Nauvoo: The City Beautiful

Day Four: A picture of somewhere you've been.

In case you were wondering, this awesome photo was taken by yours truly. I'm cool, I know.

Nauvoo, Illinois, is one of my favorite places in the whole world. I love this place. I love the history of it and the feelings it evokes in me. I love, love, love the temple. It's absolutely amazing. I have yet to go inside or to do any work there, but I will one day. (That wasn't even intended to mimic the song. I am good.)

I was eleven the first time I went to Nauvoo. I was with my parents as we drove across the country to take my grandparents their car. They were serving a mission in Kirtland, Ohio. My parents decided that if we were driving that far anyway, we might as well make it a big trip and hit all the major Church history sites. It was an absolutely incredible vacation for my eleven-year-old self. It was one of the single greatest testimony-building experiences I had ever had, and Nauvoo sat squarely in the middle of it. I was reading the sixth Work and the Glory book at the time, which happens to be set completely in Nauvoo. It really helped me visualize where things happened and what was going on at that time in Church history. That was where I first gained a testimony of Joseph Smith.

Another awesome thing about that trip was that we rolled into Nauvoo on the first Sunday in April, which is General Conference, of course. And it happened to be the conference when President Hinckley announced the rebuilding of the Nauvoo temple. It was pretty amazing.

I didn't get to go back to Nauvoo until seven years later, when my mom, my grandma, and I went to my cousin Dustin's high school graduation. I hadn't seen Cora, Dustin, Blake, and Robyn since the last time we had gone to Nauvoo, so it was super exciting to see them. Cora, Jamie, Robyn, Mom, Grandma, and I spent three days in Nauvoo during that trip, and finally seeing the temple was incredible. As you drive along the Mississippi River, the road takes a curve, and BAM! there's the temple. It seems to loom up out of nowhere. It's no wonder the Saints chose that spot for the House of the Lord.

I love Nauvoo. I love it so much. I want to go back, and I want to do baptisms in the temple. Heck, I'd love to get married in the Nauvoo temple, but unfortunately, all my family is in Utah, so that probably won't happen. 

I'm so grateful for the chances I have had to go to Nauvoo and to feel the incredible spirit of what the Saints left behind. It truly is the City Beautiful.

Stress is the worst.

Day Three: A habit that you wish you didn't have.

I don't know if this qualifies as a habit, so much, but I stress. I stress a lot. I used to have such bad anxiety that I would wake up every morning with a terrible knot in my chest. It felt like it was squeezing all of the air out of my lungs. I was afraid of driving. I was afraid of going to college. I was afraid of starting a new job. It was a horrible, paralyzing feeling.

I have gotten much better as I've gotten older. Driving in particular no longer bugs me. That's probably because I've spent many months as the only one in my apartment with a car, so I've done a whole lotta driving in my time in Provo. But that's not the only thing I've grown more confident in. I think it's just a matter of growing up and figuring things out.

Unfortunately, I am still a worry wart. I worry about everything. Just because the anxiety isn't crippling doesn't mean it isn't there in some form or another. I frequently worry about things at work. I worry about moving out of my current apartment. I worry when I get new roommates. I worry about my church calling. (Well, sometimes. Not currently. My calling is awesome.) And most especially, I worry about guys. I worry about how I'm coming across. I worry about being too forward. I worry about not being forward enough. I worry about giving the wrong impression. I worry about everything when it comes to dating. It's awful.

I need to loosen up. I need to worry less. I need to be more open. I know all of these things. Unfortunately, acting on them and actually changing is much more easily said than done.

My friends are the best.

Day Two: A picture of you and your friends.

Honest to goodness, I have so many incredible friends that one picture wouldn't suffice. Heck, these three pictures don't suffice. So many awesome people are left out because I am horrible at taking pictures at social events.

My roommates are incredible and have become some of my very best friends. My other girlfriends in the ward (of which there are pretty much only two) have become such good friends that I'm hoping to live with them next year. And the guys in my life never cease to entertain me. If any combination of my guy friends are around, whatever is going on is almost guaranteed to be exciting.

Honestly, I am so grateful that I have met such amazing people the past few months. Here's hoping that in the next few months, I can meet even more amazing people and grow even closer with the people I've already integrated into my life.

Blogging Challenge!

As mentioned in my last post, I want to be better at blogging. Since I've been having a hard time thinking of things to write about, I thought I would see what kind of blog challenges I could find. The main one I found was the same one I did the beginning of last year, and I wanted to have some different topics. So I combined a few of my favorites to come up with more than a month of posts. Woo hoo! Over a month of daily posts! Exciting, right?

