My Own Worst Enemy

I think it has been said by many that we are our own worst enemy. I would have to completely agree with that statement. We are harder on ourselves than anyone else. And if you are like me overthink everything. Why do we do this to ourselves? I think that might have to do with that fact that we truly understand what we are capable of like no one else does. We can only lie to ourselves for so long before the truth catches up with us.

Mostly, I am just a pro at overthinking everything. I will stress myself out to the point of sickness. It is rather ridiculous. But that is just me. I really wonder if other people do this as much as I do. To make myself feel a bit better I am just going to pretend that you all do as well, and if you don’t please don’t tell me about it, because I think that might just make me feel worse.

So my new goal until I leave for Africa is to stop thinking, haha, well not completely. Just mostly. I obviously do not plan on making all decisions with no thinking involved, but I am going to make decisions and not rethink them over and over again. Once I have made a decision it is a done deal and what ever happen happens and it will be good.

Ashley P! 

Hello Again!

I haven’t blogged in a while so I thought I might write up a post. School is officially over and I passed all of my classes! I was a little worried for a while, but I pulled through. I did get my first C ever though which is a little sad, but I think I will get over it rather quickly. At least it was only one C and not two of them.

Mostly I have just been workin, workin, workin so far! I only have a couple more weeks to work before I leave to Africa and I am trying to make as much money as possible to hold me over for three months. I am doing pretty great and I am writing up at least twenty audits a day which translates to some pretty decent money if I do say so myself.

Ashley P! 

Finals

I keep waiting for someone to blog, but no one ever does. I really need to find some more blogs to follow. So since no one else if blogging, I guess I will take this opportunity to say some things about my life. Finals are this upcoming week and to start things off I took my first last final tonight!

Warning, the following may contain appalling information, but hey that how I like to live my life. So in my economic systems class, my teacher decided to give us a 100 questions true or false take home final. If you ask me that is just plain rude! Who wants to answer 100 true and false questions? I mean sure I could have taken the time to look up every single answer in my book, consuming my whole night. But really why on earth would I do that when I could do what I did!

I decided it would be a much better idea to run a random number generator on a calculator simulating 100 answers proving me with either a one or a zero. On the numbers I got a one on I answered true and the ones I got a zero on an answered false. It honestly took my five minutes to answer one hundred questions! It was the best thing ever! I am really excited to see how I performed on this final.

Yes, I sure did document this for the future children! :) 

Now you may be thinking, is the girl freakin crazy? Well truth is I probably am, but I had a very good reason for doing this. Really, I was just using economic theory in my everyday life. As it turns out I really did learn something in college. See my professor is allowing us to drop our lowest test score including the final out of the three tests throughout the semester. I have scored pretty well on these prior tests and figured the amount of time I would have to spend actually answering the questions correct had no marginal benefit or basically be a sunk cost. See if I missed more than 12 questions all time spend on answering the test questions would have been totally pointless. Me knowing myself with true or false questions figured the likelihood of this is pretty high as I always seem to second guess myself on them. See this way I get to tell people that one time I basically flipped a coin to answer all the questions on my final and if for some reason I do score higher than my previous test then that is freakin awesome!! See it’s really a win win situation!

Now I just have to write a Russian paper for my Russian final due Monday and hit up three finals on Tuesday and I am pretty much graduated from college! Which has not hit me yet! College was easy, now on to the hard part, real life.  

Ashley P! 

Econ Blog Post

So I had to write a blog post for my econ class and thought I would share it here. So enjoy!

Are the vices of creative destruction really killing the entrepreneurial spirit, our capitalist system is built on?  Keynes argued early on that entrepreneurship would be one failing in the capitalist society. In a recent Inc. article called America: No Longer the Land of Opportunity found here: http://www.inc.com/naveen-jain/5-things-our-president-should-do-to-support-entrepreneurship.html  American innovation is addressed. It notes that American innovation is just not at the same level as BRIC countries such as Brazil, China, and India.

I see this problem facing America. Yes, we are attracting bright and intelligent individuals to be educated in the United States, but there is no incentive for them to stay around and utilize their skills. What can we do to fix this problem? Naveen Jain offers five steps he thinks will bring America back to the land of opportunity.

I really like his 3rd idea or step that he presents. By show casing innovations on a national level it creates excitement among individuals to be recognized for their hard work. Also seeing the success of other will give discouraged innovators new hope.

I don’t know what all the answers are, but Naveen Jain presents some great ideas to start with. Do you have any idea to foster innovation and entrepreneurship in America again?

Ashley P! 

December!

The month I have been waiting for has finally arrived, December is here! Now let us just hope that it is as good as I have been dreaming of. It probably won’t be, but hey a girl can wish right! With only a week left a school though I really can’t complain.

I wrote a to do list today, which actually is not too terrible. If I can crack down a get some things done this weekend I am home free.  However, I always think I will be real productive and get things done, but who really knows. Here is a list of everything I need to get done this weekend:

With only five things on my list it really is pretty manageable. Plus, I have already started working on most of the things. So here is to having the best December thus far in my 20 years of life! 

Ashley P! 

