I AM MOVING MY BLOG

Finally, I have found enough time to make my blog just how I want it. unfortunately that means moving it over to Blogger. And changing the url. Here is the link for my new blog:

Musings of an Adventurer

Same thing, just a new look, as they say. Yes, the new blog will still contain my random stream of consciousness and musings. It’s just in a place where I can really build traffic and share my words with more people. Making my blog bigger has always been a goal of mine, and this is just the beginning.

Its kind of scary. I feel a bit like I’m starting completely from scratch again like I did almost two years ago here. To cut down on the feeling I do hope you, my lovely followers, will simply take the 10 seconds to follow the new url. Being that many of you are WordPress users it my be easier if you follow through e-mail when you move over. Either way, I do hope you will check out the new look!

Thanks so much!

-Emma

Fears/ Just Ask

It’s crazy how some the simplest things are out of my comfort zone. Like putting gas in my car and eating lunch at the local high school. Some of the emotion is because I like to joke about my fear of big high schools. Sometimes I joke about certain fears so much they become much bigger than they ever were to begin with. I think that’s what happens with the majority of my fears, actually, with everyone’s fears.

For example, it is a pretty well-known fact among my friends that my two main fears are mold and Johnny Depp. It started out with the fact that I will not eat anything that has the remote possibility of being moldy. The whole “oh don’t worry Honey, we’ll just cut of the moldy part and the rest will be just fine” does not work on me. I am not eating anything that once had mold on it. And blue cheese is nasty. But that dislike morphed into yelps of terror anytime my family members hold out moldy food items to me.

And come on, Johnny Depp is just one creepy actor. But even that has become a much bigger level of creeped-out-ness than Johnny Depp really inspires. Plus that whole thing is weird, because I love Jim Carrey, who is a method actor just like Johnny Depp. Why do I love one and hate the other? Because my brain got hooked on the humor of being scared of Johnny Depp and blew it up to larger proportions.

So yesterday was kind of nerve-wracking for some reason. I finally accomplished the art of putting gasoline in my car. I didn’t spill gas all over my mint corduroys this time. And I walked in and out of the local 5A high school without using the buddy system. And I began calling around finding out which of my preferable jobs are hiring. And I have been working on asking questions.

I know, asking questions shouldn’t be hard, or scary. But it is for me. Let me explain.

A friend of mine used to mention this to me constantly. He noticed that I don’t just ASK. I don’t clarify, I don’t look for answers to some things. Maybe sometimes I don’t want to hear the answer. Or I want to avoid the possible awkwardness that might arise from my asking. Or I think I already know the answer so I just don’t bring it up.

I didn’t completely understand what he meant for a while. Until my dad brought up the very same thing.

My family had been skiing. The resort had this deal where you only pay $5 per person after a certain time. We payed the $5 fee for my little sister, who ended up sitting a bench near the lodge, with her skis off, while the rest of us went down the slopes. As we were loading our skis back into the car, my mom decided she was going to take my sister’s non-used pass back and see if they would give her the 5 bucks back. When my dad told me what she was doing my response was “They aren’t going to give her the money back. Besides, it’s only  5 dollars. It’s pointless to ask.” My dad turned around, looked at me and said,

“It’s worth a try. 5 bucks can still buy you a Subway sandwich, ya know. Emma, you need to learn to just ask. What have you got to lose? I struggle with asking for that sort of thing, too, and it has ended up hurting me. Life is so much better when you learn to get out of your comfort zone, take an extra moment, and ask for the things you want. Like I said, what have you got to lose?”

A few minutes later my mom came back with her $5.

I thought about what my dad said, and how it related to what my friend was trying to teach me. I need to ASK more.

And I need to get rid of my pointless little fears. No matter how small they seem, they are holding me back.

Get rid of fear.

I bought some wonderful things

I bought a typewriter.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (those belong after the sentence above, but I have more than a slight distaste for exclamation points, especially in excess, but those are very well deserved exclamation points, so I shall insert them right where they are)

I bought a prom dress. Ah, I love it. Good thing, cuz prom is this weekend. ah. :)

Now I just need to finish my new blog design. Ugh, I’m stuck.

Just stopping by to say those things. Have a lovely Monday.

