Laughter!

The final post of my week of gratitude! I have to say this has been a very good experience for me. I have taken time each day to reflect on things that I am thankful for. I wish I could write everything that I am thankful for, but the truth is that there just wouldn't be enough space. I am so blessed and cannot express enough gratitude to my Father in Heaven for everything that he has blessed me with! I am one lucky girl!! I have everything I could have ever asked for, and so much more!

Laughter..such a simple thing, but today I am extremely grateful for it. Laughter is one of my most favorite things. I love to laugh, make others laugh, and hear the sound of laughter. Laughter is something that I think we all to often take for granted. We get to caught up in our busy lives to take the time to relax, have fun, and laugh. Laughter is healthy, and fun! I am so very thankful for all the times that I have spent rolling on the floor, in tears because I have been laughing so hard. Laughter has gotten me through some of the toughest times in my life. When I learn to laugh about what I am going through, and finding something to make me laugh, things seem to go so much smoother. The sound of laughter brings a smile to my face, and it is contagious. When I hear others laugh it makes me want to laugh. I will admit, if someone around me just starts laughing a lot of times I do to. I know this sounds weird, but I do. A couple of people I work with will try to get me to laugh by doing nothing at all, the will just randomly start laughing or something stupid, because they know they can get me to laugh. I am so thankful for laughter. For the chance every single day I have to laugh at myself, and to help find the positive happy things in life. :)

So in conclusion of this week of gratitude I have learned a lot but to sum it up i will use a quote!

LIVE!!! LAUGH!!! LOVE!!! (and of course appreciate everything you have been given!)

To My AMAZING Friends!

I was so tired yesterday that I didn't write my gratitude blog.. so here is yesterday's, and today's will come later. :)

I am extremely grateful for my friends. I truly have the most AMAZING friends, and yesterday was proof of it. I had kind of a rough day yesterday. I wasn't in the best mood at first, and I was struggling to stay positive. BUT my day got better and better as the day went on. I have to give credit for this to my friends. They are the best! They know just what to say and do to cheer me up, to reassure me, and to help me through things that are tough. They are always right there to pick me up when i am down, to make me smile when I frown, and to help me stay positive about any and every situation. My friends give good advice, just listen when I need to cry, and make me laugh when I don't feel like it. I don't know what I did to deserve such good friends, but whatever it is I am so thankful for them. One of my favorite quotes is "A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten how it goes." My friends have done just that for me in the last few months. There have been so many times when I have forgotten how my song goes, and my friends have been right there to remind me. They know me, yet love me anyways. They really are the best friends. I have been very blessed through out my whole life to have amazing friends. Friends I will never forget, even after our lives went separate ways. They have left a mark that will never go away!!

So to all my AMAZING friends. You know who you are! Thank you and I love you!

Sleep!

Because of my lack of sleep this week, and adjusting to my new schedule, I am very grateful for sleep! It is Wednesday night, and I have already started to drag. It's only been 3 days of this schedule, and I am dead tired! But it sure makes me appreciate the sleep I do get so much more! I take all the sleep I can get now. I love every minute of sleep I can get!! Not that I didn't before, but even more so now!!! I hope that my body adjusts to this new change, so that I am not as tired all the time. But nonetheless, I love my sleep, no matter how long I sleep I am grateful for every minute of it!

And since I love my sleep so much, I am gonna cut my blogging time short so that I can go to bed! :)

School. Yes, I am thankful for it!

So, like I said in yesterday's post, I started back to school this week, and so far I am loving it! Yes, I have only attended my classes on time, but I can already tell that I am going to enjoy them! I am excited because I know that there is a lot to learn! I love learning, and I am so thankful for the chance I have to go back to school, and to get a college education. After being out of high school for two years, and saving my money for school, it feels so good to finally be doing what I have been planning. I could have gone to school right out of high school, I would be knee deep in student loans, but I could have gone. But because I waited two years, and worked hard and saved the money, and it means so much more to me now. I appreciate the opportunity I have to go to school , and that I was able to save the money myself. I will work harder, and do better because I know how much effort it took for me to get to the place where I could pay for school. No it hasn't been easy to save the money, and no this semester probably won't be easy, but it will be so worth it. I am so grateful that I could go to school. My professors are great, and the classes fun! I will learn a lot this semester, not just about the subjects I am studying but about life in general, I can already tell. I forgot how much I love to learn, and study, and broaden my knowledge. I have missed being able to spend time each day learning new things! And now that I have gone back, I want to learn more! I am so grateful for the chance I have to attend college, and to have done it myself!

