I'm sure they don't even know that my blog exists, but I felt so clever when I combined gnome and the Spanish word for name, "nombre," for my web address.
And now, there's some Hispanic gnome masquerading under that name.
How lame. What if I wanted to make a "Gnombre" someday? Hm?
Now it'll look like I stole the name from them. Even though I had it way before!
It's not like I have any ownership of the name, but I'm sad... Haha.
Imma go muffle my sorrows with some ice cream. Kbye!
Continued perfecting a song I'm learning on the guitar.
Ran five miles.
Forgot I had work.
Came dreadfully close to passing out after I actually made it to work.
Received packages in the mail.
Listened to jazz music.
Looked forward to tomorrow.
But even though some of my adventures were not super fun, it was a good day. :)
For instance:
My voice teacher said she can hear my voice getting better (it was all icky and reflux-y and fail)!
I discovered the Logan River Trail - guess where I'll be running forever?
I can play my current favorite song on the guitar. :) Which is this -
And here's a cover of it that I liked. :)
I'm playing it at a program my building is doing tomorrow - Ping Pong and Pancakes. Usually we just eat pancakes and play ping pong, but tomorrow night we're Unplugged. That's right. Acoustic goodness. I'll make people take videos or something and hopefully post stuff here!
On a related note - one of the packages I got was a guitar strap!
Isn't it pretty? I'm in love.
And last but not least, Hunger Games comes out tomorrow!
I'm dressing up and it's gonna be the bomb diggity.
Yesterday marked the five-year anniversary of my Grandma McMullin's passing after several years of battling with cancer.
What a horrible disease. Not only does it slowly and painfully take its toll on the afflicted, but it slowly and painful affects the people that love that person.
It was hard to watch her go. I remember going to visit her one day near the end of her life. We walked into the living room, where she lay in her hospice bed, and said hello to her. She returned the greeting, but then said, "I should probably be saying goodbye, shouldn't I?"
Needless to say, all of the Anjewierden women commenced sobbing uncontrollably.
My Grandma Florence was an incredible woman. She loved and served everyone that she knew as best she could, and it was hard for her when the tables were turned and we were serving her. I think that she felt out of her element.
She always knew just what to say to make bruises or hurt feelings feel better. You could feel her love for you in the way she treated you and spoke to you. She was selfless in every way.
It's not great quality, but I love it nonetheless! One of the last family pictures with her.
I think about her often. She was an important part of my life, and I miss her.
However.
I know that I will see her again.
Like I talked about in this post, I am so grateful for my knowledge of forever families.
I am beyond thankful to know that, though she's not physically with me now, she can be with me spiritually, and, one day, I will be able to see and talk to her once more.
Normally my music taste is centered around mellow indie rock with beautiful lyrics.
Or indie rock without any words at all...
Or basically just hipster music.
However, sometimes a song outside of those boundaries catches my attention somehow.
With these songs, my taste becomes basically just hipster music with some random mismatched stuff mixed in.
Anyway, maybe it's free on iTunes, or it's in a movie, or I hear it on a commercial, but no matter how I find it, it's usually either a) utterly beautiful, b) lyrically ingenious, or c) both.
Though it's almost never county, so this is kind of unique.
(Next thing you know I'll be posting heavy metal, or hip hop, or rap, or something else totally out of my character. ;) )
I think that this song falls into both categories.
It's all over the radio, so lots of y'all have probably heard it, but now I want you to analyze it.
I think that not only is it pretty, but it has a wonderful message - one that most celebrities/popular musical artists don't understand and/or care about.
The lyrics to this song more or less explain some of my standards. Which is neat to me!
Enjoy it. Tell me what you think after reading the lyrics more carefully. :)
I also really like the music video.
Just a Kiss
Lady Antebellum
Lying here with you so close to me
It's hard to fight these feelings when it feels so hard to breathe Caught up in this moment Caught up in your smile
I've never opened up to anyone So hard to hold back when I'm holding you in my arms We don't need to rush this Let's just take it slow
Just a kiss on your lips in the moonlight Just a touch of the fire burning so bright No I don't want to mess this thing up I don't want to push too far Just a shot in the dark that you just might Be the one I've been waiting for my whole life So baby I'm alright, with just a kiss goodnight
I know that if we give this a little time It'll only bring us closer to the love we wanna find It's never felt so real, no it's never felt so right
Just a kiss on your lips in the moonlight Just a touch of the fire burning so bright No I don't want to mess this thing up I don't want to push too far Just a shot in the dark that you just might Be the one I've been waiting for my whole life So baby I'm alright, with just a kiss goodnight
No I don't want to say goodnight I know it's time to leave, but you'll be in my dreams
Tonight Tonight Tonight
Just a kiss on your lips in the moonlight Just a touch of the fire burning so bright No I don't want to mess this thing up I don't want to push too far Just a shot in the dark that you just might Be the one I've been waiting for my whole life So baby I'm alright, oh, let's do this right, with just a kiss goodnight With a kiss goodnight Kiss goodnight
Nerdy "yup, Kira's a stereotypical girl" moment - Someday I hope that this will be my "song" with someone, because it's adorable...