So here it is, day one of my jerry-rigged blog challenge. We'll see how this goes.

Day One: A recent picture of you and 15 interesting facts about yourself.

Christmas Eve 2011, wearing the paper crown from our English crackers.

Yay for lists! Anyone who reads my blog should know that I love lists. I've done this kind of list tons of times, but I'm always up for more. 

1. Along the lines of loving lists, I recently bought a journal called Listography. It is composed solely of lists. I kind of love it.
2. I have had a lifelong obsession with pens. I simply love good pens.
3. I am crazy fickle when it comes to my hair. I chopped it off in May, and I've already decided I'm growing it out again. Give it a couple more months and it'll be a different color.
4. I love makeup. A lot. I have a ridiculous amount of it, and somehow, I can't keep myself from buying more. Especially eye shadow.
5. I have nine of the most amazing kids as my nieces and nephews. They're the best ever.
6. The phrase "should have went" makes me want to kick a puppy. The past participle of "go" is "gone," not "went." The phrase is "should have gone."
7. One of my greatest desires is to travel the world. I have yet to leave the continental U.S., and I am determined to change that sometime soon.
8. I love singing duets. I have at least two, possibly three, that I can play on the guitar or the piano. All I need is a guy to sing them with.
9. I like working out early in the morning. As difficult as it is to wake myself up at 6:30, it feels awesome to get going so early.
10. I will name a daughter Eloise June. Whether my hustband likes it or not.
11. I think boys are stupid. Yet somehow, I still want one.
12. I love gum. I chew three or four pieces at work alone.
13. I try to write in my journal daily. I have filled 11 journals in total, 4 or 5 of which have been in the last couple of years.
14. I don't have a middle name. There aren't many names that flow well with Andralynn.
15. When I was a kid, I hated mushrooms. I thought they were nasty. I now love them. Zupa's Wild Mushroom Bisque is my favorite soup. I also love Harmon's homemade cream of mushroom. It's funny how tastes develop.

A new year, a new me.

Or something along those lines.

Hey look, it's the obligatory resolutions post. Sure, I'm about two weeks late, but I'm close enough, right?

So my resolutions have been rather fluid for this year. I have goals, but I don't think I thought of any of them as resolutions, per se. There were just things I knew I wanted to do with my life, and I happened to be thinking about them at around New Year's. So I guess they qualify.

My main goal is one that has been on my mind for a few months now, and I am proud to say that I am going strong after two weeks. I decided that I wanted to switch back to 24 Hour Fitness (mostly because I detested going to Gold's) and buy a few personal training sessions (if not more). In the last two weeks, I have only missed a single day of going to the gym. (Not counting Sundays, of course.) I'm pretty proud of myself, and if the scale is any indication, I've actually made some progress. Awesome, no? I sure think so. I'm also rediscovering that I quite love hopping on the elliptical and just going for an hour. It feels super good. I also enjoy that the machine tells me I burn about 700 calories when I do that.

Another goal I've been kicking around is blogging more. I was supposed to blog about dating and all that jazz, but right after I decided to do that, I actually started having real dating experiences. Well, more like hanging out experiences, but there were actually guys (er . . . guy . . . [you know, Der Junge]) that I was interested in. And as soon as I started thinking about writing about actual people, I chickened out a wee bit. I was mostly just terrified that things would get back to Der Junge and that I would be mortified. A bit juvenile, it's true, but alas, I can't help myself.

Instead of writing about dating, I've compiled a couple of blogging challenges to create one big challenge that should cover about 45 days. I've been meaning to start it, but I swear the amount of free time I have has been severely diminished somehow. It's probably because I've been getting up at 6:30 (most days) to work out and not getting home from work until 6:00. Any social activities usually take up my extra free time. However, I will find time to fit blogging in!

A third goal is to finally change my boy situation. Yes, I'm saying it: I WANT A BOYFRIEND. At some point this year, I want to end my drought. It's been coming up on five years (wow, look at me divulge potentially embarrassing information!) since I've been in a real relationship, and you know what? That is plenty long. I'm ready for something more than hanging out and flirting. Unfortunately, I am not in complete control of this goal, and I honestly have no idea what more to do to help my cause (with Der Junge in particular, but I'm definitely open to other prospects).

And there you have it. My goals for this year. Well, the biggies, anyway. Here's hoping I can make 2012 freaking awesome.

The Movies of 2011

Since I wrote a blog post for the books I read in 2011, I figured I should give the movies I watched the same courtesy. It kind of amazes me how much entertainment I consume throughout a year. I also like seeing which movies I watched multiple times. I'll definitely do this again for 2012. I'm looking forward to comparing the numbers.


