Sunday, June 26, 2011

Ode to Exus

Is this my second post of the day?  Yes.  Mostly for journaling sake, and all.  Whatever.
Is this technically a real ode?  No.  The title just seemed appropriate. 

So I recently had to give up my hand-me-down car to the 3rd degree to one of our dear family friends.  That's right, we sold him. 

saying goodbye
First Exus was my moms.  She got him in 1992, just a month before I was born. Then he was my brother Adam's.  He got him when he turned 16.  Then he was mine!  I got him when I turned 16 too. Adam was on his mission...bah hahaha!  Exus got his name when one of our little neighbor girls accidentally knocked the L of of Lexus.  She kindly picked up the L of the ground, brought it to us, and said, "someone hit this off your car."  Little did she know that we had been watching her, as she committed the crime.  However, it gave the formally known Lexus a new name, and a tad bit more character.  This dear car of mine, and I have been through a lot together!  


Oh, so many sentimental memories made in that car.  No, no make-out sessions involved.  Just to clarify.    Many particular memories in that car were made in the Bountiful temple parking lot, where I spent a large amount of time my Senior year of high school!  Some very special, tender miracles happened for me in those moments.  That car has seen me cry, laugh, scream, sob, day dream, be angry, so on and so forth.  It is even one of the only places I have ever sworn out loud.  I went sliding through and intersection at a red light.  Very scary.  Good ol' Exus has gotten me through quite a bit.  :)  Now he will begin a new journey with Cory Petersen and his future wifey.   Take luck!


He will be missed!!

THESE people....(warning: many pictures ahead).

I spend the majority of my free summer time with these people....

Rebecca.  Becca.  Bec.  Becs.  Becca-boo.
Annie.  Annimarie.  Ann.  Annjo.  Anj.  Tannie Anner.  
Ashlena.  Lena.  Shlena.  Len (Lean).  Shlen.
Cami.  Cammo.  Cam.  Camella.  Cam Cam.  Juice.  Camma Slamma.
Cammers.  Camammi.










I cannot even express just how much I love and adore these angels of mine!  They bring me joy, and they are making my summer an absolute blast.  WE ARE CRAZY!  Oh, we are so crazy.  We sometimes bring out the child in each other, and we are hilarious, and imperfect, and there for each other 100%!!


I believe that people cheering you on along your journey is essential.  The people that can make you feel strong again when you feel weak, or can take your hand and empower you with a little more pride when you have lost it, or can build back up your slowly tumbling walls; are the good ones.  Those are the ones that divinely know your heart and are perfectly equipped to touch it. 

I have been blessed.  

Thursday, June 23, 2011

My Solitude

I often find myself sitting here......

Everyone has their little place of refuge where they go to ponder or just get away.  One of my favorite places to go (in the warm seasons) is my swing set house.   It is so special to me!  I go up there to read scriptures, sleep, eat, write in my journal, write letters, and just to ponder.  Sometimes I listen to my music, and sometimes I just listen to nature's echos of heaven.  I even told the first boy I ever loved, "I love you" up there!  My time there is spent in appreciating the things of my past, my present, and bright future.  I am truly happy when I'm sittin' in that little place of solitude.  It is one of the simplest ways for me to feel ultimate peace.  I feel so close to heaven when I'm there.  I don't know why, really.  I just do!

the beautiful view....


every once in a while I let people like her come up too....


I just love it.....



    

Thursday, June 9, 2011

New baby!

Welcome to the family little buddy!  This little guy came into the world June 9, 2011.  He came really fast, too!!  His mommy's water broke, they sped to the hospital, and he was born 9 minutes later.  No time for pain meds.  My sister is superwoman!  All is well, and he is so cute.  He fits right into the fam.  He already looks like his siblings.  His name is Jarom David Young. What a miracle!
I'm an aunt for the 13th time!  I love this job.  
Handsome boy, beautiful mommy.  

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Why Butterflies, Hannah?

Butterflies have become a constant theme in my life for quite some time now.  For a few reasons, actually.  
Their ability to fly.  Oh, to be able to fly.  To be able to fly is to be able to do things freely.  Love, laugh, be happy...to be able to be weightless, burdenless, and in a way careless, and fearless.  To be able to fly would be to be able to look at the world in less of a human way, and in more of a divine way.  I often think that if the world was looked at differently, it would probably be much better than it sometimes seems.  Butterflies are beautiful.  They come and go in an instant, but you feel grateful to have seen them for even a moment - to witness their sacredness.  Sometimes they fly right by, or you’re lucky enough to watch them for a while.  Beautiful is beautiful.  I think it's something more felt than seen.  Have you ever asked God who you're supposed to be?  I have.  Every day.  I pray to be the person He needs me to be.  I want to be the kind of person that makes people feel wonderful whether they just meet me at the cash register, or if they meet me and know me for a lifetime.  I want people to be grateful to have seen me, and experienced my sacredness that can only be accredited to being a daughter of God. 


