It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Can I just say how much I LOVE Christmas? Seriously. It's the best. Right after we have a day of Thanksgiving and are able to think about all the things we're grateful for, then we have a whole SEASON of giving to give to loved ones and to people who are in need. We also get to celebrate Christ's birth spend much-needed time with our families.

This year, Paul and I get to go home to Oregon to be with my parentals and I can hardly stand that it's only three weeks away! I'm excited to be in the cold, rainy, foggy weather and look at Christmas lights and drink hot chocolate and be all bundled up and cozy. I'm excited to have a fire in the fireplace and to sing Christmas songs and play the piano at the house. I'm also excited to watch old Christmas movies that my mom makes us watch every year...and maybe some new ones, too.

I just feel so happy and content right now. I'm sitting in my happy little apartment with my perfect wonderful Paul and thinking that we are so lucky to have so many blessings in our life. We have good friends and a good ward and Paul has a good job and I'm learning so much at school and we have so many opportunities in our lives to progress and learn and become better.

I love love love love love life.

BUSY!!!!

Sometimes I just want to do this:

Instead of this:

And I'll tell you this for sure, when I study I definitely do not feel as happy as this kid. TOTALLY misleading.

Fall Break

Halloween sugar cookies.

Pumpkin spice candle.

Reading Dracula instead of studying.

I love you, life.

October

Dear October,

Clean house. Cinnamon candle. Rainy morning. Snuggled in a blanket.

I knew you were gonna be good. <3

Dear Life

You have me pretty busy these days, but I am still finding time to enjoy the little things.

For example, I noticed that it's getting a LOT cooler in the morning. This makes me extremely happy because it means that "Fall" is coming. Well you know that I live in Arizona, so there's not much of a Fall here, but I can still enjoy the 80-90 degree weather way more than 110.

 You know what else I like? Apple cider in the grocery store. And pumpkins. And scented candles. I will miss the leaves changing color and the crisp, cool air that Fall usually promises, but I suppose I can do without it. 

Here are some other things I've been really happy about lately:

 Paul! He makes me really happy and he makes my life so easy.

No-bake cookies. Delicious.

I'll All the stuff I'm learning at school...seriously. I have NEVER had a problem with having headaches before (I'll be honest, I thought people mostly made them up), but this semester I get headaches nearly daily. I blame it on the fact that I have to learn so much in so little time.

Halloween is coming soon...I love this holiday. I'm going to watch "scary" movies like Hocus Pocus and Practical Magic. Love.

My momma is coming this weekend! So excited. She won't be here for long, but we get to go to Oregon for Christmas and I'm pretty excited about that. We just bought out plane tickets yesterday.

Why Porn Sucks

So I'm sure anyone who is actually reading this is probably one of my friends and will probably already agree with most of this because of religious value and what not, but I'm doing a research paper for a National Convention on whether or not prostitution should be legalized by the United Nations and I just thought I'd share some of my feeling about my research:

Most religious conversations antagonize porn because it degrades women and weakens the family structure and destroys a healthy sexual relationship between a man and a woman...but does anyone ever consider what it actually takes to create porn? Well, obviously you need some naked people (whether adults, male, female, or even children), and in some cases you need some sex act going on (child abuse, anyone?) and then you need some producer that is motivated by making money and is willing to do whatever it takes to make a profit, even if it's at the expense of the people in the pornographic material, whether it be videos or photographs. Interestingly enough, some of these "actors" or "actresses" don't actually want to be in these films. They may have been promised at one point that they were going to make lots of money, or perhaps they were just lucky enough to be born into poverty or abusive and vulnerable situations in which they were sold into pornography straight up. There was a story about one girl who was kidnapped and then taken to Florida where somebody beat the crap out of her until she consented to making a movie...

This situation is not unique. In fact, it even has a name now. It's called human sex trafficking and it is one of the fastest growing organized crime industries in the world. Why is it growing so fast? Oh yeah, it's because people are willing to rationalize things like pornography and prostitution as ways to express their sexual selves. Gross.

So, the next time you think about pornography, obviously it is something that harms families, but if you don't have a family, then just realize that you're basically witnessing/endorsing a rape crime on the internet. Rationalize that.

Tuesday Morning

5:30 am, the familiar sound of my alarm.

“I went to bed late last night…I only got 6 hours of sleep…I don’t want to be tired all day at work today…

Mmmm…I really should just sleep in today…I can work out tonight when I get home from work…”

I reset my alarm for 7 am.

“Ugh…I really should get up. I’m not even really that tired I’m just being lazy. In fact, I feel excited to work out today...

Plus, I ate all those brownies yesterday…and a cookie…and a soda…ugh I feel disgusting. I really need to get up and do something.

I need to clean my kitchen this morning, too…okay I’m up."

I roll out of bed and get dressed.

Mind = 1, Matter = 0.