China Preface

In 5 hours and 42 minutes I'll be on a plane starting my 2-day trip to China!!
Of course I left everything to the last minute so I'm totes out of time but here's a link for a video of the School I'll be teaching at.
Love you all!
~Mannadarlin.

My Nightmare on Elm Street

About a month ago I decided it was time to take a break from pretending I have any sort of credentials for giving advice on relationships and decided to give my blog a new topic for a while.

Here is the first post of many.

Two and a half years ago I took on one of the biggest projects of my life:

The Nightmare on Elm Street.

(N.O.E.S.)

I got the idea from a friend to buy a house and then rent out the rooms to other college-aged people to help pay for the mortgage. I spent a couple months looking at house listings online and mulling over the idea of taking on this responsibility. The market was the lowest it had been for years and I'd always wanted a house of my own to remodel the way I envisioned it could be so after a while I threw the idea out to my mom and she told me I was crazy-- that I was 19 years old and didn't understand how big of a deal buying a house was. Why didn't I just focus on college and then maybe a car once I got a real job and then I was allowed to start thinking about a house.

That changed within the month :)

I showed her a few of the houses I had been looking at and after explaining my ideas she became hooked too. We spent the summer stalking houses online and then in person. 

I found a house I loved that had recently been remodeled. 3 bed, 2 bath. Beautiful pine cabinets in the kitchen. Adorable little breakfast nook with red walls. Giant 3-car garage that I planned to renovate. We put down $1000 and waited... and waited.... and waited....  Moral of the story: short sale=never gonna sell. We walked away. Found out later no one ever put another bid on the house and it sold on auction for about half of what we offered. Guess they should have sped things up.

Another house I fell in love with I called the "dream house." (When you're looking at that many properties you have to come up with nicknames and I had quite a few-- dream house, dead cat house, 3-car garage house, AZ room house, backyard stairs house.. usually named after the features that left an impression.) The dream house had also just been remodeled. 4 bed, 2 bath. Gorgeous kitchen with beautiful dark tiled countertops and a red barn across the back fence. A house full of my boy friends live there now.

The house that I saw and knew I'd found what I wanted was the 9th Place house. 5 bed, 3 bath. Living room and family room. Basement. Kitchen cabinets I was going to paint all the colors of the rainbow.

We didn't get it and I was devastated.

At that point I kinda gave up. I was sick of looking for houses. I had already found the one I wanted and it was gone so I marked my project as failed. Shortly after my mom woke me up early one morning informing me that she had found the house we were going to buy. That's really confusing when there aren't any houses you're looking at.

The house had been listed that morning and we made an appointment to look at it first thing the next day. When I walked in the front door I thought... okay this is a whole new level of gross. I've seen some pretty dirty, abused houses on my tours but this beats everything. Then I walked into the master bedroom and knew I wanted it.

Thus begins the story of...

THE NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET.

I plan on writing a post for each section of my house-- showing the change over time.

The links below are posts I wrote while the house was in progress and they contain writing and photos about the house along with all the other things going on in my life at the time.

I don't expect anyone to read all of them but I would recommend the first.

The House

It's amazing what can happen in a week... or two

Pictures to prove I'm still doing something with my life

Today I ate a box of Popems

A Resting Place For Exhaustion

Un'amica stretta

I was chatting with a couple friends the other day about how you would define a best friend and as I was reading a book last night my interest on the subject was piqued once again.

Whenever I think of best friends my initial thoughts jump to jewelry pieces with "best" on one half and "friend" on the other. I think of FB pictures that my teenage EFY girls have written "best friends!!!" all over and posted on their profile. The picture above is actually of 2 of my favorite girls who I'll add my amen to the fact that they are indeed, best friends. I had the opportunity of having Tabby in my group my first summer at EFY and then having both of them in my group the second summer. I got to observe their incredible friendship and take part in it myself for a wonderful week.

But what is it about their relationship that defines them as best friends? I went to a few of my favorite experts to get a little more information: Wikipedia, Wikihow, and Urban Dictionary. Totally accurate sources, I know.

On Wikipedia I was reminded of the several types of friendship that exist. I've listed a few of the more common ones along with a few I appreciated because of their title--

Associate, bloke, blood brother (or sister), Bromance, Buddy, friends with benefits, family friend, comrade, Frenemy, imaginary friend, internet relationship, mate, opposite-sex friendship, pen pal

Whew! and those are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to relationships.