Sometimes I believe that I am one of the reasons the Lord put butterflies on earth.  A gift for me.  A reminder.  
I am made up of many colors, and they may not always be displayed in the most elaborate ways, but they are still gorgeous.  I wasn’t born that way.  I had to learn and grow and change. Just like a butterfly.  I've had to go through a refiners fire.  A metamorphosis.  I still am.   Being brave enough to show those colors is often the hardest part, but once that is achieved, much can be done for the world.  




“A butterfly lights besides us like a sunbeam and for a brief moment, its glory and beauty belong to the world but then it flies on again, and though we wish it could have stayed, we feel so lucky to have seen it.”
“Happiness/love is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”- Nathaniel Hawthorn

Grandma’s Butterfly quote:
“If you love something
Give it away. 
If it returns, 
then it’s yours.
If it doesn’t, 
it never was.”
Untattered Wings
It’s times like these that you heart and mind is full for an unexplainable reason, that you see the world in a different way.  That colors are perceived with an open soul.  It’s times like these where on must realize what they have and what this life is about.  This life is so much more than what we think. We have so much to worry about yet our greatest joys come from the simplest innocence.  Each and every one of us need to take a breath and have the courage to repair our tattered wings and fly away, showing no only the world but our very selves the beauty and color that only the most gifted eyes can see.  Share with the world your fixed wings.  Embrace the life that is in front of you.  Embrace the moments that take your breath away.  Look at the stars and realized that you don't have to know it all.  Have a calm heart and decide to float rather than fall.  Each of us must decide how to be.  So be who you want to, got to, and are going to need to be.  Share with the world your untattered fixed wings.  
  
The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.  ~Rabindranath Tagore
May the wings of the butterfly kiss the sun





And find your shoulder to light on,
To bring you luck, happiness and riches
Today, tomorrow and beyond.
~Irish Blessing
Butterflies are self propelled flowers.  ~R.H. Heinlein
If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies.  ~Author Unknown
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.  ~Richard Bach
But these are flowers that fly and all but sing:
And now from having ridden out desire
They lie closed over in the wind and cling
Where wheels have freshly sliced the April mire.
~Robert Frost, "Blue-Butterfly Day"
Beautiful and graceful, varied and enchanting, small but approachable, butterflies lead you to the sunny side of life.  And everyone deserves a little sunshine.  ~Jeffrey Glassberg
There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.  ~Richard Buckminster Fuller
With the rose the butterfly's deep in love,
A thousand times hovering round;
But round himself, all tender like gold,
The sun's sweet ray is hovering found.
~Heinrich Heine, "New Spring"
"Just living is not enough," said the butterfly, "one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower."  ~Hans Christian Anderson
Love is like a butterfly:  It goes where it pleases and it pleases wherever it goes.  ~Author Unknown
I've watched you now a full half-hour;
Self-poised upon that yellow flower
And, little Butterfly!  Indeed
I know not if you sleep or feed.
How motionless! - not frozen seas
More motionless! and then
What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again!
~William Wordsworth, "To a Butterfly"
I only ask to be free.  The butterflies are free.  ~Charles Dickens
The butterfly's attractiveness derives not only from colors and symmetry:  deeper motives contribute to it.  We would not think them so beautiful if they did not fly, or if they flew straight and briskly like bees, or if they stung, or above all if they did not enact the perturbing mystery of metamorphosis: the latter assumes in our eyes the value of a badly decoded message, a symbol, a sign.  ~Primo Levi
Flowers and butterflies drift in color, illuminating spring.  ~Author Unknown
We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.  ~Carl Sagan
The green grass and the happy skies
court the fluttering butterflies.  ~Astrid Alauda
Bees sip honey from flowers and hum their thanks when they leave.
The gaudy butterfly is sure that the flowers owe thanks to him.
~Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds
We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.  ~Author Unknown
Go on, hitch a ride on the back of a butterfly.  There's no better way to fly.  ~Pat Monahan, Scott Michael Underwood, and James W. Stafford
Gray sail against the sky,
Gray butterfly!
Have you a dream for going.
Or are you the blind wind's blowing?
~Dana Burnet, "A Sail at Twilight"
This magnificent butterfly finds a little heap of dirt and sits still on it; but man will never on his heap of mud keep still.  ~Joseph Conrad
Where have those flowers and butterflies all gone
That science may have staked the future on?
He seems to say the reason why so much
Should come to nothing must be fairly faced.
~Robert Frost, "Pod of the Milkweed"
As for butterflies, I can hardly conceive of one's attending upon you; but to question the congruence of the complement is vain, if it exists.  ~Marianne Moore, "To a Steam Roller"
We must remain as close to the flowers, the grass, and the butterflies as the child is who is not yet so much taller than they are.  We adults, on the other hand, have outgrown them and have to lower ourselves to stoop down to them...Whoever would partake of all good things must understand how to be small at times.  ~Friedrich Nietzsche
Nerves and butterflies are fine - they're a physical sign that you're mentally ready and eager.  You have to get the butterflies to fly in formation, that's the trick.  ~Steve Bull
Find your butterfly; find you!!
That's why.