2011...

This year has had lots of ups and just a few downs thrown at me. All in all, I feel like 2011 was a pretty good year for me.

January-

• I started working at Seasons of Hope on January 5. It has been a hectic year (sometimes it feels like a lot more than that) but it has been a great learning experience.
• Linz had her baby shower on January 8 :)
• Lyndsey moved into the apartment on January 9. She's become a very good friend.
• "Can you make it through today? Because that's all you have to do today." ~Quote from a fireside I really enjoyed.
• "God expects you to have enough faith and determination and enough trust in Him to keep moving, keep living, keep rejoicing. In fact, He expects you not simply to face the future (that sounds pretty grim and stoic); He expects you to embrace and shape the future-to love it and rejoice in it and delight in your opportunities. God is anxiously waiting for the change to answer your prayers and fulfill your dreams, just as He always has. But He can't if you don't pray, and He can't if you don't dream. In short, He can't if you don't believe." ~Jeffrey R. Holland Quote given to me by Ryan
• My roommate, Megan, turned 18 on the 24 :)
• I taught the Sunday School lesson for the first time

February- 

• I met someone who changed my life.
• I had my heart broken, which sucked, but it was all for the better.
• "There is no room in the heart of a Latter-Day Saint for bitterness, for unkindness, for animosity towards any other of the sons and daughters of God." ~Quote that changed the way I felt towards someone who had done me wrong.
• Saw the ISU Symphony play the Four Seasons. It was amazing!
• My little sweet niece Phoebe turned 2!
• Lindsay had sweet little G-baby (Greysen...we called him G-baby forever because Ronnie wouldn't just let Linz win the name battle haha) on the 22nd, the day before my birthday :)
• I turned 19 on the 23rd and went to IF to see my brand new little nephew.
• We found out that Nate and Rebecca were expecting a baby in a scary way. We thought she was miscarrying, but everything turned out fine.
• Brendan and Witney got engaged (originally thought it was in April, but I was wrong)

March-

• I was called to be the Ward Bulletin Specialist. Probably my favorite calling to date.
• On March 7th Mom and Dad celebrated 30 years together!
• Elder C Scott Grow spoke at a fireside.
• On March 14 (3-14) I helped Kyle make 11 pies to celebrate Pi day.

• "Sometimes you have to be patient and let things happen." ~Brother Packer

April-

• Watched General Conference. It was a very healing time.
• Did a presentation for my GenChem lab at an elementary school about density. The kids seemed to really enjoy it and I felt like I could finally breathe when it was over.
• Pulled my hamstring playing volleyball...so not fun!

May-

• Greysen was blessed on May 1st.
• Osama Bin Laden was killed. I remember writing letters to soldiers in 4th grade about it. It's still hard to believe it finally happened.
• I started working with a wonderfully spectacular little boy. He wormed his way into my heart. I love him!
• Logan got a job :)
• I surprised Mom by going home for Mother's Day (I may or may not have fallen down the stairs.
• Baby Isaac was born on May 14. (Mother pointed out to me that I had the 15 written down originally. Simple typo, easily fixed)

June-

• I was called as the Relief Society Meetings Coordinator and released from the making the bulletin.
• I started observing at Ed Snell's Pharmacy. These guys make me so happy that Shaver's never called me back.
• Got whacked in the knee by a puck in floor hockey. Man I love floor hockey :)
• Mystie and John got engaged.
• I replaced a cup that my dad had in my childhood. Everyone thought it was awesome.

• I got recognized for my work as a DT :)
• I went with the Seyfried's to Star Valley to see Tyson, a friend I met in Washington DC when I was a Sophomore. He had just come home from his mission.

July-

• Went to Idaho Falls to see the fireworks with some good friends.
• Isaac was blessed on July 10th.
• Gwen also turned 4 on the 10th. I still can't believe how fast time has gone!
• Harry Potter 7 pt 2 came out on the 15th signaling the official end of my childhood...or at least that's what it felt like.
• I officially became a "Pharmacy Technician in Training"
• Tyson came to Soda for a visit and we got eaten alive by mosquitos. I feel like we still had fun anyway.
• My mommy turned *mumble mumble mumble* on July 31st!

August-

• I threw a boomarang for the first time! Super cool. I super stink at it too...
• The new roommates moved in.
• On August 12th Mystie and John got married.
• I worked with my favorite client for the last time before he pulled services. It was depressing.
• Classes started. OChem, A&P, Physics, and Intro to Lit.