As for telling me about what a best friend is specifically, Wikipedia kinda failed me so I moved on.

Wikihow was slightly more helpful. They even have a page that gives you step-by-step instructions on How To Be A Great Best Friend.

But still, not what I was looking for. 

Urban Dictionary it is. This is where I hit the jackpot. My wiki pages are great for strictly informational matters but Urban Dictionary has the raw thoughts of real people and who better to ask?

Here's what the people of Urban Dictionary had to say about what a best friend is:

• the first person you think about when you make plans
• the first person you go to when you need someone to talk to
• the first person you call when something great happens or when something horrible happens
• someone you can talk to about nothing or the most important things in your life
• when you're sad they will try their best to cheer you up
• shoulder to cry on
• take a bullet for you
• someone you trust your life with
• someone you always remember no matter what happens
• gives you the opinion you care most about
• tells you what you need to hear whether you want to hear it or not
• someone you can always be around and never get sick of
• someone you don't envy
• someone you are grateful to have as a friend
• someone who will always forgive you
• someone you can be totally yourself around

"The best friend in your life is the person you are thinking about as you read this."

I think they did a pretty good job of summarizing the characteristics of a best friend but I still felt like I was missing the answer as to what a best friend really IS.

I love what Eat, Pray, Love has to say about this:

"...un'amica stretta means "a close friend." But stretta literally means tight, as in clothing, like a tight skirt. So a close friend, in Italian, is one you that can wear tightly, snug against your skin..."

I think she meant to write, "one that you" but hey our brains are trained to put the words in the right order anyways, right? So no big deal.

I like the idea that a best friend is someone who is so close to you that they're practically a part of who you are. They're their own self but also very much a part of yourself that completes you.

They're the one who you complete your thoughts and ideas with.

They're the one who shares the majority of your time.

 They're the one who fills your gaps and you feel you can share your vulnerabilities with.

They're the person who when you can't be everything you want to on your own, they take on the rest.

Of course everyone has their own imperfections and a best friend is as human as anyone else so they're not going to be a literal superhero but most of the time it still seems like mine are to me.

I'm incredibly grateful for the few people in my life that I consider to be my best friends and can't imagine any better of a gift from God.

Since when?

I've had this quote/draft sitting around for quite a while now and found it perfect for tonight.

It's depressing, especially for Valentine's Day so if you're still all twitterpated this is bound to bring you down.

Let me start off by saying I don't really hate Valentine's Day. I think it's nice that there's a special day each year that people put a little bit extra effort into showing the ones that they love just how much they care.

What I don't like about it is how serious it is. It's not so bad if you're already married but for anyone in any sort of relationship stage leading up to marriage it seems to push for a DTR and put unnecessary stress on the situation. I don't like how commercialized it is with the demand to buy flowers and chocolate and giant teddy bears that no one knows what to do with. I don't like the competition for being more romantic than someone else or the year before.

It should just be simple.

And it's often not.

This post isn't about Valentine's Day at all. I just wanted to say my little bit on it and my news feed on Facebook is already far too full of Valentine's Day haters and lovers. 

Here's the quote I mentioned at the beginning: 

"According to astronomy, when you wish upon a star, you're actually a few million years too late; that star is dead, just like your dreams."

I love this quote. It's not that I love the meaning, its more that I love how it is so perfectly destructive of any happy thoughts and hopes I've ever had for the future. 

Sometimes when I am bitter at my life and the world I want to take on this view of reality and see the stone cold dark side of the truth.

Luckily, I'm a dreamer so no matter how bad things get, no matter how many times someone breaks my heart, no matter how many endless dead-ends (lol) my dreams reach, I still rebound to the positive and won't give up hope.

It's a good thing, most of the time.

But what do you do when you have that positive view, when everything is going right and wonderful and perfect and then you find out that it's all a lie because that star you wished on-- yeah, it died a few million years ago.

?

And now we get to what I actually want to write about:

What can you do to best ensure that the person you're marrying will still be the same person you married X amount of time later?

I understand that people change.. that 20 years later you're married to someone different than the person you said "I do" to. That happens and it's necessary for the two of you to adapt as your relationship and lives change over time.

I get that, it's normal.

BUT what about 1 year after you marry them? Or 1 month? Or 1 week?

What do you do then when you discover that the person you married is not the person you thought they were at all?

Simple solution you say-- date longer. Get to know them better.

