Clothes Shopping

Each time I contemplate going clothes shopping I tell myself "Remember to get 2 of anything you buy," and each time I either forget or it is the ONLY one of its kind left. Now most people would NEVER submit themselves to buying 2 of the same thing (except maybe jeans) because most people would never want to look as if they were wearing the same thing day after day. Personally, I don't care if it looks like I am wearing the same thing day to day. All I want is to wear somewhat decent clothing that is comfortable, simple, utilitarian/sturdy, and modest. Is that too much to ask for?

Unfortunately, from the time that I have spent during the past 2 weeks trying to find new clothes, I've realized that clothing that matches my wants/sensibilities don't exist. Is it really all that hard to make a shirt that doesn't display you and your assets to the whole world. Or a simple pair of pants that doesn't have rhinestones or some funky design all over it. All I want is a simple button-up shirt and a pair of khaki's to wear to work. It is either a Texas thing or a US thing, but I couldn't even FIND any khaki's that weren't really tan jeans. And a simple button-up shirt? Forget it! And let's not even get into shoes, that is a whole other world of stupidity.

On the whole, I have two major problems when clothes shopping. Finding a style a like, then finding it in my size. I used to joke with my friends that I should start a "Short & Stout" store to complement the current "Big & Tall" stores. Currently, if I do eventually find a pair of pants that fit me, I still have to hem them up quite a few inches (and they were petite to begin with!). So, what is the solution? Now, most of my friends/family would say to change my style (they don't like my current style to begin with anyways). No offense, but I don't like to wear what everyone else likes to wear. Should I force you to wear something you feel uncomfortable in? I think not.

So, my search must continue for the oh so elusive things I desire. Wish me luck.

My Obsessive Reading Habits

My roommate put forth an interesting question to me yesterday. If you were banned from reading, what would you do with your time? After much contemplation of both my past and my present, I have realized that my reading habits have gone too far. Like all things, reading should be done in moderation. For most people, that means they should at least read a book a month. For me though, that means I need to curtail my reading habits, for they have become seriously unhealthy.

I am currently at the point in my life where I come home from work/church and IMMEDIATELY start reading and I don't stop until sometime after 11pm when I finish the last book (which means if I start a new book at 10:30 then I won't finish and go to bed till 2-3 sometimes). That means on some days I may read up to 5 books before calling it a night. More often then not, I end up skipping dinner because I don't want to waste the time I could have spent reading by fixing and eating something. Considering this is all I do - PERIOD! - I realized this may not be a good thing (you think!?!) . Thus bringing me back to my roommate's question ...

What would I do if I couldn't read? I don't know. What do I currently do now besides reading? I can't think of ANYTHING! I am trying to imagine a day without a book and it just scares the bee-gee-bee's out of me. So, the real question becomes, now that I have discovered/acknowledged this problem in my life, what am I going to do about it? Set a daily limit of books/pages/chapters? Cut up my library cards? Maybe I should find a book about how other people handled their obsessions with reading :-)

Lament for my lifestyle

It is interesting, but in our family trueblat has always been considered the "fun-loving" one and I was always the "control-freak." After much conversation with trueblat, I have come to discover that we are both living our life in the manner that we choose, but with very different reasons than the adjectives given above. Everything in my life I do because it is fun and enjoyable. This is not very understandable at first glance, but once you realize that my definition of "fun" is different from everyone else's, then it makes more sense. I love order, I love reading, I love to organize, I love doing puzzles, I love fruit, I love programming, I love music, I love staying up late hours, I love sitting at a computer all day, I love being anti-social, I love being me. It just so happens that most everything I found enjoyable/fun matched the principles/standards dictated by my church/home/the law so I have never had to worry about doing something that was wrong. I have never had to control my actions or talk myself out of them because it was wrong (albeit my excessive reading habits are getting to the point that I should, according to my family/friends :-). Trueblat on the other hand does most everything with the desire to "control" his life, but the activities taken to fulfill that control seem more "fun-loving" than the ones I do for fun. Thus over the years, we have become "mis-labeled."

