Soundtrack of My Movie

Awhile ago I told a friend I would send him a CD of my current favorite songs. I have dubbed these songs "The Soundtrack of My Movie". I of course would have to make my acting debut is the movie. I am unable to send the CD because I can't figure out how to burn them to a disc.

So, with most things in my life, they don't become favorites for no reason. Some of the songs I just like because they just make me smile, but some remind me of situations that were one of the following:

1. So happy I could scream.
2. Remind me of my goals and dreams.
3. Were painful, but a great learning experience.
4. Remind me of days gone by.

Enjoy! (song title, artist, album)

1. Modern Nature, Sondre Lerche, Dan in Real Life
2. The Way I am, Ingrid Michaelson, Girls and Boys
3. Falling In Love At a Coffee Shop, Landon Pigg, Falling In Love At A Coffee Shop
4. Not Ready To Make Nice, Dixie Chicks, Taking The Long Way,
5. Vindicated, Dashboard Confessional, Spider-Man 2
6. Viva la Vida, Coldplay, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends,
7. We Are Going To Be Friends, The White Stripes, White Blood Cells
8. We're Going To Be Friends, Jack Johnson, Curious George
9. I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself, The White Stripes, Elephant
10. Does That Make Me Crazy, Gnarls Barkley
11. Fake It, Seether, Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces
12. Look What You've Done, Jet, Get Born
13. Suddenly I See, KT Tunstall, Eye to the Telescope
14. Little Wonders, Rob Thomas, Meet The Robinsons
15. Chasing Cars, Snow Patrol, Eyes Open
16. Best of Me, Chrisette Michele, I Am
17. Cold December, Matt Costa, Songs We Sing
18. Vulnerable, Secondhand Serenade, Awake
19. Realize, Colbie Caillat, Coco
20. Everything, Michael Buble, Everything
21. Blinded, Third Eye Blind, Third Eye Blind: A Collection
22. Everything Changes, Staind, Chapter V
23. Hey There Delilah, Plain White T's, All That We Needed
24. Lost, Michael Buble, Call Me Irresponsible

3 Things

3 things that made me happy today

1. The preparedness enrichment. It was great! All the speakers were great and I love to always hear Sister Hansen speak.
2. Hearing David accuse me of stealing Salty for the 20th time.
3. Getting 3 admissions from T.Russ about how awesome I am. It's about time you admitted it now just don't ever forget it.

Heard On The Radio

I heard this on NPR this evening and I want to ponder it further. I thought I would share in case it made anyone else think.

"If you don't know where you are going then any road will take you there."

Drop By Drop

Drop by drop
My bucket is filled.

Even though I worked yesterday and only heard snippets of conference and only was able to watch today's sessions of Conference I can fill my spiritual bucket filling.

As I have gotten older I realize more and more that specific prayers are answered during conference. Words of the Apostles and Prophet are sometimes spoken just for my heart, at least that's how I feel.

I have renewed resolve and renewed strength.
I want to show more kindness and more love.
I want, even more, to live so that my life reflects my deepest and purest beliefs.

I can't wait to listen to the talks again.
I can't wait to read and study them.

It has been a great weekend.

All About Me!

I found these questions on Jill's blog and since I want to be like her, I am copying!

