read, we don't write a letter to a friend, we don't stop and dance when our favorite song is playing on the radio, we don't stop to take the time to write down our thoughts (I find myself kicking myself over this one a lot). There are so many small and simple ways that we could be taking a break and enjoying life, but we never stop in this ever moving world to take advantage of all the couple minute, or even second things that have the ability to refresh us.

I hope we all can find the time to take advantage of the simple things that make life pleasant. What are some of the simple things that make your life more enjoyable? Leave me a comment!

Resolutions

So, I should have written this post last month, but I didn't. There's a resolution I need to work on. I like the new way I'm doing resolutions this year. The past few years I've tried to review if I worked toward a resolution or not every so often, and this year I'm still doing that, but I'm also not setting as many goals to meet, but things to work on. At the end of the year I'll review, like I do every year, but instead of checking off whether I did it or not, I'll rate myself on how well I did it.

For instance, because right now I'm terrible about going to bed at a decent hour, I have a resolution to "Get on a better sleep schedule and keep it." If I start going to bed better and keep doing that, I'll give myself a 10. If I start doing that late in the year, I'll probably give myself a 9-7. If I start mid-year and stop in October, I'll give myself a 7-5. If I occasionally go to bed well throughout the year, I'll give myself a 4-2 for effort. If I fail epically, I give myself a 1 (lowest possible) and try again next year.

Using this format I can see how well I did things, and either congratulate myself, or determine I need to work on it again the next year. I did this rating system for last year's resolutions, and for the most part, if it was under 5 I put it back on my list, or decided that it wasn't really a priority anymore. Some resolutions I might have done 'well' on I revised and made more specific because I felt that resolution didn't help me as much as I had anticipated. I like this version much better than a check or X system because then I can recognize that I made an effort on that resolution, and if a resolution isn't exactly something that you can 'accomplish' then you can rate on how well you improved yourself.

For instance, last year I resolved to work on my writing skills. I didn't do much until after summer, when the classes I was taking required me to improve them, but in my mind they still improved immensely. I gave myself a 7 and decided that it didn't need to be a resolution again this year, I had done most of what I had intended to do. If anything I revised it and changed it this year to "Blog monthly (at least)." I gave myself a specific thing to do, not just a vague goal. Granted, I got off to a rocky start, but at least I can still aim for a 9 (because perfection is out of reach at this point) but I don't have to say 'Oh well, failed that one! Guess I won't even try anymore the rest of the year.' I can still try to achieve a high score, it just won't be perfect.

I like to be somewhat specific in my resolutions, and I'm learning when it needs to be more specific. What does 'Get organized' mean? Use 'organize/clean ___name of location___' instead, it will be easier to measure. Put the name of a room or a specific shelf, not 'the house,' start with small chunks and as you get better you can make bigger goals without totally overwhelming yourself. For several years I've resolved to "Write in journal regularly," but found that evidently 'regularly' was equating to once a month. I still technically was doing it, but it defeated the point. This year I finally woke up and changed it to "Write in journal weekly (at least)" and have managed to stick to it so far.

This year I actually have the least amount of resolutions that I have since I started. I decided I was going to work on fewer things a little harder. I have 9 this year, last year I had 16 (17 if you count the "Survive Dec 21st" one I jokingly made). I think it makes it a little more achievable, and you have less to try to focus on. I also prioritize my resolutions and then (try to) run through them in my head every night and see how I did on each of them that day. Because I go in order of priority, if I fall asleep before I make it through the list I at least reviewed on how I did on the most important ones (which sometimes equates to "go to bed better, nope! Zzzz).

If you haven't made any resolutions for this year you still can, only two months have passed so far, that still leaves 10 months in the year, why wait that long to make goals to improve yourself? If you need to, resolve to write next year's resolutions in December, I've done that before, and the knowledge that I resolved to do that helped me make sure I got some written the next year. I've gotten to the point I don't need that anymore, but it made sure I kept going and made it so I had to remember what I had resolved. Oh, and make sure you write them down and put them in a place you will remember where they are, you won't remember them otherwise. It took me a few weeks to memorize my list, (I wasn't working on it that hard) and I find every now and then that I wasn't remembering exactly what I wrote down, I was changing the words so it meant something slightly different.

If anyone has more tips on resolutions, please post them in the comments! (because I have so many people reading my blog :-P)

Happy resolution keeping!