Why Sleep?

I love sleeping. You could say it’s my favorite. But lately I just can’t sleep. I will be extremely tired, but then when I go to bed I just stare at my ceiling. It is not fun at all. So tonight I figured I might as well just stay up, for a bit. I mean I have lots of things to do; I just don’t want to do any of them. I can’t even believe that the semester is almost done and in about 13ish days I will take the last final of my undergraduate degree!

Tonight we went dancing and I only got turned down by about ten guys. Haha sometimes you just have to live in the moment and not even care what other people think. It is these time that I am living in the moment that I have the most fun. Society is way too obsessed with other people’s opinions.  Who decided that other people were the experts on things? I sure didn’t!

Ashley P! 

Are You Kidding Me?

I finally did it. Yes I finished my Econ term paper. It was something that I never thought I would find the motivation to finish, but tonight I accomplished the impossible! I even made it fifteen pages long! Which is crazy!! I put lots of beautiful graphs in and am overall very proud of my end product.

Now, if you know me at all if it’s not due tomorrow I haven’t started it. So on my nice syllabus that my professor handed out the first day of class it says term paper due November 27. So I being the good student that I am finished it up tonight. However, right after I had printed it I checked my email only to find that the due date has been extended. Are you kidding me?!?!?! That is ridiculous! The reason being that some students were too lazy to go up to campus to grab their rough drafts from outside his door.  I was not that lazy and picked mine up the Friday before the break. O well, I guess that is one thing I don’t have to stress about Wednesday night.

Ashley P!  

P.S. 

While I was being distracted writing my paper I came across two extremely funny YouTube videos. Yay, for Facebook friends for sharing these!  Enjoy! 

I just love being a Mormon. 

I think this is real funny! Sorry for the f-word, but still funny! 

A Break

Boy is it nice to have a break from life for a little bit. This break has been wonderful and I am dreading going back to work tomorrow and school on Tuesday. I have enjoyed not having any responsibilities.  I had to work on Wednesday, but soon after I got off I headed up to Wyoming with my family to my grandma’s for Thanksgiving. My family being my family of course had to stop and go to the movies. We went to Breaking Dawn Part 2 and I thought it was pretty good. It was great to catch up with the cousins. It is crazy how old everyone is getting.

Then Thursday, we ate some food and peaced on out of Wyoming. Upon arriving back in Cache Valley it was shopping time. I met Kenzie at about six to begin a night full of shopping. I think I spent way too much money this weekend, but hey I had a good time. Here is a nice break down of the night.

Wal-Mart-

Of course the first place we waited for thing was at Wal-Mart. We honestly didn’t really have anything mind, which is actually a really bad idea. Because, then you think I might as well buy that. So we stopped buy the DVD section and positioned ourselves nicely to pick up Vampire Diaries and Pretty Little Liars. We were pretty amazing and checked out at approximately 8:03 PM.

Shopko-

The next store to really open was Shopko. We got ourselves in line for my headphones that I needed, as mine a broke on my ride home. We were in and out of Shopko in a matter of minutes and were thinking that nothing could stop us on our shopping adventures.

Shoe Carnival-

My best story of the night could possibly be the Shoe Carnival fiasco. The next group of stores didn’t really open until Midnight and we decided Shoe Carnival would be our best bet as the first hundred entrants received a gift card ranging from 10 to 100 dollars. Sounds good right? As we arrived there was a large line, but this line was not for Shoe Carnival it was for Best Buy. I think we started waiting in line about two and a half hours before the doors would open. As there were so many Best Buy shoppers, we positioned ourselves nicely on the curve as we did not need to be right by the door. At least this is what I thought. We were probably the only ones in line for almost an hour and a half. Kailey Skinner did come join us. There were maybe ten people in line when I realized some people were right up against the door. I nicely told them that we were actually the front of the line and it would be perfectly acceptable for them to go to the back of the line. This lady wasn’t super nice and didn’t think that since I had been waiting for an hour and a half before anyone else had been there, I should have any say in where the line was and would not join my line. So after waiting two and a half hours I probably entered the store about twentieth.  By this time I was real over Shoe Carnival and didn’t even want any shoes, but the stupid gift card was only good that day. So I found some shoes to purchase. I did end up getting some cute flats for about eleven dollars so I guess that is okay.

Ulta-

Ulta brought the longest check-out line that I waited in all of Black Friday. However, I do believe I made my favorite purchases there so the wait was well worth it. I purchased a nice curling iron and a straightener. It is purple and sparkly!!

Als-

After Mid-Night nothing really opens for a while. But why sleep? Kenzie was dead set on getting her Nike’s that we went over to Als to begin the three and a half hour wait. Yeah, I would not recommend this and will probably not be doing this in the future. I didn’t really want anything from Als, but I had a list from my family and came out with everything they wanted. It was very successful.

After a full night of shopping I was out of it Friday. I stayed home all day long and watched some Boy Meets World and took a nap. For some bright reason I thought shopping would be a good activity for Saturday again, and I hit up the mall. I bought three pairs of jeans and some perfume. However, I realized that if I really wanted to afford the jeans I should probably take back some of my prior purchases and ended up taking back everything I bought at Wal-Mart. Haha, kind of sad but the excitement of Black Friday is way more fun than actually keeping the things I managed to get a hold of before others right?