Well how long is long enough? 

6 months?

A year?

2 years?

5?

At what amount of time spent getting to know someone can you say you really know them and have the assurance that you're marrying the person you think you are?

You can't answer that.

Some of you may think I'm exaggerating a little bit with this--thinking that people don't just change personalities that fast, especially in a week. No way. Doesn't happen.

But it does! I grew up in homes watching that happen with my parents. I've watched it destroy friends who thought 1.5 years of dating was enough only to discover after marriage the numerous amount of addictions that plagued their spouse.

Oh you're an alcoholic and smoke weed? 

Since when?

You're emotionally and physically abusive?

Since when?

So what do you do?

You spend more time dating, more time with their family, widen your variety of activities, make sure to not brush off the little things that could be indicators of bigger problems, pray... 

As far as I see it, you can do your very best to wisely prepare and educate yourself but in the end it requires that leap of trust and faith that it will work out.

No wonder people are scared of marriage.

I've been asking myself the past week-- am I guilty of this change? 

I think the answer is yes.

How long does it take for someone to really get to know me?

What can I do to be honest about everything I am?

I know I have this part of me that's a huge jerk but the people who know that about me are the ones I care about enough to show who I can be in my worse moments because I trust that they'll still love me anyways.

This blog is all over the place. I apologize.

I'm terrified that after all I can do, I may still fail.

I may never know what a lazy, angry, manipulative person I've married until I seal the deal.

On the other hand, I might have the great fortune of marrying someone who really is as incredible after marriage as he was before.

But how do you tell?

I don't know.  

Daddy Dear

I have daddy issues. Anyone who cares enough to listen has heard bits and pieces about that part of my life; I've never made a point of hiding it. My parents were separated before my first birthday and I grew up in a single-parent home where my dad's appearance only seemed to create conflict. Every other Saturday I got spoiled with money-- movies, McDonalds, the circus, Gameworks, Golfland, Diamondbacks games, State Fair... that's who my dad was in my life and that's all he has ever really been. It took me years to learn how to forgive him for all that I felt I missed out on and all the hurt I went through because of him.

It probably goes without saying that out of all the dreams I've had for my life I always wished I had a real dad. You know, the one that you run up to for a hug when he gets home from work every day. The dad that teaches you how to play baseball and build random projects in the garage. The dad who you go to for advice when you need someone to confide in. The dad who meets all your boyfriends and then one day lets one of them marry you. The dad who dances with you at your wedding and loves you more than the entire world. That's what I have always wanted. 

I always without fail get teary-eyed at weddings, watching the bride dance with her dad. I also really love the song Butterfly Kisses but that too provokes another wave of emotion.

 Here's the thing.. this post is not about my failed relationship with my father. 

As far as I'm concerned, that's a thing of the past.

Even though I didn't have the best experience with my own father, I have the dream that my own husband and the men around me can be better examples than I had in my own life.

Back in October 2011 there was a talk given in General Conference by Elaine S. Dalton titled "Love Her Mother." I can't even begin to tell you how moved I was by this talk. I've gone back multiple times since then and read/listened to it over again. 

Sister Dalton begins by asking the question, "How can a father raise a happy, well-adjusted daughter in today’s increasingly toxic world?"

Here are my favorite parts to her answer:

"The most important thing a father can do for his daughter is to love her mother. By the way you love her mother you will teach your daughter about tenderness, loyalty, respect, compassion, and devotion. She will learn from your example what to expect from young men and what qualities to seek in a future spouse. You can show your daughter by the way you love and honor your wife that she should never settle for less. Your example will teach your daughter to value womanhood. You are showing her that she is a daughter of our Heavenly Father, who loves her.
"You are your daughter’s guardian in more than the legal sense. Be present in your daughter’s life. Let her know your standards, your expectations, your hopes and dreams for her success and happiness. Interview her, get to know her friends and, when the time comes, her boyfriends. Help her understand the importance of education. Help her understand that the principle of modesty is a protection. Help her choose music and media that invite the Spirit and are consistent with her divine identity. Be an active part of her life.
"Fathers, you are your daughter’s hero. My father was my hero. I used to wait on the steps of our home for him to arrive each night. He would pick me up and twirl me around and let me put my feet on top of his big shoes, and then he would dance me into the house. I loved the challenge of trying to follow his every footstep. I still do."