Unfortunately, their comes a point in everyone's life when their attitudes/actions must change because of an outside force. Mine did a minor change in college when I gave up reading for 5 years for something equally fun - learning. Since graduating though, I have rebounded right back into my early reading habits and have frequently fulfilled my local library's circulation requirements single-handedly. Now though, I am going to have to make a permanent change to my lifestyle, and I am not replacing it with something fun. I now have to control something in my life that I enjoy and make it less enjoyable. What is this enjoyment? FOOD.

I am a very picky eater. I eat only the foods I like/love and have been doing so for quite some time. For most this may be a problem because the type of foods they like are bad in general (fast food, sweets, fried stuff, excessive meat, etc.). For me, My diet primarily consists of fruits and grains with a smattering of milk products. Most would consider that a "decent diet", not great per say, but nothing to be overly worried about. Well, all that has to change now. If I want to have a better lifestyle, then I have to start controlling my eating habits and basically do a complete flip-flop with my current "diet." Because of health reasons, I now have to instead eat more veggies and meat (the most despised food groups in my books!), a smattering of milk products, and very little/none of the breads and fruits. Oh woe is me! How am I to survive? I have never in my life had to control something in my life, and now I have to control my eating habits!?! This is horrid!

So, this is a lament for my lifestyle. I now have to take a chapter out of my brother's book and ::gulp!:: control something in my lifestyle. It is a sad day indeed. :^.^:

Stupid Burglars

So, I am currently living in a house with 3 other girls. Today, I got home from work to find out that someone had gotten into our house and we had been burglarized. The funny/stupid part about the whole thing: they only took two laptops and a camera and moldy backpack. All of us were gone all day and they had ample time to take a TON of other expensive stuff (including two other computers, the TV, two expensive bikes, another laptop, etc.) but they left with that small amount. Also, sitting out on the kitchen table was a jar with cash and credit cards in it - left untouched. Personally, I think we just have stupid burglars or just ones that know exactly what they can skalp and thus won't try for anything else. Out of the four of us, I was the only one not to have anything taken (which is easy to figure out considering I really have nothing of value that is easy to transport except my external harddrive which is currently at my work).

But why didn't the burglars take more stuff, and why did they move what they did move? The drawers in my dresser had been opened, my closet was opened, etc. Anyways, I guess I don't understand why an individual would do this to begin with. Oh well, you live you learn.

Amusing Errors...

So, today I was looking at something online at an official (i.e. Amazon, Google, MSN) web site when I clicked on an internal link and got the most amusing error message:

************************************************
500 Internal Server Error

Sorry, something went wrong.

A team of highly trained monkeys has been dispatched to deal with this situation. Please report this incident to customer service.