MOVIES

1. The King's Speech x2 (This movie is AMAZING. Everyone needs to go see it.)
2. The Karate Kid
3. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (Hilariously awful, but Jake Gyllenhaal is hot so it was worth a watch.)
4. Rear Window (I love me some Jimmy Stewart!)
5. Inception x2
6. Practical Magic
7. Easy A x2 (so much funnier than I expected)
8. The Switch (I loved this movie. I thought it was adorable. I just might have to buy it.)
9. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World x3
10. Whip It
11. Despicable Me
12. Unstoppable
13. Doubt
14. Morning Glory 
15. Arsenic and Old Lace
16. Sweet Home Alabama
17. To Kill a Mockingbird (Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch is fantastic.) 
18. The Hudsucker Proxy (You know...for kids!)
19. Driving Lessons (Kind of a weird movie, but Rupert Grint is adorable.)
20. True Grit 
21. Get Smart 
22. That Thing You Do (I got the extended version from Netflix, and it was super fun.)
23. 500 Days of Summer 
24. Thor
25. Equilibrium 
26. The Village 
27. Newsies 
28. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian 
29. Star Trek 
30. No Country for Old Men (The book was scarier than the movie. But the movie was still good.) 
31. Red (Awesome, awesome movie. I need to own it.) 
32. Two Weeks Notice 
33. Super 8 x2 (Quite a good show. I would recommend it.) 
34. The Incredibles
35. Rescue Dawn
36. Dumb and Dumber (Believe it or not, this was the first time I had watched this movie. And yes, I thought it was funny.)
37. Speed (This movie was way cooler when I was 12.) 
38. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (So. effing. good.)
39. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
40. Windtalkers
41. The Social Network
42. Finding Neverland (I always seem to forget how absolutely perfect this movie is. It is phenomenal, and I love it so, so much.)
43. The A-Team
44. While You Were Sleeping x2
45. Cowboys & Aliens (So much better than I expected.)
46. Wild Target
47. Source Code
48. The Pacifier
49. She's the Man
50. Tangled
51. Hitch
52. Public Enemies
53. G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra (This movie is TERRIBLE. Absolutely terrible. That is two hours of my life that I will never get back.)
54. The Best Two Years 
55. Tron: Legacy
56. Captain America
57. The Lion King (Still as good as it was when I was eight.)
58. Young Frankenstein (A must for Halloween.)
59. What Lies Beneath
60. Warrior (This movie is kind of amazing. I absolutely loved it.)
61. The Joseph Smith movie x2 (I cannot watch this without crying. It isn't possible.)
62. The Dark Knight
63. It's a Wonderful Life
64. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows x2
65. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
66. Return to Me
67. Hard Day's Night

TV SHOWS

1. 24 Season 1
2. Bones Season 5
3. 24 Season 2
4. 24 Season 3
5. That 70s Show Season 1
6. Veronica Mars Season 1
7. Veronica Mars Season 2
8. Veronica Mars Season 3
9. Scrubs Season 1
10. Alias Season 1 
11. Alias Season 2 (The cliffhangers in this show are going to kill me. Seriously.)
12. Alias Season 3 
13. Community Season 2 (I watched it live, so it wasn't all this year, but I figured I'd include it.) 
14. Alias Season 4  
15. Bones Season 6 (Watched live. Oh my gosh, that ending!) 
16. Alias Season 5 (Finally! It felt like this series took forever to finish.) 
17. Glee Season 2 (Watched live.) 
18. Scrubs Season 2 
19. Scrubs Season 3
20. Scrubs Season 4
21. Harper's Island (13 episodes of complete ridiculousness. 32 people die. Gruesome, but somehow also incredibly entertaining.)
22. Scrubs Season 5
23. So You Think You Can Dance Season 8 (watched live)
24. Friday Night Lights Season 1 (This show is totally awesome.)
25. Friday Night Lights Season 2 (I am completely in love with this show. It is absolutely amazing.)
26. Friday Night Lights Season 3
27. Friday Night Lights Season 4
28. The Walking Dead Season 1 (Zombies everywhere!)
29. Friday Night Lights Season 5 (I think this is my favorite TV show ever. I don't know anything that can beat it.)
30. Firefly, including the movie Serenity (I can definitely see why this has such a cult following.)

The Books of 2011

Last year, I decided to start tracking every book I read as a page on this here blog. I really enjoyed it. It allowed me to give my gut reactions to the books, if I felt the need. Then I would go on to goodreads.com to write up my full review. (If you're on Goodreads, look me up! I love sharing book reviews. It's the best.)

