What can you do in 1000 days?

How about fill up five journals?

(The sixth is a work in progress)

I started writing in a journal when I was in seventh grade, but I didn't write every night.

I would usually write if something big happened...but even then I still have entries like this:

Nov. 3, 2006

I haven't written in awhile, but I have excellent news. On June 24, 2006 Logan got married to a girl named Rachelle Farmer. She is so sweet. Then I jabber on for awhile....yadda yadda yadda...He called today and talked to mom for awhile. After she hung up she called Maci and I upstairs and said, "So, do you want to be called Aunt or Auntie?"

So basically I summed up six months in one entry!

In that same journal I started keeping track of how many days in a row I could write. 

I was inspired by President Eyring's talk in General Conference about keeping a journal.

I wrote for 118 days in a row that journal.

The next journal has a lot of drama in it...which I hate to admit.

There were lots of guys involved in this one :P

I made it to day 185 before I fell asleep without writing in my journal.

That's when the real run started. 

1000 days guys. 1000!

That's every single night.

Prayer.

Journal.

Scripture Study.

And it's been amazing.

I have a huge sense of accomplishment whenever I think about it!

And I have no intention of stopping now.

And now I'm going to give you a little glimpse of my last 1000 days.

I'm going to ask the people in my apartment to pick a number between 1 and 1000 and I will tell you what I wrote about that day...if it's not too personal that is.

John: 521

Day 521 I was on my way to State volleyball in my senior year. We had just left Missoula and checked into our ghetto hotel. I expressed how nervous I was to play Nampa Christian at 8:30 the next morning. 

Brian: 887

I failed a quiz in Calculus :P Definitely not my brightest hour...

This was also the night of the Institute dance that Kenna and I dressed up as Greek Goddesses for :D

Mystie: 333

This was the day of my Junior Prom. The first sentence of the entry is, "Okay, so today was pretty much the best day of my life squared!" 

I was pretty sick that day, but I didn't let it stop me from having fun! We picked out clothes at the DI for our dates and went ice blocking down Old Main in Logan. We played Apples to Apples-Walmart style. I don't think I stopped laughing or smiling all day. 

Kenna: 88

This was Lindsay's birthday. I didn't get to spend any time with her though :(

I went on a date with Cecil to Montpelier. We had pizza at Studebaker's Pizza, toured a tabernacle in Paris, Idaho and then he took me to Bear Lake for the first time.

Bracken: 797

This was my mom's birthday. I hadn't bought her a present yet and I felt awful. Then Maci and I went to Alco and found her an awesome present. :) This was also the day I started my blog. 

Derek: 497

This was a pretty boring entry. We played General Conference Bingo in seminary and my team won :) Also, we started the media fast and it was killing me not being able to get on facebook to talk to my boyfriend...oh the drama of a high school senior eh?

Carley (okay, so she wasn't in my apartment....I started having fun and texting people): 500

I was in a bad mood after an early morning volleyball practice and when I got home I found a letter from my mom on my pillow. That letter made my day and it continues to do so. I actually reread that letter tonight. I love my mom!

Lyndsey: 378

I had a long day at work that day. Nothing seemed to go right, but then I started developing my "mom voice" and a kid stopped tantruming and did what I told him to. This was also the day that our van died, so my parents were talking about getting a new car and teaching me to drive a stick :) 

Ryan: 374

This was the first day of summer vacation. I was having another hard day at work. A kid threw a chair at me and when I had him settled down enough to talk to me he said, "I'm just so sick of your crap!" All I could do was laugh.

Maci: 79

This was the day before I got my patriarchal blessing. I wrote down the five things I wanted to learn from my patriarchal blessing. I can't write them down because I was told to tear that paper up, but considering the fact that it was in my journal I didn't. I wrote about how excited I was. 

This was also the day that my family got our keyboard :)

Kyle: 9

This was the last day that I was going to see Cecil for three months. We had a going away party at MaRhea's house and played spoons and BS. Then we went and played frisbee at the park. I was super sad when the day ended!