-Emma

10 Things to Do When Your Car’s Battery Dies

1. Just find someone to jump it. That’s not that hard. Except when my friends and I found ourselves on the side of the road with a car that wouldn’t start last weekend, after attending the Festival of Colors, we did the dumb thing and didn’t ask someone to just jump the car, until almost two hours had passed…
2. Call someone. This one we did do, and they did send someone to come jump us. But unfortunately there was a whole bunch of traffic on the freeway or something, because it took them forever to get to us.
3. Get food. If you aren’t sure how long you’re going be sitting there, and everyone’s stomach’s are growling, it’s a good idea to find a nice little Mexican restaurant with fantastic bright orange and lime green walls and giant burritos. Plus if you happen to be covered in multicolored chalk like we were, they will have a bathroom where you can at least attempt to clean out your one purple nostril and one yellow nostril.
4. Walk around a little. This is especially lovely if you are stuck in a nice town with big parks and cute little snow cone shacks.
5. Get comfortable. This may involve stretching out across the back seat of the car. If you’re anything like Alex you’ll simply ignore the fact that Trestyn and Emma are sitting there as well. But if you’re going to sit in a car for a long amount of time without actually going anywhere, you may as well do it in comfort.
6. Sing songs. A surprising amount of entertainment can come from listening to two seniors try to sing “Mary had a little lamb” and similar songs in harmony. Especially when they don’t mind if their harmony sounds less like Bohemian Rhapsody and more like a dying duck. Not that they sounded like a dying duck, they were simply closer to that side of the scale, and they knew it.
7. Tell stories. You will have plenty to tell if your cousins are at all like Trestyn’s. Evidently there is a special Sasquatch mating call. And evidently Trestyn doesn’t actually want to mate with Bigfoot, because she refused to demonstrate it for us.
8. Have a tickle fight. Ours was extremely unfair, because it turned out that I was the ONLY ticklish one. Not cool.
9. Talk to random people. People get extremely social when they see a car full of pink, green, and orange people sitting on the side of the road in their immobile mobile. Seriously, random people would not stop talking to us. One kid asked if we were polygamist because there was one boy amongst us four girls, he was joking, but it was still weird. And Alex just had to reply with “Oh yeah, it’s more fun this way.” And one guy just stared at us, until we all started staring right back and he tried to look normal even though we kept staring. Every time we mentioned that we needed someone to jump us, the people talking to us said something about how they were sure we could find someone and then sped away the second the light turned green. That part was the most annoying.
10. Listen to comedy skits. We ended up listening to Tim Hawkins and laughing our heads off on the way home. Over an hour and a half later when we finally got the car started again. We all agreed it was quite an adventure.

So, if your car’s battery dies and you fail to ask someone right off to jump it, keep calm and turn it into an adventure.

For the Love of College Emails

Maybe I should read all of these college emails I keep getting. I really shouldn’t have marked the “send me hundreds of e-mails if you like my test scores” box. My inbox is packed with unopened emails and they all say “Emma, we want you!” Really, I’m flattered that you know my name and want me, but I’m really not interested in reading all of those emails. They are mostly just the same thing over and over again, and most of them don’t even say right off where the heck their campus is even located, now that’s something I would like to know. I prefer getting letters in the mail, because those usually include a picture of the campus. If it looks pretty I read the rest of the postcard, if it looks like nothing but concrete and city lights I throw it away. I know, I shouldn’t judge a school by its cover, but I can’t help it. Most high schools are ugly, I want to go somewhere beautiful for college. Plus I already know where I want to go to college.

Southern Virginia University.

It’s a tiny, private LDS college in a beautiful area. Note, IT’S TINY. Which makes it perfect for me. Okay, I really am working on expanded the amount of people I get an education with, I might go to the local high school next year for photography and nice classes like that. And I have been working on getting used to abhorring amounts of teenagers, by visiting my friends during lunch at the giant high school. I’m getting better. But SVU still sounds like a lovely place.

Anywho, I was just debating whether or not I am ever going to open all of those emails. I opened one… Then I wrote this post.

My Holy Places/ I Know

I just got home from the General Young Women’s Broadcast for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, during which I was challenged to write about my holy places. The places or moments wherein I feel the most ME, the most powerful, the most like a daughter of God who is living her beliefs.

My bedroom.  I finally got around to making my bedroom exactly how I want it. It’s warm and inviting. It’s vintage. It’s beautiful. And when I can just be alone for a while and pick up one of my composition notebooks to write, I feel bliss. I feel like I can do anything with my talent. And I feel so grateful that God blessed me with a love for the written word.

Any place where I don’t feel like I’m not living up to my potential and my mom doesn’t have a reason to think that. I lost my moms trust once. I could never lose her love, or the love of my Heavenly Father, but trust can be lost, and sometimes its hard to get back. I felt lost. There was NOTHING I wanted more than to get my mom’s trust back, but I was too scared to do anything. I was scared to move. Because if I moved in the wrong direction our relationship would be that much father away, and it would be that much harder away. Really, I didn’t even want to leave my house because it was out there that the trust had been lost. Or so I thought. Really the reason the trust was lost was INSIDE ME, because every second I was out in that big scary world, I still was making choices, I was still controlling the trust. And finally I realized that the only way I could earn my mom’s trust back, was to go back out in the world and prove that I could make the right decisions when I wasn’t sitting in my safe house. And my mom let me. She trusted me enough to let me prove that she deserved my trust. So I guess I was really just proving that to myself…

She trust me now. I don’t feel lost. I don’t feel stuck.

Young Women’s. I wish the other Laurel’s in my ward could see what a holy place Young Women’s is, both on Sundays and at our weekday activities. I am starting to become pretty used to being the lone laurel at Wednesday activities. The others don’t come the often. Yes, I don’t have a job, and I don’t play the cello and do point ballet, I don’t have hours of homework anymore. But I do have a testimony of the power of taking time out of your day for the Lord. One of my leader’s shared a quote the other day about the promised blessings that come when you take time out of your busy lives for God and the Gospel. The blessings included more energy, a sharper mind, more talents, even stronger muscles! My point ballerina friend wasn’t there to hear that quote, I wanted her to her it. All I could think was, so she would be better at ballet if she stopped practicing to go to mutual. I think that is so cool.