I will start tracking the books of 2012 as soon as I finish my current read. I wonder if my new Kindle will make a difference in my total this year. Yeah, probably not.

One thing I feel the need to point out: only 5 of these 35 books were rereads. That is kind of amazing for me. I generally fall back on books that I already know and love when I need something new to read, but this year I was pretty good at finding new books, some of which were simply amazing and will someday fall into that reread category.

So, without further ado, here is the complete list of every book I read during 2011. Is it sad that I wish I had read more than 35 books?

1. The Well of Ascension (Mistborn #2) by Brandon Sanderson
2. The Hero of Ages (Mistborn #3) by Brandon Sanderson (Such a good series! So many good twists and turns. I highly recommend it.)
3. The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking #1) by Patrick Ness
4. The Ask and the Answer (Chaos Walking #2) by Patrick Ness
5. Monsters of Men (Chaos Walking #3) by Patrick Ness (I will gush and gush and gush about this series if you let me. Creatively written with beautiful imagery and ridiculous emotion. I absolutely loved these books.)
6. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (This took me ages to read, but it was a lovely book. I really enjoyed watching Francie Nolan grow up.)
7. Getting the Girl by Markus Zusak (This shows Zusak's personality so well. It's a simple, quick read, but it's got a lot of meaning behind it.) 
8. Truth Will Prevail (The Work and the Glory #3) by Gerald N. Lund (This is a reread because I ran out of new things to read and everything I want to read is currently on hold at the library. Plus, I haven't read this series since I splurged and bought, like, all of them, so I'm working on that in between the new books I read. *End lengthy, unnecessary explanation.) 
9. The Alchemyst (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #1) by Michael Scott
10. These Is My Words by Nancy E. Turner (This book broke my heart, in a very good way.)
11. I Am Not a Serial Killer (John Cleaver #1) by Dan Wells (Pretty creepy book. Definitely not for the faint of heart, but incredibly interesting.) 
12. Mr. Monster (John Cleaver #2) by Dan Wells (Creepier than the first, but also better.)
13. The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag (Flavia de Luce #2) by Alan Bradley 
14. The Name of the Wind (Kingkiller Chronicle Day One) by Patrick Rothfuss (Super long, but really good, after I finally got into it.) 
15. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby (This book was so-so. Nothing spectacular.) 
16. Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson (Another so-so book. I'm ready for something un-put-downable now.) 
17. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (What a beautiful, heart-wrenching, and moving book.) 
18. Chains (Seeds of America #1) by Laurie Halse Anderson (Anderson certainly knows how to create a voice for her characters.) 
19. Where Are the Children? by Mary Higgins Clark (This was okay, though Clark really isn't a great novelist. Storyteller, yes. Novelist, no. There is absolutely no imagery whatsoever.) 
20. The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus #1) by Rick Riordan (Awesome continuation of Percy Jackson. Seriously can't wait for the next book, which I will end up buying.) 
21. Fever by Laurie Halse Anderson (This was probably the most subtly terrifying book I've ever read.)
22. The Wise Man's Fear (Kingkiller Chronicle Day Two) by Patrick Rothfuss (Holy freaking long book, Batman! 994 pages. Whew.)
23. Forge (Seeds of America #2) by Laurie Halse Anderson
24. I Don't Want to Kill You (John Cleaver #3) by Dan Wells (The ending of this book tore at my heart.)
25. Forever (The Wolves of Mercy Falls #3) by Maggie Stiefvater
26. Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites (Tennis Shoes #1) by Chris Heimerdinger
27. Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception (Books of Faerie #1) by Maggie Stiefvater (Yes, this book is about faeries. But it's about the scary, medieval kind, not the Disney, Tinkerbell kind.)
28. Ballad: A Gathering of Faerie (Books of Faerie #2) by Maggie Stiefvater
29. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
30. Tennis Shoes: Gadiantons and the Silver Sword (Tennis Shoes #2) by Chris Heimerdinger
31. Tennis Shoes: Feathered Serpent, Part 1 (Tennis Shoes #3) by Chris Heimerdinger
32. The Underdog by Markus Zusak (Zusak is amazing. I just love his writing style.)
33. Fighting Ruben Wolfe by Markus Zusak (I still love his writing style a whole bunch.)
34. The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus #2) by Rick Riordan (Yay for the return of Percy! Definitely one of my most favorite characters ever.)
35. The New World (Chaos Walking #0.5) by Patrick Ness (This is actually a short story, but I'll include it anyway. Because I can.)