School is almost done and I could not be more excited. I only have a couple more big things to finish up before the Christmas break. And I have a feeling that this might just be the best Christmas break thus far in my life. So here is to hoping!

Ashley P! 

Fail

So I have been going to college for about two and a half years now, almost three and been a student for most of my life. This week I have accomplished the impossible. I failed, I flat out failed. I have probably scored in the sixties before, but never below fifty percent. This Thursday I scored a whopping thirty two percent. Yes you read that correctly. Luckily, when you fill out the blue scantrons they send you your score via email with some statistical figures. The best figure was probably the one that stated that I scored 51 out of 51 students.

Killing Life

I have never really thought about the students at the bottom of the class. However, I would say that if I only need to take that turn once I will do that for my fellow classmates. So you all are welcome. I just don’t plan on doing that again.

Turns, out that this fail on my part should not affect me in to many ways, as I am allowed to drop my lowest score. And going back to my lean test taking style why would I want to drop a decent score anyways. I might as well drop a super bad score that no one would want. I will luckily be able to move on with life. The number of tests left in my college career is probably countable on one hand, and life is good. So why dwell and stress over a failed test.

Ashley P! 

20 ½

Wow, it is just crazy how time flies. About halfway through today I realized that I am twenty and a half today! Where did that even come from? I know like nobody ever celebrates their half birthdays, but I always like to acknowledge them. So I will take this moment to wish myself a very happy half birthday!! It actually has been a decent day, nothing to complain about.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about all the friendships I have had over my life. I am so grateful to all the friends that I have had throughout my life, as they each taught me something different. It amazing me, however, that people can go from being best friends and knowing everything about each other’s lives to being complete strangers. Luckily, there is Facebook and we can keep track of the people that used to mean something in our lives.

Ashley P! 

That Paper...

Remember that paper that I have been putting off writing. I think I forgot to mention that the teacher stated it should be 20 pages long, and then later stated that maybe 15 pages would be okay. So it is due tomorrow of course.  Well actually just the rough draft is due, so I wasn’t really getting myself too worked up about it. Because I conveniently convinced myself that it only maybe needed to be five pages, because of course it was just the rough draft. However, about eight o’clock tonight I realize that I should probably write the majority of this paper. So I cracked down to work. So far I have written eight pages. I am pretty sure that is more than I have written in a very long time. I even made some cute little graphs to add in.

This is my Lorenz Curve Graph. I made it all by myself. It shows income distribution. 

This is the basic supply and demand curve graph that I have grown to love over the years. Probably influencing my addition of economics to my major. 

I still have some more sections to write, but I think I am done for tonight. I will just wake up bright and early and finish up three more sections that need to be written. While this paper is important, I still seem to value my sleep above all else. Luckily, I slept like ten hours again last night. So I figure a nice five or six hours should cover me for tonight. This really just goes to show that procrastination does work, and I got a lot more done in three hours than I would have working on it last week.

Ashley P! 

Putting Things Off

Once again, I have shown that I am a pro at putting things off. I know that I have lots of things to do, but I just never do them. I will find probably about a hundred other things to do, before I actually complete an assignment. Currently, I should be working on a rough draft for a twenty page paper. But as it is just a rough draft I don’t seem to be having much motivation to actually complete it. I have done a number of things this weekend, and haven’t even started writing such a rough draft. Here is a nice list of everything I did instead.

Friday

• I went to lunch with an old friend.
• Went shopping at the DI and bought some six dollar jeans!!
• Went shopping at the mall and purchased a full outfit.
• Went to the Hockey game. They lost…
• Jumped at the jump zone.
• Taco Bell!!!!
• Went to bed at three in the morning. I never do that!!

Saturday

• Watched some stalking documentaries.
• Went to lunch with another friend.
• Watched the Time Travlers Wife, and cried, actually more like balled.
• Cleaned my room.
• Vacuumed my room, which never happens.
• Read a whole book.

Today

• Went to Church, I even stayed for the linger longer.
• Completed another assignment.
• Made some google documents for a class project.

Overall, this weekend I had lots of fun. Yes, I could have maybe worked on my paper a little but where would the fun have been in that. It is going to be so much funner trying to get it done before Tuesday, along with a number of other things that I need to probably complete.  On a happy note, the days just keep on rolling by and that is exactly what I need them to continue doing!

Ashley P! 

November Already?

I can’t even believe that it is November already? What the heck happened to October? I’m surely not complaining about this fact, just amazed at how fast it came and went. Now if the next month and a half of my life can go that fast I am set for life!

I had lots of fun things to look forward to in October that came and went: Debbie’s wedding, J.wride, CANANDA, and lots of other small events. When I think about November I don’t really have anything that I am looking forward to. I may need some help in this department, all of my important dates, are currently placed in December. But while November is here I would like to make the best of it.

