Spiritual Google Maps

The other day my dad asked me how I did with my 3 goals for last year and I couldn't quite remember what they all were. I seriously can't find that post either, so weird. I think they were something along the lines of "Move Up, Grow Up, Live Up". Well, we did move into a house, I grew up a lot, but I don't really feel like I've learned to "Live Up" to my potential yet.

For me, setting goals is like mapping a course to a destination (you know how I love to think in geography terms). After all, what is this life but one long journey? When you are driving somewhere there is generally a specific set of turns or actions you must take to arrive exactly where you intend to go within the planned amount of time. The problem with this method of setting goals is that life often has its fair share of surprise detours and traffic jams, and at the end of the year you may find yourself in a completely different place than you had intended. However, don't assume this is a bad thing. Imagine that your trusty Tom-Tom is actually Heavenly Father (but with up to date and accurate maps). He has the ability to reroute us and make sure that we not only get where we are going, but that we take the path He knows is best for us. Last year I accomplished a lot, but I also faced trials I never would have imagined. Luckily, I was rerouted and brought to a better place than I had planned on my own. Heavenly Father watches out for us, He teaches us, and He's there when life takes an unexpected turn.

As I thought over what my goals for 2010 might be (besides the standard desire to lose 10 lbs!), I felt that my focus should really be on living a more Christ centered life. When I think about making better use of my time and trying to live up to my potential and just being happy, the answer is to focus on Christ and everything else will fall into place.

That being said, I found "Three Goals to Guide You" from President Thomas S. Monson, which serves as my "Spiritual Google Maps" for 2010. The 3 goals are: Study diligently (spiritual and secular), pray earnestly, and serve willingly. It kind of sounds like back to basics, but sometimes that is how we learn and grow the most. As I start this new year I have the words of Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin in my mind (and posted up to remind me):
"I urge you to examine your life. Determine where you are and what you need to do to be the kind of person you want to be. Create inspiring, noble, and righteous goals that fire your imagination and create excitement in your heart. And keep your eye on them. Work consistently towards achieving them."

I'm so excited to start a new year to work a little harder on being the kind of person I want to become. I hope that all my friends and family know that my faith in Jesus Christ and my membership in His church are the things that define me and make me happy. There is a distinct peace, happiness, and order that only come to my life from living the gospel. I hope I can live it and feel it this year, and then everything else will fall into place!

Quote:

"Of all accents Minnesotan accents sound the most friendly! I mean, 'Ooh, come an oover foor some hatdish some time!' How could you not want to be friends with that?!" ~ Said by my new friend and fellow Minnesotan today at church. I love it!

How to tell if Dave Roberts has been to your house...

1. Everything you own now has a hook and a place to be put away:2. Your basement is super clean and all the "storage" (a.k.a. stuff you threw in the basement when you moved in) is totally organized and stacked along the walls.
3. Your cold storage has a new light and newly built shelves with 3 months of food storage (this was our official Christmas gift from my parents).
4. You have soft water. This is the easiest way to tell my dad has been here working hard! He made a new electrical outlet, installed the water softner, and ran a water line to our fridge. Our ice maker still isn't working, but he took it apart and ordered the broken part for that too!
He's still going to build me an extra shelf for my laundry room, but first he has to completely replace the relay light system in my grandparent's house. He's the reason the table and chairs made it here for Christmas, oh and he's shoveled the driveway every day this week. My dad is quite a guy, it's okay if you are jealous.

Ending 09 Right

Even though I've been totally out of the blogging world lately, I feel like I should finish up my 2009 posts before 2010! It's been a long time since I blogged about anything other than MTV and hair so here's what's been going on:

We put up Christmas lights and decorations for the first time in our house,and spent Thanksgiving at a Jazz game with Riley and Sandy.

Then we had our first Thanksgiving dinner in our house,

and went to yet another Jazz game with Riley and Sandy.

Having parents visit is a really great way to get the odds and ends finished around your new house. Riley and Sandy helped us get a lot of stuff on the walls, Christmas decorations up, and all our lights cleaned and changed. Thanksgiving weekend included several trips to Walmart and Lowe's, which we really appreciated.