Jeff: 2

Hoooo boy. I wrote about a dream I had about a friend (that I hoped would someday be more than a friend if you catch my drift). I really don't wanna go into too much detail about the dream....

Jim: 10

This was the day before EFY started.

I got some excellent news from one of my best friends. She had been going through a pretty difficult time and felt like she couldn't go to church. A friend got her all straightened out and now she's stronger than ever! I remember being super ecstatic when I heard the news and it still makes me happy to this day :)

There are some seriously good memories in these pages. From the Osmond's Concert to Washington DC (I have three pages filled up with inside jokes from that one week). From Soda Springs to Pocatello. From absolute 100% joy to heartbreak. Girl's Camp and Youth Conference. Love, notes, words of encouragement, venting...and the list goes on.

If you are not keeping a journal I seriously encourage it. It doesn't take that much time before bed and your posterity will love having a record to look back on. In my eyes, the scriptures are a journal that was passed down from father to son. They wrote their experiences and now we look back on them and learn from them.

1000 days and still going strong. I'll see you all in another 1000!

Deal?

Deal!

Sometimes I really miss GEO

It's the truth! GEO was awesome :)

I picked up a lot of really good habits from that job...and some very interesting ones.

Like this:

Yes, I spent 20 minutes tearing up a piece of paper and throwing it around :)

It was an activity we did with one of the kids

  1) Because he enjoyed it and

  2) Because it taught him that he needed to pick up after himself.

Have you ever tried it? It's actually pretty addicting...

Kyle looks like he thinks I'm the weirdest person in the world in this picture...but he was TOTALLY joining in!

Oh, and to top it all off, we ended the night with The Lion King!

Peace, Love, Joy, and Lion King!

Learning a lesson from my own journal

Every night after I finish writing in my journal I sign it with my signature and an acronym.

P.U.S.H.
I started writing this at the end of my entries when I was in seventh grade when Logan came home from his mission.
He had a wrist band that said it and for some reason it really took an effect on me.

PUSH- Pray Until Something Happens

I guess I wrote this for so long that it just became habit and it almost lost its meaning for me.
Then, the other night, when I wrote those four letters I stopped for a minute and thought,
"How long has it been since I actually prayed UNTIL something happened?"
I pray every night and almost every morning, but I realized that most of the time I will pray for something once and then it might be quite awhile before I pray for it again.

Then I started thinking about each letter individually.
I find that when you do that you find greater meaning in the phrase.
For example:
I know that my Redeemer lives.
I know that my Redeemer lives.
I know that my Redeemer lives.
I know that my Redeemer lives.
I know that my Redeemer lives.

Pray: I have a strong testimony of prayer. I know it works because I have seen its long lasting effects in my life and in the lives of those around me. Prayer IS our direct connection with God. As the quote on the top of my blog says,
"God is anxiously waiting for the chance to answer your prayers and fulfill your dreams. But He can't if we don't pray and He can't if we don't dream. In short, He can't if you don't believe."

Until: This is the word that I found the greatest meaning in. Until: up to the time that or when. Until to me means never giving up. Taking your time. Being patient. Trusting in the Lord's timing. Always and forever.

Something: Notice this says something not what you want to happen. As Brad Paisley says, "Make no mistake, every prayer you pray gets answered even though sometimes the answer is no."
It's tough to swallow, but sometimes the something we get answered with is the exact thing we DIDN'T want. So always be on the lookout for something, not necessarily the thing.

Happens: It will happen. Your prayer will get answered...you just have to wait sometimes.

Who would have known that I would get such a spiritual feast from something that I've seen hundreds of times?

Gosh I love my journal :)

Forgiveness

We hear it all the time, "Forgive and forget."
It's practically pounded into our heads throughout our growing up years.
So why is it that most of us have such a hard time of it?

Sometimes forgiving people is the hardest thing we ever have to do.
I know I've been the biggest hypocrite at times, but I've been trying to do better.
The weird part about forgiveness is...sometimes the other person isn't the hardest person to forgive.
It's YOURSELF.
Why is that??? I wish I had the answer, but unfortunately I don't.
All I know is that sometimes we have to try our hardest to accept what we've done and leave the rest up to the only man who truly knows what we're going through.