Nearly every photo I have taken in the last five years is gone.
Literally thousands of photos - gone forever.
Family trips (church history trip, California, Tennessee...), school events, dates, hangouts with friends, other special memories...
I feel like part of me died. Which is super dramatic, but there's a reason that I take so many pictures.
I love to look back at them. I love to remember the way that I was feeling when it was taken, or what beauty inspired me to take it...
Even though most of my brain wants to just explode and cry and remember everything that's gone and be sad, I've decided that this just means that I get a fresh start.
I get to begin again, and create a whole new set of memories.
And the old ones? I can be grateful for the few that I was able to salvage from Facebook and various other places.
I'm making it a goal right at this very moment to get back to the places I lost all my pictures from. Several national parks, Tennessee, NYC... It'll happen!
Well, I grabbed this from Katherine, but we're going to pretend that I found it all on my own and am going to say almost precisely what she said about it. :)
One day my lovely friends Minden and Andrew decided it would be super cool to grab their guitars and go around singing and playing randomness all over campus.
Then they decided to share this super cool-ness with my friend Tyler and me.
They recruited us and we set out to do the super cool.
Guess what?
It worked.
Look, documentation!
My friends are so beautiful. Just look at them.
We want to make this a tradition. It'd be so cool, right?!
We should come up with a name for our fake band-type awesome deal.... :)
Ideas?
I have not always been a fan of Stake Conference*.
In fact, I used to quite despise it. Two hours in the same room, with no break time to get up and walk around?
Ick.
This year, though, I had a change of heart. We had our first Stake Conference for my YSA** stake in October.
It was amazing! I had several friends who missed it and I was just sad for them because it was so great and they missed out on several wonderful messages.
Then, this past weekend, it came 'round again, and, though some roommates and friends groaned about it, I was actually excited!
I had lots of questions about things that I was going through, and, though I had been praying about them, I was still unsure of some of the answers. Guess what?
Every. Single. Question.
Answered.
The biggest one, I think, had to do with something I have really been struggling with lately.
Being around incredibly talented musicians all the time tends to make me reflect on my own talents. And... Not in a good way. Things like - "I've played the piano for 14 years. Why can't I play like [insert name here]?" or "I can't sing like [insert name here] can..." or "I'll never be able to play the guitar like [insert name here]."
It's rather horrible, actually. I degrade my self and put myself down and focus on how everyone else is better than me at everything. I have struggled with this basically since the beginning of the school year - it's just too easy to feel inadequate around such incredible people.
Well, about a month ago, I was thinking about it and realized the love that my Savior has for me.
He suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane for my sins and afflictions, and then he died on the cross - for everyone, but for everyone individually. That means that he did it for me, individually.
When I realized that, I remember thinking, "If he loves me enough to do all of that for me, I ought to give myself a chance."
I thought that I had my answer there, but I continued putting myself down and feeling quite inadequate. A lot.
Fast forward to Stake Conference now. I am sitting in our Saturday night meeting, listening to one of our lovely leaders speak, when I hear him say something along the lines of:
"God loves all of His children. He loves you. He wants you to realize that you are enough."
And there it was, like a ton a bricks. All I could think about for the rest of the meeting was how everything that everyone else said supported that. I was so incredibly happy.
I am enough.
Though it is sometimes hard, we need to remember that life is not a competition.
It is not about being better, or even "as good as" other people.
In His sight, we are all equal.
We are all enough.
Anyway, moral of the story? Stake Conference is the bomb.com and I loooove it. Yup. :)
Peaaaace.
*Stake Conference is an LDS (Mormon) meeting that is held twice a year in individual stakes, which are made up of wards, which are made up people in a certain area. This is not the same as General Conference, though that is in a few weeks, and I love it. :)