Also, please include the following information in your error report:
xcVQn5ht-Fz51OKrc8OUla3xZyn1TQ0Pgz8SYrgkz09Xm
QRybvl11p-a4G_-jcXnQf9cyaVRliKQ0CFAY2osRRknLlW
FX_8w3JMueFbnE9lVtNXcKsX-K2pPUnQl_kKYeYTyZH
R-FDYEHNki7WJZbv9pCduWLTFGoXvqb4PeaqiyuTCYt
czMmPTcZX43V0aJm845-TkAaVoQiQs36ZpRyvjAvmWi
V4habbqkyP8QXApg9YhuavBlHQVCp7x8Ibd2SLXgtLrA
ze_WWTI9dmXgZb9ctOLcsDExtn0Y9t_4wgbcN6e37kd9
qN578kPqSX0QnE4NSFcyGUAbm8a6gn4CeHZCKo6Nk9
O66FG3B7_uJMWGeBV1bhA6jRdsvaLojr77xv95WQCUZ
nV8CKZWic49d1vWAOTTJd0vx3N93I41SkzMsAmprgY
1XXzWoyKyTMWCeM-DWt3FOV-1UsHMYzB33behlKH
8YWPhwwBy1pLg4cGyEgg8LCk7i0e8OV_VPWKBX2ew
NFbUxqu1c41yW_8IIW_9zOc60hmrMRWu-Pq6O3423
y4c0C_mqaDUTW0LQk1H98KfHGjlNCrhihhmII-ciGZfA
Accvhizq3oMKq3pKl6qqMQ67JHXrivgFLnl_UqvESAS0g
Kf1bqwBF4kojAAj3nbedWHiN089V091UkUw6coFR8qgc
ntYva1QyzMT8oFC2ZG3HDvWPmX4mhtC5miUexBNc1
1qSnPMyXjFRB-e8gdJ57V2_n3pyZljNP11n5z3icOWd1I
OaJuFnJujpZdUCXUUJmpgOn37ARyBHXdCR0bOjM7n
mISv6IX5xY9W7e6Fg5g0VYp9bX22GZBRTaterO4Pdy
9UUnY8967Rzcl2nmHYz2TUBlOSQOmHixRQbrzTRcO
pRAQUEfMjeRvxjDnoFyE4xmF97bHV0oldkQtRyHiMP
EbK8wtRVzOfREkZGIm57ArM8S8CoGgzZI5TPjfitDLq
7ufLw93Mq3c8N3JTbMJB7fUDoUsidlNMQJUsLMEDz
kzi0nCGxyZZuBU2UM1igpe-sz37c82P1Qd8k6wEtv9Pe
6RcaoUt751razMBYuKM69wb_AzcM4R4_O-a40GYQ7
lCAXH9vcP5NbLtZxXG8nx7JpgycNZUm0XDKkrvhCN
VruCLxhh2cPlezrkkcuh4SYNO8uXvfw8C_dUyZdj-6c-E
XFySlREHmfzEGd5hO_9MKh60-YIbNK6dyxklA_Eb8l
BBiuBHPHK-DF50SIRvwaghP3Zx_dDC3VWiuvoGUeZ
90CgiQu3G2BuXJX3SauA08_n1yp_tZNSJi7boX-P8wv
KQ-P7DgBaL8RN3odIQfVZyuZAahBzl-sUJthJC4QxrbZ
J9sgm29SReVwurh2B0XxE3o2wriWKmEOD6L9wpgTj
b-EPKy1jvmMTHruiWy7s8KmbKk79aAZsTMB7Bwa-y
446SI8mahgHFTai6C--8OiDzBrWJcPE_y-julRTlmEcF
3I9WAykA7Wt1uMWOZNMGU1N4s4EvnatmA==
************************************************

The part about the monkeys made me laugh but what is even more amusing to me is the information they wanted me to give them (that mass of characters). My first thought upon reading that line was an image of a person getting that mass in an email, glancing at it, and then pointing at one one specific line or character and saying "Yep, there's the problem right there." More than likely, this is just an error that was never replaced with more userfriendly messages/code. Anyways, I just thought this was amusing.

Courtesy, a Lost Art

When it comes to communication, when someone says something to you, it typically means that you should respond. If they say hi, you should at least respond with hi, at the most maybe you should ask "How are you doing?" Lately, that isn't happening as often. More and more these days, I ask a question or say a greeting and people ignore me. Now, I can somewhat forgive them for this infraction considering more often than not they barely know me, maybe just by name. But, in my book it is a common courtesy to respond. Lately though it has gotten worse. It used to be that if you contacted a person by letter or phone and said "Write/phone me back" they would respond in turn. Writing has since been transmuted into emailing and with that transition the expectation of a responding email has diminished. With the ability to mass write people, I understand that lack of response. In my mind though, I still expected people to respond to phone calls. You know the individual, so they shouldn't be ignoring you. It is an personal act towards a solitary person, not like just a quick email sent to a random list of individuals. And yet, I have come to the realization recently that phone calls have gone the way of the email. Forgotten. Ignored. What is the point in an answering machine if you are not going to respond to the messages left there? This past week I have been trying to get a hold of the same 10 girls. I have emailed them all once and phoned each of them at least 3 times. None of them have yet to return my calls even when I explicitly tell them to. I even give them my sacred cell phone number and tell them that ANYTIME at all will work, just PHONE! But sadly there is some undeclared and yet valid expression in the world these days that says "if (person == bandjam) then ignore;" So what is going to replace phone calls? There has to be some form of "reliable" communication between individuals. Doesn't there?