I would like to say, that I am extremely excited that today, marks the beginning of no shave November, which I love very dearly. Other than that I feel like November may be filled with lots of school work, which sucks, but it also good as that means I am that much closer to being done!! So here is to making this November a good one!!

Ashley P! 

Productivity

Today, I feel like I have gotten lots and lots done. Maybe that has to do with the fact that I woke up at 5:30 in the am. Maybe it just has to do with the fact that I can be amazing at points in my life. So to start the day, I hit the gym. It felt like basketball practice all over again. I forgot how much I loved those days of yearly morning practices. After the gym I hit the school work.

My Tuesdays and Thursdays are full of classes. I get to go to class from 8-5:45, with one break for about an hour and a half. I have a really hard time paying attention in class, but today I feel like I have gotten some things done. However, normally I am working on something for nothing relevant to the actual class I am sitting in, but as long as I am getting things done that it’s fine. For example, I am sitting in class right now as I am writing this post.

I have decided that I will one day right a post about my test strategies. I might wait and post this after I have taken my last final as I do not want my sharing of my strategy to result in bad test scores for myself. I did figure out that I should graduate with honors no matter what, and that does bring some joy to my heart.

Ashley P! 

Just Another Day

Tonight, as I decided to finally sit down and study I used YouTube as my study tool. I have not this in the past and figured it might be a good idea. I know that if I read the book I will just be confused so I thought why not let somebody else try to explain it to me. I think it might have actually worked out real well and I might be using YouTube in the future as well. I even cleaned my room while studying. I don’t think very many people can say that! But I can! Haha. I guess we will see how well it really worked tomorrow.

I also had another meeting for my internship in Ghana!  I am getting more and more excited for it. Three months is a long time and I think I will probably end up getting homesick, but I cannot pass up an opportunity like this. One day even one day soon I will be married and will not be able to travel the world like I can know. That is why I am taking every opportunity I can get. Also, if anyone has some extra sky miles they need used for any airline and want to donate them to me, I wouldn’t say no.

Overall life just keeps on going. I do think I work too much though. In my final paper I turned in for one of my classes I used the words “the insured” my teacher was real confused. I just cussed at my computer, because I would do that.

Ashley P! 

Canada Eh!

What can I say? I am addicted to traveling. If I could just travel the rest of my life I would. So this weekend for fall break I departed on a most wonderful trip to Canada. Canada was a lot different than I had imagined, but overall I really enjoyed it. I didn't realize how many different nationalities there are in Canada. It was pretty crazy. I did really enjoy the French though. It is always good to be able to practice my French a little even if it is just reading it.

One of the greatest stories from the trip is how good my driving skills are. I may or may not have totally trashed two of my tires. Okay lets me honest I did. I do however feel like it takes a lot of talent to take two of your tires out in one go. I mean honestly I haven’t heard of very many individuals who have succeeding in doing this. One time my mother did so I guess we can form our own club. But I do have a pretty decent reason for why what happened, happened.

Sometimes, I am just driving along in the middle of nowhere Montana. It turns out a lot of Montana seems to be in the middle of nowhere. Anyways, the important stuff. I was just driving along when I saw this black box in the middle of the road. For some reason I thought that it might scratch the bottom of my car, so I tried to avoid it. In the process of this, I ended up just running it over with both of my passenger car tires. I may have said the words, “Oh, shit!” But I feel like there are some moments in life where swearing is appropriate. And this was probably one of those moments. I was real good at life though and I didn't even cry. I made the necessary phone calls and got a hold of this nice man named Adam who could come and help me. There are a number of things that fell into place perfectly which proves that God lives and loves all of his children. Within a few hours we were back on the road heading to Canada.

The main purpose of our trip was to see the Calgary Temple. It was such a beautiful temple and we were also able to visit the Carston temple which was also very beautiful.  I love temples! Nothing to super exciting happened, on the rest of the trip but we all had a super great time. I now am thinking of where I want to go next before my big trip to Ghana. Any suggestions?

I also forgot to mention that I went to Taco Bell! I love going to Taco Bell in different countries! I got some yummy food and it made my day!

Ashley P! 

An 84!!! Never Felt So Good!

Why hello blogging world! I have missed you lots. I have tried being more productive in the past couple days, but I really don’t think I was that successful. However, I did just get an 84 on my Russian mid-term and I could not be happier! Usually, I like grades in the 90s, but hell a 84 just made my day!  I have concluded that there is no way my teacher read the essays that I write. I honestly think he looks at my current grade and give me that grade on my essay. The other day I spend lots of times writting a paper and he gave me a 70 on it. I had taken two quizes that I had also gotten 70s on and I think he just took that grade and transferred it to my paper. What a nice man.

I have a couple more things to do before fall break officially starts for me. I have a paper to write tonight, a meeting about Ghana!! And then I just have to work a few hours in the morning. Then we are headed off to Canada! It really should be a party and a half! I will give a full break down of the trip upon arrival home. We are going to try to make it to our hotel tomorrow by seven so we can watch Vampire Diaries. Haha we will see if that works out or not. There will be five people in my car, two of which I don’t really know. But vacations are always way better with strangers right!?!?