And the crappy part about this whole process in my life right now is that I'm not the one handing out the forgiveness.
I hurt someone and I'm frantically back-pedalling to try and make things right.
I found this quote today:
"You can't undo anything you've already done, but you can face up to it. You can tell the truth. You can seek forgiveness. And then let God do the rest."
Gosh, ain't that the truth. I feel awful about the way I've acted recently,
but I know I can't undo what I've already done.
The damage is done.
The die is cast.
You can't un-ring a bell.

No one can make a new beginning, but you can start now and make a new ending.

That's what I'm trying to do. I'm starting today and making a better me.
I'm going to stop saying and doing hurtful things.
I'm going to strive to be happy. No matter what.
And I'm going to forgive like the Savior commanded us to:
"Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another;for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin.
I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.
And ye ought to say in your hearts-let God judge between me and thee, and reward thee according to thy deeds."


I hope that one day the person I've hurt will be able to forgive me, but until then, a very good friend of mine said, "You've done all that you can do and your conscience is clear. There's nothing more you can do, right?"

Right.

Valentines Shmalentines

Let me just start off by saying something ironic.

The day set aside to celebrate LOVE is the one I HATE the most.

And I know what you're all thinking.

"Emma-Leigh obviously didn't have a valentine!"

...Which is true, but it's not the reason I hate Valentine's Day.

Why is it that we have to have a special day set aside to tell everyone we love them?

Shouldn't we do that anyway?

I think that you should tell people you love them EVERY DAY.

And strive to make loved ones happy EVERY DAY.

Tell people how much they mean to you EVERY DAY.

I mean flowers and chocolate are nice...but they are only temporary.

I want an ETERNAL Valentine's Day...and more importantly, an ETERNAL Valentine.

One who will look me in the eye EVERY DAY and say he loves me. ♥

One who will NEVER leave me. ♥

One who will watch a Suns game with me and keep the negative comments to a minimum. ♥

One who will help me do the dishes. ♥

One who is willing to do nothing and be satisfied, just as long as he's with me. ♥

Does this man exist?

Eh....maybe. I'm probably going to have to fudge a little on the Suns and dishes.

This man is a genius!

A musical genius!

I went to the Idaho State Symphony last night and was totally blown away.

The first piece was written by a professor here at ISU.

It's called Districts of Metal Near Water...which I thought was a little weird, but whatever.

It started out with the percussion imitating the rain. And it was AWESOME!

It literally sounded just like we were standing in the middle of a rainstorm. 

This piece would get really quiet and then boom with thunder and waves and all sorts of amazing things.

The next piece was definitely not as eventful as the first. I found it boring :P

And then I got to experience Vivaldi's Four Seasons for the first time. 

Aaron Berofsky (pictured above) was the guest soloist and I don't think I've ever seen anybody who is more amazing at the violin as he is.

He had the entire thing memorized and I don't think I could ever make any violin make the gorgeous sounds that he was making...it was magical!

Here's a funny thing that happened last night...

After the closing notes of Summer rang out everyone rose to their feet and applauded. 

They did an amazing job, there's no doubting that...but that was only half of this piece!

The conductor turned around and motioned for everyone to sit.

"We're only at September 2nd!" he said. 

After a pause of about 10 seconds Matthew said, "Ooooh, Four Seasons. I get it!" Or something like that.

Am I Crazy?...Maybe a little

So basically it's FREEZING outside today. All I wanted when I got home was a nice warm bowl of Spaghettio's (by the way mom, I'm officially out). 

I had them, they warmed me up, and I was satisfied.

Then I went to work.

Then work got cancelled when I was already on the other side of town.

Then I found a Free Jamba Juice coupon in my pocket....

And the rest is history.

I'm sitting her sipping on my delicious Caribbean Passion smoothie while wearing a coat because guess what!

IT'S STILL FREEZING!