September-

• Another roommate (Sarah) turned 18.
• I got an A on my first OChem test :)
• Rebecca had her baby shower in Idaho Falls.
• I volunteered at Brooklyn's Playground, a playground in Poky built with special needs children in mind. (I mostly helped with cleanup while other people built)

October-

• Hyrum was born on October 8 (Can you believe it? 3 baby boys in one year for my family)
• I went to Aberdeen to watch Maci play volleyball. Maci was really surprised.

• My dad had a birthday on the 18th.
• A friend of mine passed away. Still kind of hard to accept that she won't be in OChem anymore.
• Halloween party! I went as Celia from Monsters, Inc. but Ryan Marcum was the only one to guess what I was correctly.

November-

• I celebrated an early Thanksgiving with a client...well, actually I watched the kids and ate downstairs while everyone else ate upstairs.
• "We are the clay, and thou our potter, and we are all the world of thy hand." Isaiah 64:8
• I was stood up for the first time. To be honest, I was relieved.
• I met Hyrum for the first time. He is the cutest little red head in the world!
• Got pink eye and the flu :( Stupid pink eye didn't go away forever!

December-

• Finals almost killed me! But overall I was pleased with the grades I received.
• Maci turned 17! 
• Hyrum was blessed on the 23rd.
• Christmas was wonderful and hectic and everything I had hoped for. Christmas is a great time of year :)

Yes, I would definitely say that 2011 had more ups than downs. 

Here's to an even happier 2012!!

Semester Outcome...

At the beginning of the semester I made some predictions about the classes I was taking, so I'm going to see how right or how wrong my predictions were :

Class I will love the most:
I predicted I would love Anat and Phys the most, however, I surprised myself and basically fell in love with Organic Chemistry of all things!

Class I will hate the most:
I hit the nail right on the head when I predicted I would hate Physics. Seriously, ask anyone who is even slightly acquainted with me and they will be able to tell you just how much I hated it.

Class I will study the most for:
I predicted Anat and Phys and OChem, but really I didn't study that much for A&P. OChem was another story, I definitely studied for that one!

Best Class (in terms of grades):
I predicted A&P...I am pretty sure if I knew the exact percentages that would be correct, but I ended up with A's in A&P, OChem lab, and Intro to Lit.

Worst Class (in terms of grades):
I predicted OChem would be my worst grade, but it may not have been. I know I got a B in Physics as well, but I don't know the percentage. I think I did better in OChem than I did in Physics.

Number of mental breakdowns:
I predicted I would have 2 and possibly 3, but I only remember crying on account of schoolwork once. Stupid stupid Physics.

All in all, this wasn't a bad semester. I am actually looking forward to OChem next semester and best of all  No Physics!!


I am only in 3 classes next semester (unless you count labs...then I'm in 6). General Microbiology, Organic Chemistry, and Anatomy and Physiology. We'll see how this goes...

17 years ago today...

My little sister was born.

Seriously though, where have the years gone? Maci pointed out to me last night that in February she is going to be Mom and Dad's only child under 20! *shudders* It's so weird to think that I am going to step out of my teen years in just a couple short months.

Here are a few things that I love about Maci:

Maci has always been my best friend even though we were bitter enemies at times.

She seriously gets more gorgeous with each passing day, which makes me more and more certain that she will be married before me haha (I don't love that so much actually...)

She says it like it is. She is the one who finally made me realize that I needed to move on after a breakup. She took me by the shoulders, sat me down (so she could look me in the eye haha shorty), and said, "You can't spend all your time thinking about him! He can't determine the rest of the decisions you make for the rest of your life! Move. On."

She is a cookie maestro. I envy her ability to make cookies...I try, but they just never measure up.

Even though we have different interests we still have those things that we can laugh at for hours (Boy Meets World quotes are the latest)

She has this personality that just makes me laugh.

Those random times when we seriously just laugh at anything and everything and everyone looks at us like we're absolutely insane.

She taught herself to play the piano. She's no Beethoven, but she's teaching herself to play some hymns, which is something I could never do.

I can talk to her at any time of the day or night.

I could go on and on and on, but I will stop now so I can go prepare my thought for ward prayer tonight.