Another courtesy lost in today's society is regards doing one's duties/responsibilities when you say that you will. Now, I understand that things come up and you can't do "such and such," but considering people are depending on you to do it, isn't it at least common courtesy to inform them in advance that you can't. It seems very logical to me. If you can't do it this time then your "leader" can parcel out your responsibilities to others this time, which you can then reciprocate their kindness by picking up their slack when they get busy next time. Or if you just can't take it anymore, you tell them so that they can find a permanent replacement. This seems so trivial to me, and yet for some odd reason it is apparently impossible for some individuals to do. I am a "leader" of such a "committee." Every month each committee member has a set of things to do and then they need to report everything to me, which I then composite, do other things with and then report to my supervisor. Simple, right? WRONG! Example: One committee member disappeared off the map three months ago. Refused to respond to phone calls or emails. I personally had to do all her duties the day the reports were due each of those months. We finally decided that she is not going to come back and so we replaced her. Once that act is accomplished though, she then comes storming back and throwing a fit that we replaced her. I would have been understanding of her situation if she had returned our calls/emails, or if she had told us things in advance, or if she had found a substitute. But, she hadn't done any of those things. She just up and quit and got mad when we fired her. Another member of the committee seems to be heading the same way. I saw her today and asked her how everything was going cause my communications to her have not been responded to. She does tell me that she can't do it for "this month" (which really means last month), but once again the report is due tomorrow which means I have to pick up her slack. I don't know whether to count these acts as lack of responsibility or lack of courtesy. I would be PERFECTLY HAPPY to take over their duties. SHEESH! I hate delegating anyways, the only reason I do it is because it is required of me. So, why can't these girls be courteous enough to contact me BEFORE the due date and ask for help. I would have a lot more respect for them then rather than when they ignore me and not do anything at all.

Courtesy, Honesty, Responsibility, Integrity, Respect, Fairness. These values and more are lost in today's culture. Why are they lost? Will we ever get them back? CAN we get them back? How are those of us who still believe and live by these principles supposed to work with those who don't? Is our world basically turning into a (and I hate cliches, but...) "dog eats dog" world or an "every man for himself" one?

Drama, Drama, Drama

So, I am a VERY un-dramatic person. My life has never had drama in it and it probably never will. But that doesn't mean that I am not surrounded by the drama of others. Recently, my roommate's life has been one GIGANTIC soap opera. Finally, it ended (or reached the current point of, but will probably continue in a week or so :-) with the boy that my roommate likes deciding to date one of her very good friends instead of her because he likes her and is afraid of getting hurt if they ever got together and had to break up. OK ... that makes a whole lot of sense ...? Anyways, because of that, there has been much discussion at our place of how she should deal with the situation. There are two trains of thought that have come out. One is that she should "support" them in their decision and remain their friend while waiting patiently on the sideline for the new relationship to die (which it will, that is a given). The other thought is that she should fight for him (not in a mean or ugly way, but don't just let him go because he didn't choose her). Now, a very interesting thing about this is that it is split pretty equally as to the number of people who support each train of thought. Would she get her guy if she fought for him and he realized that she really does like him? or would that scare him off? OR ... is it better to remain a nice peaceful friend waiting on the sidelines to be their when they break up, thus showing that she supports his decisions and she isn't one for revenge or hatefulness? or would that show to him that she doesn't love him enough to fight for him?