Last Movie I Saw In A Movie Theater? Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (LAME!)
What Book Are You Reading? The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon (but I just finished Eragon last night)
Favorite Board Game? Settlers of Catan or Scrabble (I always kick Joe's trash at Scrabble!)
Favorite Magazine? Anything that gives me ideas for my current home, future home, or just creative stuff.
Favorite Smells? Red Delicious by DKNY and Lauren Style by Ralph Lauren
Favorite Sounds? Crickets at night (they remind me of Grandma and Grandpa Swasey)
Worst Feeling In The World? Loneliness and guilt
First Thing You Think of When You Wake? Wow! I really have to go to the bathroom
Favorite Fast Food Place? Paradise Bakery
Future Child’s Name? Girl: Maude, Myra, Phoebe Boy: Benjamin David
Finish This Statement—“If I Had a Lot of Money,” I would help family, go to the school I really want to get my MBA, travel, and do lots and lots of volunteer work.
Do You Drive Fast? Yes.
Favorite place you have visited? Paris, Xiahu, Cinque Terra, New York
Storms—cool or scary? Cool as long as I don't have to drive in them.
What Was Your First Car? 1978 Ford Fairmont. I had to have pillows behind me so I could sit up straight. I hated this car....
Favorite Drink? Water, and after that I would say Fresca (any flavor)
Finish This Statement—“If I Had the Time, I Would…” take all the art classes I could, sew sew sew, Travel for months at a time, spend time studying the Gospel, Work out for hours each day, and spend more time with family
Do You Eat the Stems on Broccoli? Yes
If You could Dye your Hair Any Other Color, What Would It Be? dark brown
Name All the Different Cities In Which You Have Lived. North Salt Lake, UT, Ephraim, UT, Urumuqi, China, Logan, UT, Holladay, UT. (Wow, I need to expand my horizon's a bit more...)
Favorite Sport to Watch? Hockey, Soccer, Football...really, pretty much anything as long as I am there in person. I do not like watching sports on TV.
What’s Under Your Bed? 2 boxes of crafty type stuff, dust bunnies, and a sock and shoe.
Would You Like to Be Born As Yourself Again? Yes, of course.
Morning Person or Night Owl? Morning Person
Over Easy or Sunny Side Up? I don't really like eggs to much. If I am cooking them scrambled, if I order them at a restaurant then sunny side up with toast.
Favorite Place to Relax? Top 3: Anywhere I can shop but that also inspires my creative side, chatting with family or friends, and I like being outside in nature with a book.
Favorite Ice Cream Flavor? Rocky Road

Read Read Read

So, if you know me you know I love to read. Apparently, I just like to read books that aren't listed below. I only italicized the ones that I know right now I wanted to read. I will have to read descriptions of the other books to see if I would be interested.

Take a look at the list and see how you do and if all of your favorite books are considered in the Top 100 The National Endowment for the arts estimates that the average adult has read only 6 of the top 100 books..How about you?

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Star the books you LOVE.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen*
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling *
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee*
6 The Bible*
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy*
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (I will not be reading this. I did NOT like Lord of the Rings.)
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald*
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy*
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis*
34 Emma - Jane Austen*
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen*
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis*
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini*
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden*
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (Angels and Demons is much better)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery*
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon*
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck*
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett*
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White*
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince- Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Disney Monopoly

Sunday night my roommates are spending quality time together. I accidentally knock the money tray on the floor and Disney dollars go everywhere. The banker (Tricky Nicky) says the following:

"If anyone pockets any of the money while we are picking it up you will have to go directly to jail. Wait, You will have to go to jail with DUMBO and you know what he is like!"

We laughed and laughed. Who knew Disney Monopoly could be so funny.

I guess you had to be there.

My Newest Purchase

This is my newest decor purchase. I have been wanting something similar for so long. I added the pearls, I may take them off and add a ribbon around the middle. It is rather girlie and I love it.

3 Things

3 things that made me happy in the last 24 hours:

1. RS Presidency meeting. Seriously these girls are amazing and make me laugh.
2. Getting up early, and I mean butt crack of dawn early.
3. Laughing at work.

1 thing that made me sad...

1. Not getting the FAVORITE THINGS list from JL.

Who Am I Really?

When I strip away all the pomp and circumstance, who am I? When I take of my mask what is left? Who is the real me?

I have been thinking about this a lot over the last couple of weeks (thanks rendezvous) and asking some people to describe me in 3 words...no holds bar.

consistent, forgiving
bitter, happy
alive, negative
anxious, idealistic
adventurous, consumed
caring, stubborn, intelligent

These are some of the words that have been used to describe me. I would agree that some could describe me all the time and some would only describe me at certain points in my life. There are some I don't ever want to be remembered about me and some I hope describe my whole life.

Hearing some of the responses made me shudder and want to cry, while others made me laugh and smile, and still others made me ponder. The words reminded me of times I treasure and times I regret.

But what words describe the real me? Do any of the above words do this? The people who offered these words, I wonder if they have seen the real me or just the me who I want them to see...or the me they want me to be?

I used to hate mixing people from different areas of my life. It made me completely uncomfortable. I did not want my family and friends mixing, my work friends or school friends definitely mixing was a no no. But now I am do not care as much. My family has met more of my friends, I am okay with mixing friends from church and friends that I met through "FRED". I think this is because I am more and more comfortable being me and being on the journey to becoming the best me.

So, what words do I pick to describe my life? You will just have to wait and see...or maybe ask me another time. But I will be sure to keep these words close to remind me of the me I am striving to be.