I love you Maci Lynn Owen! I hope you know that the memory I have of walking out of the church on December 18, 1994 is one of the fondest I have even though it is faint. You are my best friend and I am so glad that you chose my family :)

My Eternal Family

My home teachers asked me the other day what I am most thankful for in the gospel.
Without thinking I said that I can be with my family for eternity.
As these words left my mouth I had some words come to mind that overwhelmed me with happiness and joy:
"You will never go another day in all of eternity without your family."
Oh it is such a comfort to be sealed to them and to know that I can be with these amazing people that I love like nothing else forever and ever and ever.

The gospel is true, folks. I can't say it loud enough or with enough feeling.

We love each other.

We support each other.

We cheer each other on.

We talk to each other.

We are best friends.

What I did to deserve to be in such am amazing family, I don't know.

But I am forever and eternally grateful for whatever it was.

*Oh man, here come the water works.*

Is it ridiculous that I make myself cry just thinking about how much I love my family?

Through my eyes....

I really can't see much.

The day after Thanksgiving I got pink eye, so I was banished to the horrible abomination known as GLASSES.
I hate glasses. So so much.
I guess it wouldn't be so bad if these glasses were up to prescription, but they're at least two prescriptions old, which makes it very difficult to see anything at all.
The Monday after Thanksgiving I woke up with no more goopy discharge in either of my eyes and they were WHITE. Oh what a beautiful thing.
I wore my contacts that day, but I guess I still had some residual bacteria clogging up my conjunctiva because that night my eye flared up again.
I seriously felt like crying just knowing that I was going to have to go without my contacts for longer than just a few days.

I went to the Student Health Center because Mom gave me some pink eye medication that was...well, it was over 20 years old.
As a future pharmacist (hopefully!) I was appalled that it was even still in the house, but I was so desperate that I used it a few times.
Anyway, the PA prescribed me some eye drops and they cleared up all the gross goop in my eyes (notice the plural there. Yes, that stupid pink eye spread to my other eye AGAIN!) within a couple days, but I noticed that my eye was still pink.

I kept using the eye drops hoping that it would eventually clear up the redness, but it was no use.
I was paranoid about putting my contacts back in until everything was absolutely ok, so I went back to Student Health and after the doctor shone a light in my eyes for like an eternity and put these numbing drops in my eyes that made my eyelid so numb I couldn't control whether I was holding my eyes open or closed, I had another prescription for Prednisolone Acetate, a steroid that he hoped would clear up the redness. He says that I'm having some sort of adverse reaction to to Polymyxin...

To be honest, I don't think so. Here's my theory.
I CAN'T SEE!
No matter how close I sit to the front of the room in OChem or Physics, I have to strain my eyes really hard to see the board.
Does anyone know how difficult it is to learn Retrosynthesis and synthesis when you can't see the board?
Is it at all possible that my eyes are just tired from straining themselves all day every day for over a week?
The doctor told me that I should check back in with the PA today to make sure the steroids are doing what they want them to. Otherwise I'll have to go to an Optometrist.

To heck with it, my contacts are going in tomorrow.
The worst that can happen is I'll get pink eye again right?
Seems to me that the Polymyxin I have should clear that up if it happens...
Also, I'm so over the Prenisolone. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth :P

Sorry about all the complaints...I needed to let my feelings out.

Gratitude #26

I am grateful for pretty things.
Let's face it, my apartment is dull, so when anything pretty gets hung up it's all any of us can look at.

Here are my latest endeavors:

This so doesn't look as good with the flash, but it's blurry without it.

This is what I did while everyone else was at church on Sunday. 

I was feeling way too sick to be around people.

I strung some lights at the upper part of the window and then tied an ornament to the end of a string and strung some glitter covered styrofoam balls that I found at Sierra's on it.

After that I hung them from the window bar thing :)

I made this wreath over break. 

I used some foam pipe covering to make the circle and duct taped the ends together

After that I hot glued ornaments to it. It's not perfect and I honestly think I could use some more small ornaments to fill in gaps, but it looks pretty good from a distance ;)

Also, I love this area I live in.

When my team went to DC my sophomore year we all missed the mountains and cheered when we flew over them on our way home. 

There is certainly no greater beauty than God's creations, am I right?

Gratitude #25

You know those days when your pink eye comes back (boo) and then you go to Student Health and they give you eye drops that make everything better?

I'm grateful for that!

This is the chemical structure of my eye drops :)

I find this super interesting.

....Yeah, go ahead and say it. I'm a nerd.

Yay eye drops!