There ain't no place here on this earth I'd rather be, why would I leave?*

Oh boy, how do y'all keep up this blogging thing? I can't think of new things to write half the time. Maybe I should start making a list of topics.

I graduate in approximately two weeks, without any real concrete plans for the future except that I want to stay in the city I'm in. Sometimes I think about moving to a new place, seeing a different part of the world. I would love to move to a place that looks something like this:

I took these pictures on my spring break roadtrip from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles. I *think* they are all from when we were still driving through Utah. The last might be California or Nevada.

The top one is, I think, Emigration Canyon. The cleft in the mountains from where my ancestors came across the nation and settled. Being in Utah always makes me wish I could go back in time to when this land was new and flat. I can only imagine what it must have been like to look across the wide expanse of the valley onto all this gorgeous, untouched land. No wonder they decided that it was the place. It looks like God's country out there. Like he individually crafted every peak and placed every tree for maximum beauty. It's still beautiful today, but the buildings diminish it a bit. Still beautiful though.

Anyway, I would love to move there someday. But for now, my life is in this city. I love this city. I want to grow old and raise my babies in the suburbs of this city. I want to take my children camping up in the hills and go on romantic dates with my husband to the opera. There is, quite literally, no place I'd rather be. So why would I leave?

*Song by Ashley Monroe

i love this quote

"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." - Romans 8:26

Sometimes it's hard to see that our prayers are answered, because they aren't always answered how we want them to be. But I think there are blessing aplenty in everyone's life.

Sweet Spring Saturday

Picture that entire grassy expanse full of people, food sellers, and tents set up for a variety of purposes, most of them educational in nature. My University was hosting an event called [State] Day (I'm omitting what school I go to, but a few sleuths will probably figure it out anyway with this picture I posted).

The event was a blast! Hot dogs, Sno Cones, making homemade Gak, cool giveaways, it couldn't have been better. I spent the rest of the day shopping with a dear friend, and some mexican dinner. After we parted ways in the oppressive heat, I went on an errand and a thunderstorm came in! The cool air and heavy smell made my night ever so lovely.

Wait it out. No, seriously, wait it out.

I went to a workout class for the first time in months, possibly years. After my last attempt at a workout class, I went through a running phase, but I think I like classes better because you are forced to work for an hour or so rather than giving up after twenty minutes because your lungs are screaming at you and there's no one around to tell you to keep going.

The workout class was a step class. Seemed easy enough, I'm in reasonable shape, and the step box didn't seem so intimidating. I was fine for the first fifteen or twenty minutes, even enjoying it. The steps were hard, but I figured them out soon enough.

Then we got to about twenty-five minutes.

My heart was pounding. Sweat accumulating. Every inch of my body begged, pleaded for me to stop. I seriously considered walking out, but with twenty other people there including two friends, I knew I needed to keep going. A brief reprieve at the half-time mark allowed me a trip to the water fountain, refreshing my body and spirit. But it wasn't so far into the second half when I was pushing myself again, as the steps got harder and my knees started to ache from overwork.

And then it happened.

I got to that place. Runner's high, they call it. Maybe it was the right song coming through the stereo system, or the promise of finishing in less than one-quarter hour, but something clicked over. I began to enjoy the steps, I began to want more. Another part of my mind drifted to happy thoughts. I was in the zone. Sure, my body still ached, and I still wanted to be finished, but my endorphins were running high. I thought about all the happy moments of the day and the week and my life. I thought about the happy moments of my future. With my energy level high, I got to thinking about plans I wanted to make and I feel like I was reinfused with a desire for better things, something I've been lacking in the past week or so of virtually sleepless nights.

I'm already planning on next week's class, and a few more classes in between.

I think I'm going to like this working out thing after all.

I'm a winner!

I won my first ebay auction today.

!

I've been trying to win an auction for weeks. I recently realized that you can get cheap yet cute jewelry on ebay for a much better price than they sell them in the stores. However, bidding is like a full-time job. Especially when auctions run several days and you happen to be the owner of a particularly impatient brain.

I began to look bleakly at this whole online auction business. Too much for me, I said. I'll just have to settle for the over-priced instant gratification of store bought jewelry.

And then I won something!

Sometimes life is good. Really good.

Life in slow motion

Last week I said I was going to start all my blog entries with lyrics and then I wrote like 5 entries in a row with nary a one lyric. Silly me.

My mind works in music videos. As in, when I think about the future or the past it's usually some poetic 4-minute vignette that fits with whatever song is on my ipod. Sometimes I listen to songs over and over until I've edited and directed and clipped all the thoughts into an organized verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus pattern that fits the lyrics. I think it's my own rudimentary form of self-therapy, because I get a little cranky when I go too long without having time to zone out on my ipod. It's not even my own thoughts I do this to; I do the same thing when people tell me their life stories, or something I'm learning about in my umpteen history courses, or a movie I saw or a book I read (yes, I was overjoyed when YouTube came out and I could look at fan-made videos to my heart's content, and no, I've never made one. I'm not good with fancy technology).

Nothing makes me happier than music that fits my life/someone else's life/a fictitious life.

There are only a few songs that can blanketly cover a variety of situations. One of them is the title of this entry. "Slow Motion" by David Gray. They (ironically) only had homemade/fanmade videos of this song on YouTube, but check this version out:

Now, if only these songs magically played in the background at life's most heartfelt moments. I feel like life would be a lot easier to deal with if it was accompanied by perfectly chosen music.