Other than that nothing to interesting has been happening in my life. I went to a wedding last week. I like wedding lots. I can’t wait to plan one of my own. It is a real good thing that pinterest has been invented. What one earth did people do without it? I better start my paper!

 Aren't we all just the cutest?

 We got to help make the salad in the kitchen!

Ashley p!

Change of Plans?

I am not sure how it happens, but every single day of my life I change my life plan. If I have not changed what I plan on doing with my day, something must be seriously wrong with me. However, I feel like there are so many unknown variables I just cannot solve the equation. I just need one constant, and I am pretty sure that the constant that might just fix everything is a man. So until I find him and I know he is out there I guess I will continually change my life plan on a daily basis.

What is the newest life plan you may ask. Well that is a great question! Currently, I am looking into getting a masters form the University of Phoenix!  Yay! Exciting right! The have a campus in Murray I could attend, so I can become a teacher! I could start in June which would be so awesome. The program is a year and a half. I like this idea more and more.

Ashley P!

Life Goes On

Throughout my life I have found myself to get hung up on the small details, and over react towards things that I cannot change. Continually, I have realized that life goes on. While things may or may not happen in my life, I need to realize that life is not going to stop and wait for me to get my act together. Life continues moving with or without me.

It is easy to blame situations on problems on other people and not take the credit ourselves. In the long run though, we are essentially responsible for our choices and in turn the consequences of those choices. And that is the beauty of life. Sorry, I feel like I talked about this in a previous blog post, but lately I have just been fascinated by choices.

Today, as I listened to conference you could say I was shocked. As I listened to the announcement of President Monson, my jaw literally dropped. Looking back on my life there is no way that I would have been ready to serve a mission at age 19. I was always so impressed with those young men I knew that chose to serve the lord. There are so many decisions I have to make in the upcoming months. While this announcement has changed a lot of girl’s plans, I feel it is not going to change my timeline.

Going to Africa, is a once in a lifetime opportunity that I am still going to purse. Upon my return home, I then plan on making a final decision on a mission. I do not want to rule anything out at this moment in my life. I am so happy and grateful though for more young men and young women to have the opportunity to serve at a younger age. I feel there are many who love the gospel and realize its value at this age; this will allow them to go out. And still allows others more time to prepare and serve the lord in their own time. God loves his children, it’s a fact.

Ashley P

Blogging! :)

So I am like really starting to like this blogging thing, every other second I am like I should put that in my blog, and then I realize I am not that cool and no one would want to read that. I only end up writing like a tenth or something of what I would actually want to put on here. Also I try to keep most of my drama to myself. But I promise you that there is sometimes lots of drama in my life.

Right now though I would like to give a shout out to my worldwide readers! I think I have had readers from Germany, India, Russia, and like Peru which makes me extremely happy. I am curious to how these individuals found my blog and if it was good enough that they will come back to read some more.

Now if anyone from Russia is currently reading this I need your help. Yes that is how desperate I am. I know absolutely nothing about Russia, and somehow ended up in a Russia politics and history class. So if you could maybe just give me a rundown of the basics or something that could be really helpful.  

I also feel that the month of October deserves a shout out. Thank you for coming.  I am excited to experience October this year. There are lots of great things going on, but if we could just fast forward to mid-December I don’t think that you would find me complaining.

Ashley P!

Road Trippin!

I absolutely love road trippin! There is nothing better than jamming to music in a car with friend, on an adventure. I have been luckily to go on a number of road trips, recently I set out on the latest one. I enjoy sleep almost just as much as road trips and Thursday night I went to bed pretty early. I think I went to bed at around nine o’clock, I was so excited that I was going to get ten hours of sleep, however, at about ten til eleven my phone goes off. I will also answer my phone while sleeping unlike some people. It was Kenzie, and she said to get ready because we were on an adventure. I have learned not to argue with Kenzie and woke right up.

At first I was a little disoriented by figured that we would have a good time. Living at home like I do I figured that I had better inform my parents that I would be leaving the house. Surprisingly enough they didn’t question it too much. I have some pretty great parents. Soon enough Kenzie and Kailey waiting at my house ready for the night to begin.

As we started driving into Logan I questioned where we would be heading. Kenzie was real excited to say that we were going to go up to Pocatello.  I don’t remember that last time I was in Pocatello so I was cool with it. There were some guys up there that we were going to go and visit, but when we called them they were not so excited for us to be coming. Instead of going someone that we were unwanted to we quickly made some new plans. First we drove up through the wonderful town of Preston and then headed towards Downey. I think we were in Downey when we stopped at a gas station, if not I honestly have no idea where we were. But we stopped and got some Lotto tickets. The nice man at the counter informed us that sadly the sales from the lotto tickets do not go to the school as much as I thought. I guess my rationale for buying lotto tickets has gone out the door.

Continuing on our way we made it to Malade. Some time ago we had a couple friends that are from Malade and thought for sure one of them would love some night visitors. Unfortunately, we learned that unlike myself no one ever answers their dang phones. We really wanted to know what all the scarecrow pumpkin heads were all about. If anyone knows please let us know, we were all real confused.