In these paragraphs she makes a point of emphasizing fathers leading as examples that play active roles in their families lives. My favorite paragraph from The Family: A Proclamation to the World supports this concept:

"Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities. By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families."

My new hope and dream on the topic of fathers is that I will marry a man who will be everything for my kids that I wished I had had for myself. And not just the man I marry, I hope this for all the wonderful men in my life who have this opportunity presented to them now or soon in their future. 

I have a little book I found at thrift store one day called A Father's Book of Wisdom. Here's a quote I really liked out of it: "Fathers are pals nowadays because they don't have the guts to be fathers." ~Dad

It is my hope, dream, and prayer that more men will have the guts to be fathers. 

The potential is there.

I Am Born Again

Yesterday morning I woke up from a dream that did an excellent job in reconstructing my waking situation and fears. I decided to make a final effort to permanently resolve things in my life and discovered that the finality I was searching for came much quicker and easier than I had expected, leaving me absolutely devastated.

At that moment I had a decision to make--

I could continue in this heart-breaking pain 

OR..  OR.....

I could realize that I'd already experienced several moments like this before in my life and that I'd healed from them before so there was very little point in making myself miserable before I let that happen again.

And I chose the second option.

The lines from an old favorite song came to mind:

Caught in the middle of a crossfire
Lost my balance on a high wire
Trying to figure out what to do

Pushed to the edge of my reason
Everywhere around me it's treason
I don't want to do that to you

Kamikaze airplanes in the sky
Are we going down or will we fly?
This could be a shipwreck on the shore
Or we could sail away forevermore
This time it's sink or swim, sink or swim

I realized I was floating. Not drowning but not going anywhere either. Not just in this situation but for the past 6 months of my life. 

Looking back on that choice I thought about a scene from Titanic that, although I'm being awkward and comparing my own life to it, I feel describes my situation very well.

You can start at 2:00.

I've been out in the middle of the ocean freezing to death, holding on to something that is dead and gone. And yesterday, I let it go and started swimming.

I pulled out one of my journals and I began writing. And writing.... and writing.

As I wrote, I found myself again. That wonderful, beautiful girl who smiles and laughs and defies average expectations.

In case you've forgotten or never really had the opportunity to meet her, here she is:

:)

Hi-- my name is Amanda.

Today is my 22nd birthday and it has been one of the best so far. No, I'm not in Hawaii kayaking on the ocean or in San Francisco eating clam chowder in Fisherman's Wharf.. I'm home in Mesa attending institute and eating pumpkin roll while I work on one of my favorite hobbies, blogging. What makes this birthday so special? I've spent it in contact with so many people that love me.

I am proactive, positive, and alive.

When I woke up this morning I thanked God for another beautiful day full of sunshine and joy.

Some things about me-- I own my own house, have a bachelor's degree in geology, and am moving to China in a month. Those things don't really matter very much though because it is what brought me to them that I am proud of. I had a vision to succeed in each of those areas and my deep love for each of those things, along with my desire to create and work have made me proud of myself.

I'm a protector of those close to me, often to a fault. I try to give my best to making those I love happy and develop deep emotional bonds that I find extremely difficult to break.

I'm a clean freak although you wouldn't know that by the state of my bedroom right now. (That's why I'm currently hiding in the clean living room.) I enjoy cleaning and organizing and the drop in stress level when I do. You'll find most of my DVDs, CDs, and books in alphabetic order along with a style, color, and size organized closet.

I am a Mormon and I love the options that have been added to my life because of it. I love studying scriptures, especially the General Conference talks. I love going to the temple weekly and the joy and peace it brings into my life. I love that I can be sealed to my best friend some day and that my family can be together forever and have the blessings of that covenant both for the eternities and for this life.

I'm a traveller. I crave going to new places and experiencing all they have to offer. It's where most of my money goes and I try to take every opportunity I am offered to get out of town. I enjoy being a tourist but the true reward of traveling comes when you get to experience the people and culture on a personal level.

I love the outdoors. My body needs fresh air whether I'm camping, hiking, tanning by the pool, kayaking, swimming, or simply taking a long walk around the neighborhood at night. I'm guaranteed to be happier and feeling better.

I'm fascinated with relationships. I read about them, watch them on TV, and analyze them in real life. I can't get over how incredible love between two people is-- that even though a million things could make a relationship fail, somehow it still survives.

I love event planning whether we're talking about weddings, birthday parties, trips, or youth camps... They all have this energy about them and after a complicated process of scheduling everything together you create a happy outcome.