Any place I write. Writing is my favorite, I just love it. And I for me any place where I feel an itch to write, is a holy place. Any place where you feel drippy with passion, excitement and power because you are just dying to use and share your talents, is one of the most holy places of all.

The Temple. I realized something one day. My goal is to make it back to the Celestial Kingdom, and inside the Temple you can sit in the Celestial Room and experience what it will be like in the Celestial Kingdom. Okay, that’s like sitting in a lovely Italian restaurant and experiencing what it will be like when I go to Italy. Except way better, because everyone knows Italian food here is nothing like Italian food in there. Did you get that? In just a few years I will be able to experience exactly when I am living my entire life for, ANYTIME I WANT. Why doesn’t everyone just sit in the Celestial room constantly?!

Tonight one of the speakers said, “I keep my testimony vibrant by writing it down.” And of course when my brain heard that its was like, “hey! I write things down! And I have a testimony!” So I am going to make my testimony more vibrant, right now.

I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is completely true. I know that my church is the reason I have found complete bliss and joy, and that anyone can feel the same way. I know that I am a Daughter of God, and that my Father in Heaven loves me unconditionally, always. I know that I can always fix my mistakes, and get back on the path I want to be on. I know I have never ending potential, and I know I will live up to that potential with God’s help. I know that if you pray and can receive the hope and inspiration you need. I know that God will always answer our prayers. I know that is never too late to change our direction. I know that there are prophets on the Earth today that receive inspiration from God. I know that the Book of Mormon is a completely true book.

My name is Emma, I’m 16 years old, and I am a Mormon.

Introverted

I am an outgoing introvert. I love my friends, but one of my common phrases is “but I don’t like people….” It’s not really that I don’t like people, sometimes I just don’t like being around them.

Really, three months ago I hardly ever hung out on weekends. People would want me to do something on Fridays and I would have to say no, because I simply didn’t want to. All of my sociability got used up during the week at school and by the weekend I simply didn’t have any more to give. Since then I have improved a couple of friendships to the point where we can do absolutely nothing and still have loads of fun. That helps. Because sometimes its the doing something that pushes me over the edge.

I remember once when I was younger I was playing with a neighbor girl. I wanted so badly to be done playing with people that I excused myself for a moment to beg my dad to say it was time for friends to go home. He didn’t really understand why, but he did it for me.

It’s not uncommon for my mom to ask me “do you want me to say yes?” Because sometimes its awfully nice to say, “sorry, my mom said I can’t come.”

Did you know Audrey Hepburn was also an introvert? I stumbled upon that lovely lovely piece of information today.

“I’m an introvert… I love being by myself, love being outdoors, love taking a long walk with my dogs and looking at the trees, flowers, the sky” -Audrey Hepburn

Source: itsallinthebook.tumblr.com viaEmma on Pinterest

I like her even more now (I didn’t even know that was possible). And I like being an introvert even more now.

Source: pamelalovenyc.tumblr.com viaDottie on Pinterest

Albert Einstein was an introvert, too! He just liked to sit alone, wearing awesome fuzzy slippers, being a genius.

I am an outgoing introvert. This is why coming home was really so lovely. Now my social life isn’t all drained by school. I have enough left to do stuff with people. And I get to sit at home all day doing extremely introverted stuff. Ah, my life is fantastic.

-Emma

To This Day by Shane Koyczan

That is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Not the kind of beauty that makes people stare, but the kind that makes people want to look away, because that beauty brings up memories and emotions that no one wants to posses, though everyone does. Because you are just going along, living your life just like everyone else, when suddenly emotions you don’t want to feel are staring you down. But other people feel those emotions everyday, every minute. And sometimes it’s because of us.

I desperately want to be able to write like that.

My New Adventure

Today is my last full day at my school. I am leaving and going back to homeschooling. It’s going to be fantastic, but that doesn’t mean it’s not hard to leave.

A whole lot of greatness came out of these two school years. A whole lot of friendships and growth.

Leaving means I will get to do a lot of things I have wanted to do for a long time. I can finally make my blog look exactly how I want it to, and I can work on building traffic. I can focus on certain scholarships. I can finish one of my novels. I can read to my heart’s content. I can get a job and save up for my camera. I can go to Italy.

I am still going to college one day, for that will be a fantastic adventure.

School just took everything out of me, and so I didn’t have anything left to do what really matters to me. I don’t want to do chemistry equations when I can read poetry.

Ah, this is my last time writing in Multi-genre writing. This has been a great class. This has been a great school.

I’m simply done with this adventure and ready for a new one.

Thanks to everyone who made my freshie and sophomore years so very fantastic.

-Em

Read ALL The Books

What books should I read? This friday I am going to the library to get a big stack. Then I shall proceed to read them all. I am going to read as many books as possible throughout the course of my life. It’s been far too long since I have picked up multiple books that I didn’t have to read for school. I want to read what I want to read, not what is assigned for homework. What books should I read?