The best part of our night came when we hit Tremonton. 24-hour businesses were the best things even invented. At about two three in the morning we hit up Dennys and got ourselves some biscuits and gravy. My favorite!! I think the waitress loved us, as we were super tired and a little bit out of it. We found out that we had a number of friends in common and it is always funny talking about people you and strangers now.

After, the road trip I think we have all decided that we can only handle about one night road trip like that a month. We were all so exhausted the next day. It is a wonder that I made it through work, but it is memories like that one that I will keep with me for sure!

Ashley P!

Die Young

Okay, I said that I was going to talk about Ke$ha’s new single “Die Young” the other day, and I wouldn’t want to disappoint the two people that read my blog. So here is the video so that you can check it out yourselves! J

 

 

What can I say I like it! I am real excited for the whole album “Warrior” to come out in December. You know I’ll be trying to find a clean version to buy. I am not sure what it is about Ke$ha music, but it speaks to me! Haha no I did not just say that. I am sure most people are appalled by that, but whatever.

Other than that, I do have some other things to share with the world. Tonight, I planned my Canada Trip!! I am so excited! We are going to go over fall break up to Calgary. We are going to go to the temple open house and it is going to be epic! Kenzie and Summer are coming! My two besties! And then I am also going with my sister and some of her friends, so things could get real interesting! Peace!

Ashley P!

Making the Impossible Possible

Many times I look at obstacles or challenges and think I can’t do that. But what kind of attitude is that? I have learned that with a little bit of faith, hard work, and the occasional breakdown that everything is possible. Life is all about choices, which I love.

  I am on one who gets to decides what to do with my night. I am on the one who decides if I am going to be happy or not. I am on the one who decides if I am going to write my paper, or hang out with my friends.

Yes, at times other people’s decisions will affect us, sometimes in good ways sometimes in bad ways. However, they should have the same opportunity to make choices that I have. When these decisions do affect us, it is our choice on how to react. I am not saying that it is always easy; to choose not to be affected, but yes that is an option.

Every day, I am grateful for the previous day.  Why? Because I have learned at least one thing about myself and life. Today, I learned that no matter how much we wish things were like they used to be, that they probably aren’t going to be like the used to be. And this may be for the better. People grow, people learn, and people change.

-Ashley P

Music

Lately, I have noticed how much I love music. When it comes to music I am not picky at all, I love everything. All day long at work I sit and listen to music, and then I come home and listen to even more music. I used to think that I didn’t like country music at all, but now I am in love with country music. I can credit most of that to Kenzie.

I don’t know many of the super popular songs right now, but there are a few bands that I am just in love with lately, including He Is We and j.wride. My love for them can mostly be credited to the one and only Rachel, who probably loves music more than anyone that I know and Summer who went to my first j.wride concert with me. Every time I get in  Rachel’s car, which is not often enough she has some new song that she is in love with, which I in turn have to be in love with as well.

This random outburst in regards to music is due to a new cover video that j.wride released tonight. I love there covers, but there originals are just as good, but tonight they covered Mat Kearney. So I will now put my blogging skills to the ultimate test and see if I can upload the video for all my wonderful readers to view! J

 

Well, that was easy enough. I will have to start putting more videos in my posts!

-Ashley P

Happiness! :)

Writing a blog post is just so much more appealing than writing a paper for any of my classes. I am pretty sure I have a paper to be writing in all of my classes. I guess that is what the weekend is for! J Anyways I am just pretty excited about life at the moment. My graduation packet is all filled out and sent in. I received an email about my internship in Africa today, and tomorrow I am meeting with a man about a Masters in Secondary Education. The more I think about being a teacher the more I really want to be one. I love business, but I just don’t think I want to work in the business world so much.

This past week I have been thinking a lot about growing apart from people that you were once very close with. I feel like in my lifetime I have had a number of different friends that I no longer keep in contact with at all. It seems to interesting to me that you can know nothing about someone you used to know everything about. I would love to know what is going on in all my old friend’s lives, but I just don’t even know where I would start. This is one reason Facebook is nice, you can follow up on people that you haven’t talked to in ages. I guess also if people never move out of your life new people can’t move in. And I honestly love all the people in my life right now, so I guess it just a part of life and change.

Okay, well I don’t really have to much else to say, except for the fact the Ke$ha’s new single Die Young comes out next week and I am real excited for it! I will give a full debrief next week after I listen to it!

Ashley P! 

PS- We got our picture taken with the Romney bus today and we were super excited! Just thought I would share!

 

 

 

Life is a Roller Coaster

Over and over again I am reminded that life is a roller coaster. This weekend I most definitely seemed to be on a roller coaster ride. I would go from very happy, to not so happy at all. I realize that in order to experience the highs that we have to experience the lows in life. Even though I hate the lows, I can put up with them because I sure do love the highs. So here is a little recap of my weekend.

On Friday, I was informed that my grandpa has prostate cancer. I personally don’t really know that much about prostate cancer, or cancer really in general. I feel like for some reason I am really good at have a disconnect with health related problems. I have known people who are cancer survivors, but really don’t understand the effects cancer has on peoples life. However, his outlook is good and he should be fine.