Personally, I find the entire situation stupid and the guy has been a complete flake with everything else he has ever said or done. So, I think she should just dump him period. Of course none of the people who have been in on what has been going on agree with me, but come on ... if he is a flake NOW, he is just going to be as flaky as ever if they ever DO get together. So why suffer the large heartache later when you have invested time and feelings into the relationship, when you can just drop him now, and suffer the small heartache that comes with liking someone who doesn't want you. Amusingly enough, when I voiced this opinion to someone once, they looked at me with annoyance/anger and commented that I am just a cold hearted person who thinks too much. WELL THEN. I guess I have to say that I think it is better to think too much then to constantly go through drama, become moody and depressed, and constantly have issues because you never think at all. (and no, I am not describing my roommate using that phrase, she actually thinks quite a bit. I am describing the person who gave me such an unusually phrased "compliment.")

Anyways, a random thought that parallels the current thought. Why is it that there is no drama in my life? The only thing I can think of is that I prevent drama from ever having a chance of appearing in my life by thinking and analyzing situations to death before making an educated decision as to what I should do. Is this a good or bad thing? It is a good thing in that following that paradigm you will have a pretty constant life with few problems. But, at the same time your life will rarely find those moments of extreme happiness, because, to achieve that level of happiness, there is a variable of risk that takes place that could instead cause you to instead feel very sad/angry/depressed/bad/etc. I don't like risk, so I try really hard to remove it from any decisions that I make. So, maybe that girl who "complimented" me earlier was completely correct (she was already half correct, I am pretty cold hearted :-). Maybe I do need to stop thinking and analyzing and just start acting. Considering that using my brain is such an integral part of who I am, the process of not doing so is pretty close to impossible. Plus, in the end, would I really be a "new" person who doesn't analyze as much? Or would I still be the same person just with a facade of carefreeness on top of who I am? Considering how much I hate/despise facades and people who display them, I probably will not try to change myself for fear that that risk will become true. But that means I have come full circle. I should/need to put risk in my life, but to do so has a risk of going against my nature. And thus, I won't change anything about myself because that risk exists. I love paradoxes. :-)

Service Activities

I have always loved doing service activities. You go with a group of your friends/family and help others who need it (or not :-). Since going to college I hadn't had much of a chance to do many service activities as I was constantly studying and working. Well, since graduating, that has changed. I now have a job, which unlike school doesn't require me to work on the weekends and the evenings. So, now I can get back into doing the things I love most, one of which being service. After looking around a bit and participating in several service activities organized by my work and my church, I finally found a service activity that I thoroughly enjoy and that REALLY needs my help. Nearby is a conservation area that has quite a few paths that go through a wooded area. Well, the first Saturday of every month a group of volunteers get together to help prune along the sides of the paths so that the paths don't become overgrown and people don't have to duck to walk on them.

The first time I participated in this activity I went with my local church. We had so much fun and I fell in love with the conservation area and how it reminds me so much of home with all of the trees and streams everywhere. (If only it had some hills to it, then it would be home :-) So, I returned yesterday by myself and had the time of my life helping out the normal group of volunteers who do this every month. One of the more enjoyable parts of this service activity were meeting and getting to know the other volunteers. All of them (excluding me and the two people who "work" for the conservation area) were old retired men who used to work in the oil business. They were so much fun to talk to and to learn about the changes that have happened in their lives compared to mine. It made me miss all the times that I used to visit my grandfather while in college and talk about his life and his perspective on this era. They actually complimented me in the end by saying (with wry smiles and twinkles in their eyes :-) "We love that you have decided to join us and to do some honest work ... but could you slow down a little. You are throwing off the curve and making the rest of us look bad!" :-) I love old people. They are so much fun and so full of knowledge and experience in life. I would love to be like them when I grow up. Still spry, happy with life, and willing to continue to serve others.