Gratitude: Mornings!

For those of you that know me well, this post may surprise you a little bit, because you know how much I am NOT a fan of mornings! I am a total night owl, and would much rather stay up late than get up early. However since I am now in school I have to have an earlier schedule. As today got closer and closer, I was dreading waking up early, more and more. I did not like the idea of having to be out of bed by about 6 or 630 every morning. It still doesn't sound too fun to me, but today I realized that I have been missing out on soo much. Before today, most of the time I didn't have anywhere to be before 11 when I had to be to work. So most of the time I would get out of bed between 8:30 and 9:30, leaving me just enough time to get ready, and be to work on time. I never had time to get anything done before I went to work, and a lot of the time I wasn't in the best mood. And so it surprised me today, when I woke up (hours before I normally would) and realized how much I was missing out on. I saw the sunrise over the mountains for almost the first time since I graduated high school (two years ago), I ate breakfast (another rarity for me), and I was able to get my room clean, all before I went to work at noon. I know to some of you this may seem funny that I have such a hard time, and that this morning thing is new to me, and my mom is probably saying something like "I have been telling you this for years now!" haha but I can now say that I am thankful for mornings, for the happy, cheerful feeling there is in the air as everything begins to wake from sleep. I loved watching the sunrise this morning and seeing everything come to life, seeing kids leaving for their first day of school, and to be honest, just experiencing morning. I forgot how amazing it is to see the sunrise, to hear birds chirping, and to feel the crisp morning air. It is all very refreshing! I am very grateful that I was blessed with a positive experience on my first morning of my new schedule. It makes me more excited to see what else I have missed out on while I am sound asleep in my bed.

I know this may seem like something small, but to me it was one of the coolest things to experience. It opened my eyes to the beauty and glory of God's creations, and today I am grateful for mornings!

Gratitude: The Savior, The Atonement, and The Gospel

Today as everyday, I am grateful for the Savior, and his Atoning sacrifice. I am so very grateful that my Savior loved us all enough that He gave his life so that we could all return and live with our Father in Heaven again. I am very grateful that through the Atonement I can repent and become clean again. And that even though I make mistakes everyday of my life, I can repent and start again. The Atonement is amazing, and I have gained a greater appreciation and knowledge of it in the last few months! I have a deeper love for my Savior, and have become closer to Him, through the Atonement! I am so grateful for the knowledge that no matter what I do, if I repent, turn to the Savior, and give it my all than I can be forgiven. I am very grateful that I was born into a family that is a part of the gospel of Jesus Christ. To have grown up in a home where the gospel is the center. To be an active member now, and to be able to recieve the blessings which come with that! I am so very thankful for the Gospel, it has made me who I am today. Without it in my life I would be lost a hopeless. But I am not! And for that I could not be more grateful!

Gratitude! Today it's family!

I have decided that I need to be more grateful for everything I have. So everyday for the next week I am going to post something I am thankful for. Starting today!

Today I am grateful for my family. I have the BEST family on the planet earth! They have been there for me through everything! No matter what they have always been by my side! I have amazing parents who have sacrificed so much to get me to where I am today. They have given me everything I could ever ask for, the gospel, a loving family, and a place where I can come home to. My parents truly are my heroes. They mean so much to me. More than I ever can or do express to them! I owe them my life. I have 3 amazing brothers, Justin, Josh, and Wyatt, who I can always count on to be there for me, tease me, and to cheer me up when I am sad! These boys are studs, and I am so lucky to have them as brothers. I look up to these boys(figuratively and literally), they are such good examples to me of how life should be lived! Next is my little sister, Courtney! She is my favorite sister, and my only sister! I am so blessed to have a little sister like her! I don't know what I would do without her! She is such a strong young women already and she is 13. She is way stronger than I was at her age!! She is the cutest, spunkiest, full-of-life, girl I have ever met! I am so grateful that the Lord blessed me with a sister. My family means the world to me, and I dont know what I would do, or who I would be without them, and I never want to find out! I have 6 best friends that I can count on to be there for me now matter what happens with anyone else!! I love them so very much! I haven't always been the best daughter, or sister, but I am trying. These 6 people mean the world to me, and I am so lucky to have them in my life!