Kenzie didn’t have work on Friday so we made dinner. We both love cooking, so most nights we will cook dinner and just watch TV and things. Kailey Skinner came over and we were all just having a grand ole time. However, more suddenly my night made a total 180. Around eleven I received a call from my father, which was really weird. He never calls and I was extremely surprised. Honestly I thought I was in trouble for something. I could kinda tell something was up when I answered. He asked me what I was doing and if I could maybe come and pick him up. I asked him where he was and he stated that he was at the hospital. Instantly my mind started racing. Why on earth would he be in the hospital? Naturally, I assumed the worst. He stated that my grandparents can come up for the night and that upon arrival my grandpa wasn’t doing very well and that an ambulance had come and picked him up. He didn’t really give me more information than that. I instantly left to go and pick him up. The whole drive into Logan I was an absolute wreck. I really analyzed my life and how every moment is important.

My grandpa is doing fine, he just has pneumonia. He is still in the hospital but should hopefully be getting out tomorrow. On Saturday morning I was able to go to the hospital, and be present for a priesthood blessing. I am so grateful for the worthy priesthood holders that I have in my life and all that they do for me and those that I love.

I had lots of things that I needed to get down Saturday, but with all that happened I honestly just wanted a break from things. Luckily, I have great friends and Kenzie and I spent the day in Logan. One of the best things that we did was people watch in Wal-Mart. We found these real nice chairs and sat in them for almost an hour. It was so funny. I think we sold at least like ten of them sitting there, Kenzie even ended up buying one of them. I was real sad that we really didn’t end up seeing anyone that we knew. I am pretty sure that I could be content sitting in Wal-Mart people watching all day long. However, the best part was when we tested our creeper skills. I was actually pretty surprised at how good we are. There is a certain green pickup that drives around CV that Kenzie knows pretty well and anyways we saw it and Kenzie just really wanted to know where it was going so we started following. I asked Kenzie how she expected to follow the truck as she doesn’t exactly drive crazy at all. She stated that she couldn’t do it, but that she knew that I could do it, so she hops out of her car and I jump into the driver’s seat. It was great fun; we ended up being so fast we got in front of the truck for a second, but then let it pass so we could follow it. Unfortunately, the truck only drove up to campus and nowhere to interesting, but it was pretty fun testing our skills. We are thinking that we could be PIs for hire.

Saturday night I was able to attend the adult session of Stake Conference which was really great. I think during it I really figure out what I want to do with my life, which I have actually been stressing about quite a bit lately. However, during the conference I felt a peace and knew that everything is going to work out. I plan on meeting with a couple of different people hopefully this week to see if my plan will really work out.

Okay, one last story I promise. Today, when I got back from Stake Conference my brother said that he thought the Schenks would be speaking in our ward and I decided that I wanted to go. Britten Schenk went to school with me and was in my ward, in March six months ago we was hit by a bus while serving a mission in Brazil. Hearing the family’s testimonies today was absolutely amazing. The progress that he has made in the short six months is incredible. Seeing what they have been through makes everything I face seem small. I am so grateful for a Heavenly Father that is aware of me and watches over me. This weekend reminded me that things can change in a matter of second and I need to be prepared for that. But at the same time I realize that God is there for me and that I can turn to him when needed.

Ashley P.

Motivation

Different things motivate different people. You would think after 20 years of life, I would have figured out how to motivate myself to do different things. However, I have not and I find myself constantly looking for ways to motivate myself. I try to motivate myself in the morning to wake up thinking, if I get ready for the day I might see a cute guy, or if I study for my test I will get a good grade.

Maybe I can’t motivate myself to do things, because of the procrastinator deep down inside of me. I always know that I will get it done and that I will do a good job, I just won’t start working on it until the last second. As I am in my last semester of my undergraduate I wonder if I should try to change now. I mean it has worked for the last two years of college, why would it stop working my last semester.

It is almost as if I can only work if I know it has to be done now. If I know that I can work on it tomorrow or the next day the likely hood of me waiting is very high. That is why I love deadlines. Because I know if there is a deadline it will be done no problem. Deadlines are the solutions to all my problems. In order to motivate myself I just give myself a deadline, before the actual deadline.

-Ashley P

As you can see I have no motivation tonight. Hence, the blog post! J

Just Another Week

Sundays, seem to be a great day for reflection. I am so grateful to have a day of rest in my busy life. Once again I seem to have packed my week full of different activities this past week.  Which is great, I am young and need to capitalize on my youth.

During the actual week I seem to be pretty good at just going to work or school and then being real lazy the rest of the night. Even though I am a real social person most of the time I really enjoy my alone time. I tend to save the weekend for my social life. And this weekend was no different. It was probably one of the best weekends I have had in a while.

Like any good college student I supported my football team on Friday night. The game was so great, except for the fact that by the end of the game my feet were absolutely killing me! I really do enjoy football, but the games are just so long. I was more than relieved when the Aggies were able to capture the win after the first overtime section of play. Winning is always a great feeling.