Random Train of Thoughts

It is interesting how much your life changes when you move somewhere different. If you are lucky you will have family or friends that live near your new home and thus you won't have to completely start fresh with your social network. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen often. In our church at home I remember a family that moved in and stayed a few years. From talking to them I found out that they moved around a lot from state to state. I could never have imagined doing that. Completely uprooting your life, saying goodbye to everyone you know, traveling to an unknown area and then replanting yourself and trying to socialize with the new people. It is a scary proposition for anyone. Especially if you don't know anyone there and you know you really don't fit in.

In my life I have had two major moves. The first time was going out to college in Utah. This move did not cause me much grief because I never really enjoyed high school and didn't have that many friends in my hometown. My only concern with that move was the lack of immediate family in the vicinity of my new home. Even then, my new home was really close to an extended family that I had never gotten to know when growing up. So with the help of my relatives and through the diligence of a few exceptional people I met at college, I slowly learned to make new friendships which I maintained throughout my college years. These people were one of a kind and I got to really depend on them in my life. Having experienced good friendships such as these, I was kind of nervous when I graduated from college and had to leave for a completely new area to start my career. I had interned in this new area for a summer, but most of the acquaintances I had during that time were fellow interns and pest control people who were not returning at a later date. I currently have no family in the area either, which means I am utterly on m own.

I know that now I need to make new friends in this area on my own, but my natural inclination is to be a loner. In college I didn't search out my friends. They were either initially forced on me (roommates :-) or they wanted to be MY friend and thus worked hard to get me to accept and trust them. Thus, this is a whole new experience for me. To make it harder, I got used to the college atmosphere (especially at BYU) where you can go next door and have an instant friend who has a lot of the same standards and tastes as you and is near the same age. In Houston, the local singles ward is spread out over most of the city so if you are looking for a church friend to hang out with you have to take in travel time and traffic. Also, at college I fit in with most crowds towards the end because one I was one of the older crew and 2) I acted so much like a child that I was able to get along with the younger crew. Here though, most of the singles are working and have been for many years. I am now one of the younger people in the ward and it doesn't help that I tend to act very childlike. Making friends here will be a very difficult task for me, but considering this is hopefully where I will stay and work for many years, it is a much needed task to accomplish.

So, with that in mind I tried to strike up conversations with people at church. Wow, that was a big failure. Once you get past your name, age, and what you are doing in Houston, there really isn't that much to talk about. At BYU it was easier because you could then talk about classes, devotional, teachers, mock the local dating scene, etc. Here, I am kind of out of my element because I don't know anything about the area really, and I have been a student for to many years to think of what normal people would talk about. What do normal people talk about? Pondering that, I realized why gossip tends to be brought to the forefront. I never understood when growing up why they always were talking on how gossip was bad and we shouldn't do it. In my mind, there was no reason to do it then because we had more important things to talk about or do. Now though, the only connection I have with anyone in my ward as of now is that I know a few people that they know, thus gossip is formed. Amazing. Also, this also explains why cliques are formed. You have a group of people who have all had the same experiences and put them together in a room. Naturally, they are going to talk about those shared experiences either in a reminiscing way or further knowledge has developed. Thus when a new person tries to enter into the conversation, it is fare thee well impossible because they don't have those similar experiences and don't know those people, thus they are typically left out. It makes so much sense coming from the point of view of the new person. I seriously hope that I was never like the cliquish groups, but I know that once you get me and my close friends, or me and my roommates together, a new person would never be able to get a word in edgewise. I really need to be more aware of when I do that.