My love language is quality time and that is what I will offer to you to show I care and what will mean the most to me in return.

I'm fascinated by mass deaths. The Holocaust, the Martin & Willie handcart companies.. those kinds of things. It's the total awe of such events existing and the curiosity about the why and how these people played their own roles that reels me in.

I'm a creator. I love taking an idea in my mind and then building it whether I'm making a Bellatrix dress for the final Harry Potter premier or remodeling my house or developing a relationship. I feel very rewarded in accomplishing these tasks and realizing the capabilities I have as I learn new things in the process.

And finally, 3 words to describe me:

Rebellious, Honest, Adorable

Rebellious- in the sense that I challenge expectations. I don't like people getting too set on one part of who I am and I want to prove to them that I have so much more to offer. I don't like always doing what people expect of me so sometimes I simply don't.

Honest- you want the whole truth? Ya got it. I like to say things how they are. If I have a comment or a question, I speak up. I'll never lie to you- I value the truth too much.

Adorable- It's my hope that I am at least a little bit cute and witty and spunky enough to be deemed as someone that one could adore.

That incredible girl who has finally found herself and is here to stay,

Amanda.

It's amazing the change and happiness I've felt from merely having a couple hours of contemplation and a new mind set. I'm not perfect and I don't always know what to do with myself but I know who I am. Perhaps I can be categorized as perfectly imperfect? I've always loved the phrase "a sparkle in your eyes." It's something I've related to love but thinking of it now its more of a pure happiness. I feel like Yvainne in Stardust- glowing with joy.

The Vision to Do

I've pulled this draft up on my screen at least ten times in the past month and it is time I actually get it written. 
This post originates from 4 different parts of my life-- church meetings, How I Met Your Mother, Once Upon a Time, and an old roommate. It began with one but every few weeks another thought was added. 

It all started a few months back at my friend's talk in church she gave when she returned from her LDS mission. The thought that got through to me was that we have to hear and do sometimes before we can see. It's that act of trust, or faith, that gives us the power to run confidently toward an unseen future. We're not guaranteed an outcome nor do we necessarily even know where we want to end up but it is all a process of learning that must take place by making an effort. That thought was solidified with another church meeting in which Elder Kopishka said, "Learning by faith is another word for learning by doing." Another friend left on his mission during this same time period and his farewell talk at church was based on "the vision to do." I loved how well that phrase summarized my thoughts. It's not "the vision to succeed" or "the vision to finish" but it's the idea that you can see the potential in simply acting and working- even if that's all you can see.

As I was searching for an image to accompany this post I stumbled over something I've become very familiar with as I've added How I Met Your Mother to my list of loves in my life. 

Intervention.

In the series, any time one of the group gets a little too carried away with something, the other members hold an intervention in which they bring up the problem and offer their help to solve it. 

I like the idea of taking a moment to throw up a big "Intervention" sign in our lives. In the case of this blog post, sometimes we become far too complacent with ourselves and we need to take that moment to pause for a minute for a personal intervention. We need that time to evaluate ourselves and our own potential and happiness and ask ourselves is there more? Do I have the vision to do?

We have to want it. 

"Do" is an action word and it's not going to matter much if we're still lounging around with our past and present. We have to want something out of our future and really want it.

I really liked a line that Rumpelstiltskin says to Regina in Once Upon a Time. He's an evil sorcerer who is training her in using dark magic. Here's what he has to say:

"So long as you harbor foolish notions of bring back the dead, so long as you live in the past, you'll never find your future. Teaching you is a waste of time."

We can't just keep sitting around reminiscing on how great our life was and how much we want to be that happy again. We have to accept that life has happened and now we have the opportunity for something new and incredible and then push ourselves to go out and find it. 

One of my old roommates had a poster stuck to her wall that if I remember right was a Mary Kay poster. It had cut-outs of many pictures and words that formed her goals and dreams for her life some day and it was her motivation to accomplish those things. It gave her the vision to do.

What a great opportunity we have every moment of our lives to have the option of stopping our normal cycle and sitting down and figuring out where we're at and where we can be. We have the opportunity to take on the challenge of being something more, even if we have no idea what our final goal is. All is takes is a step at a time, knowing that being active in the things that matter most will bring us the greatest happiness and will refine us into people beyond anything we ever thought realistically possible. 

The vision to do.

See it.