 

 

After the win the whole valley must have decided to go get some grub. Because I have never seen so many people at Taco Bell before in my life! It was absolutely crazy! The line was out the door. I being a Taco Bell lover was just so excited that so many people like Taco Bell. I seem to creep the girl in front of my out when I got my picture with all the people in the store. It’s a real good thing that I don’t take what others think to personally.

 

Saturday was probably my most favorite day ever! I was able to be real lazy all day long and then go out with friends! Kailey Skinner and I decided that we would make some dinner. However, I just hate making dinner for like two people so I had to invite other people over! I ended up getting one of my favorite people ever to come over who just returned from his mission. I just love missionaries by the way. I feel a little bad, because we probably corrupted him a little bit. But it was just so great to see him again. I am beyond excited for more missionaries to come home. I need some new guys to hang out with in my life!

Random bits of information-

1.   Ke$ha is releasing a new single this month!

2.   I am going to Canada next month!

3.   I got me some sweet new glasses!

4.   If you want to get in my blog probably hang out with me!

5.   And finally have a great week! J

 

-Ashley P!

PS. Sorry about the formatting I am new to this and I am trying to figure it out!

The Long Weekend

Just like everyone else I love my weekends and long weekends are even better!! However, Tuesday morning I realized just how much I hate waking up the morning after a long weekend. It is absolutely dreadful. During this Labor Day weekend I was able to fit a number of activities into my schedule.

Friday-

After attending college for a number of semesters I have realized the benefits of choosing your own schedule and that you can chose not to have class on Fridays which is exactly what I did this semester. Making my long weekends even longer. However, I did still have to work but I have to say I like work better than school most days.

Of course the best part of Friday was the much anticipated 80s dance. Unfortunately, this year the dance did not live up to expectations set by the prior years. This was mostly due to the fact that the dance was held inside the ballroom and you couldn’t last more than a few dances without dying of heat. The plus side of having the dance inside was the ability to people watch outside. I am pretty sure I could be pretty contend just sitting and watching people all day long.

Saturday-

I finally got to make my long awaited trip to Burley, Idaho. I mean honestly who doesn’t want to visit good ole Burley? I met up with a bunch of friends Trevor, Boyd, Dallin, and then Trevor’s two cousins Skylar and Shana. We went cliff jumping in Twin Falls. I am suprisingly not good at jumping off of cliffs. For some reason and I couldn’t quite figure out why  I could not get my body to think it would be a good idea to jump off of the cliffs. I did end up jumping twice, but will probably not be going anytime in the near future again.

An important thing to know about myself is that I love, love, love, love, love waterfalls! They are like my favorite thing on the planet. You could get me to do almost anything if there is a waterfall involved. So naturally when I have the chance I have to stop to see a waterfall. We had gone cliff jumping right about Shoshone Falls. So I stopped and they are absolutely beautiful. I plan on making a return trip in the Spring to see them at full force. I do, however, need to find some friends that like pictures a bit more than the individuals I was with. No one would take a picture with me.

 

 

The best part of my trip to Burley was the fact that just as we were about ready to leave there was some tornado warnings for the area. Dallin and myself were driving back together and we thought if we left real quick we could out run the madness that was coming. Sadly, that was not the case at all and within minutes of getting on the freeway I was driving in the scariest conditions of my life!! It honestly went from heavy rain to hard hail in a matter of seconds and I would not see 100 ft in front of me. Luckily, for me Dallin was real helpful and never made me feel like a bad driver and he was real patient with me. If he had not been in the car I would have most definitely been in tears.

One last awesome story for Saturday night! Sometimes me and my bestie Kenzie like to convince guys to give us rides in their trucks. And luckily we know the owner of the highest lifted truck in the whole valley! We somehow got him to come over and watch a movie with us. However, you know those movies that you just keep hoping are going to get better but they never do? Haha that is exactly how our movie was. Everyone kept asking if it was going to get better, I honestly thought a movie couldn’t be as bad as it was, but apparently they can.

Okay, sorry for that tangent. Anyways this truck we were riding in apparently doesn’t meet all the proper regulations for the valley. There is something about the tires being too wide which doesn’t really make sense to me. Anyways, Zach always takes the back roads so the cops don’t see him. We end up driving right past a cop and sure enough the lights start flashing. As we are getting pulled over Zach turns and looks at Kenzie who can be quite the talker and says don’t say a word! As the cop comes to the window he starts going off about how the truck needs to be impounded and I start thinking what I am supposed to do if this thing gets impounded. As Zach is getting all his stuff together to give to the cop Kenzie just starts a talking and I am dying. Somehow, Kenzie can make a connection with anyone on the whole planet. It turns out Kenzie knows the cops parents or something and he knows hers. After making friends with the cop this real mean cop comes and starts chewing Zach out. After he left the other cop came back and didn’t give him any tickets or impound the truck it was miracle. From now on I am making sure Kenzie is in the car every single time I get pulled over. I am pretty sure she can get out of anything.

Those are probably the highlights of my weekend. I went to a reunion Sunday and boating Monday, with my cousins.  I won’t bore you with any details as nothing to super excited happened!

-Ashley P