Another interesting thought that pertains to trying to make new friends is the idea of a facade. I have the tendency of showing exactly who I am and getting really ticked at those who present facades of themselves to the world. Unfortunately, facades allow you to adjust to any sort of environment thus it seems you get along with everyone. Myself on the other hand shows everyone exactly who I am and thus if you don't like it, then tough, because I am not going to change my ways to better suite you. This thought comes from me describing myself as childlike. I like how I can get excited over the simplest of things, and that I love to run and play outdoors, and play games, etc. Unfortunately, by being childlike I am alienating myself from the general population of the singles ward down here who are all "professional, mature adults" who are trying to enhance their careers and prove to the world that they are adults. So, when I go to ward activities and I do something childlike, most people generally give me a weird look that implies that if they associate with me it would be detrimental to their facade of mature adult that they are portraying to the world. I wonder how many adults in the world want to act like a kid and go jump in a pile of leaves, but don't because it isn't 'practical' or that would endanger there front of mature adult. I pity them. They should let themselves enjoy life, otherwise what is the purpose of living. I remember when I first started my internship. I was so excited and happy and I let it show through to the outside world. I was constantly smiling and laughing while at work which you could tell surprised a lot of people the first week or so. Then they got used to the fact that that was who I was. They also slowly got used to the fact that more often then not, if I was just standing around, I wouldn't be able to stand still for long, and I would start to do a little dance. Slowly as work progressed I noticed that most of the somber faces were disappearing and that people would start to laugh and smile with me (albeit, nobody started to dance :-) It is amazing how one person can affect the entire group.

Another thing that I've noticed about leaving an area entirely is that you have to make a decision whether or not to stay in contact with your friends you made while being there. On a more realistic (but also pessimistic perspective) you are never really going to see these people again, your lives are completely diverging, do you really have time and diligence to stay in contact with you? Sadly enough, no matter how much you tell everyone you will stay in contact, there will come a time where you stop trying and everyone moves on with life. When should that point come? Or should it come at all?

I am so blessed

It is interesting how much everyone (including myself) complains about how rough their life is, when really it isn't rough at all. I know that I have had a few rough spots in my life, but nothing compared to the people around me. For the most part, I am completely healthy. I am pretty smart and I know how to solve general problems in my life. My family loves me. I have friends. I may have lost my mom, but I at least have my family and all my relatives who are willing and able to help me out if I asked. I already have a job ready for me when I graduate. I am graduating from college. I am not in debt. I am generally happy in life. Sheesh. My life is probably the easiest for anyone to live in.

I have always known most of these things, but it really brings it to home when I am talking to one of my roommates. This girl is absolutely wonderful. She is generally always happy, always helping out others. Everyone who sees us together thinks that we are sisters (it helps that we both have the same interests and come from large families, she is the 4th of 12). She is smart and has been working here for a while. Unfortunately though, her life has had tons of problems. She was previously married, but divorced because her husband had some issues. She started dating someone about a year ago, but her mother decided that he was the spawn of satan (or something in those terms) and so she and her mother have not been on good speaking terms ever since then. Also, her dad got really sick a year ago and has had other issues. About a week ago her parents recently decided to get a divorce. Her siblings are having to decide which parent that they support, thus determining who goes with which parent (there are 8 kids still at home). To add to that, her relatives generally hate her family and none of them are helping them out through this situation. While this is all happening at home, she is stuck here because of work and so can't go home to help her siblings (she is basically like our "bignlittlesis" when it comes to roles in the family), or even take a break to deal with her own emotions. Compared to her life my life is absolutely heavenly.

So, now that I am reaffirming that I am blessed, the big question I want to know is why I am so blessed. People around me talk about all the trials that they have had, and yet looking at my life, I really haven't had very many. Why? Is my life always going to be this peachy, or am I being blessed now because Heavenly Father knows that I will have rough times later? Or, as trueblat puts it, I have trials, but refuse to accept them as trials and work through them. What ever it may be, I still know that I am very blessed in everything that I have and do, and I need to remind myself of that. In the meantime, I am just working on being there for my roommate and helping her as much as I can. Gosh, I would hate to be in her position in life.