After Thanksgiving I was invited to be on a consumer panel at a marketing conference at Deer Valley. The conference was about online marketing and some of the companies represented were AT&T, FedEx, ESPN, AAA, REI, General Mills, CNN, Walgreens, etc. It was basically an on-stage focus group and then it was open to the audience for questions at the end. We were invited to stay and attend other sessions after ours, and we got to learn a lot of cool stuff about how online retailers can track and access consumers. Our instructions before we went on stage were to be entertaining, lively, and even snarky. Well my friend Amy and I really didn't hold back sharing our opinions and laying the sarcasm on thick for those marketers. We got a lot of tweet quotes and later quoted in the blog articles of the conference (read one here). We had a ton of fun, got paid nicely, and saw Ian Ziering a.k.a. Steve Sanders!

Before we knew it Christmas was finally here! My parents came (and are still here) for a 2 week stay. We were really hoping Monkey and Scout would hit it off since Monkey still has no other puppy friends. No such luck, Monkey has way too much energy for Scout and doesn't understand that all dogs don't think it's "playing" when you jump on them. Also, Monkey is selfish and steals any toy Scout so much as looks at. Oh well.

Here is our first Christmas in our house,

the new table made it for Christmas thanks to some chair tetris and good tie-downs!

Monkey and I have gotten some quality time in,

and I taught my mom to snowboard!

Unfortunately, snowboarding only lasted 2 runs and then it was back to skis. Pretty sure she's still going to be feeling the pain of snowboarding for weeks to come.

That is basically all that's been going on around here, except for what my dad has been doing, which will be my next post.

Pardon this little bit of shallowness...

Can we talk about my hair? I'm looking for something more low maintenance with my hair, but not ready for true low maintenance which would be back to dark brown. Here's my idea...(not that I'm saying my hair is even close to as pretty as Whitney's) I think my hair was bright like Whitney's the last time I got it done really well.

Whitney's hair on this season of The City has been amazing! I love how gold and pretty it is, and I really love how her roots are just grown out and blended to the light at the bottom. My hair is pretty close to that color so I'm thinking of growing my roots out and making this transition.

Feel free to tell me if you think this is so ugly, otherwise don't judge me when you see me around with seriously grown out roots! And if you have a fantastic hair person that could pull this off (without charging me an arm and a leg), please let me know.

Merry Christmas!

From Monkey the Red Nose Reindeer.

I promise I'm going to try to get our recent pictures up and follow up on that music post! Just as soon as I can leave my poor dog alone.

Soliciting Advice!!

Help me! I need to make some new friends. Now, please don't take this the wrong way because I love you all dearly, but I am noticing that with everyone's recent or pending life changes I may be left in the dust. I'm proud of all your sweet kiddos, and and I'm happy for those of you moving off to big new things, but you have your ward/neighbor/people-you-have-tons-in-common-with friends, so I would kind of like some too.

I can't even remember how to make new friends. There are a few very cute girls in my new ward that I think could be good, but at 24 years old can I still do the kindergarten standard, "Hi, do you want to be my friend?" I never really made friends in my old ward (long story, don't ask) so I'm a little out of practice on this one.

Also, how do you become friends with someone you don't know, but have maybe internet stalked and have no doubt you have a million things in common with? There is a girl, we have 2 mutual FB friends (one of you reading this might be one) so that's how I know of her, and today I stumbled on her blog for the first time. We have a lot in common. Not everything, but pretty sure she'd be a killer fun friend. I know that is super weird, but I want to just leave a comment on her blog saying, "I promise I'm not creepy, do you want to be friends?"

Help me out here guys. Advice, advice, advice!

One of my Faves

This is one of my favorite Christmas songs. I spent some time transferring and organizing my holiday music today, and every year it's like I forget how much I LOVE some of these cd's. Let's talk favorite Christmas albums, old and new. Tell me what you all love and I'll work on a post or playlist of all my favorites (I can tell you it will include Nsync and Elf).