reminds me of a toby keith song...[for those who are lost, go listen to 'next thing on my list']

i was thinking the other day about all the things i want to accomplish before i die..and i decided that there are a great number of activities that will never actually happen unless i make a list of said activities..that being said, here is my own personal "bucket list":
1. travel to paris..there are so many things i want to see there...the eiffel tower, versailles, the louvre, l'arc de triomphe..i could go on for days..seriously, who in their right mind does NOT want to go to paris?
2. play the guitar..and not just play it, but play it well..i'm talking like writing-my-own-songs well..
3. visit hawaii, the cayman islands, jamaica...and several other places with beaches..(and go on a cruise to these destinations)
4. run a marathon..or at least a half, so i don't seem overly ambitious..
5. as part of #1, see the mona lisa in france (and thousands of other paintings/works of art)..
6. see the phantom of the opera in las vegas, and les miserables and wicked on broadway..
7. own every disney movie (on dvd) that i watched as a child..i know, good luck, right? stupid disney vault..
8. learn french (better), spanish (better), and italian
9. travel to europe--especially italy, england, france (of course), spain, and germany..i want to ride gondolas in venice, eat gelato, see big ben and the men in furry hats that never smile, see castles from the 1100s...and etc.
10. go bungee jumping
11. go sky diving
12. go scuba diving
13. own a bullet bike...(though my mother might kill me first..)
14. learn how to sew (for reals...not just putting buttons back on...)
15. learn how to tie a tie! you'd be surprised just how difficult that is for me..why i'd ever use this particular skill is irrelevant..
16. visit every temple in the united states
17. go to lake powell
18. ride a horse on a beach
19. be able to read and understand les miserables and the count of monte cristo in french..
20. own a pair of jordans (superficial, i know...but seriously..)
21. drive an obscenely nice car on the autobahn in germany..mmm
22. become a physical therapist
23. be a mom..without the minivan..(yes, i stand by that declaration in my early youth..i will never own a minivan)
24. see all of my kids married in the temple
and finally...
25. be able to answer these two questions with a positive response: 'have you found joy in life?' and 'has your life brought joy to others?'

ok so some of these bucket list ideas may be a little far fetched...maybe i'll never drive on the autobahn..but..the majority of them are realistic things that i want to accomplish..they are not, however, arranged in this list in priority order, because they are all very important..so, enjoy..

"Running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it"...wise words from...oprah..

we've all heard of buyer's remorse, right? it's when you make a purchase (usually a very impulsive one) and you eventually regret the decision..for me, said buyer's remorse appears usually when i'm getting in the car leaving the store..clearly i am a very poor impulsive buyer...at the moment i'm not experiencing buyer's remorse, however..i would like to call this decision registrar's--wariness...i registered for a 5k, as part of my attempt to get myself back into a semi-decent shape that doesn't resemble anything round...anyway, i call it registrar's wariness because, for the time being, i don't regret this decision...i'm just wondering if i possibly was a little overambitious in signing up so impulsively...however.....if i end up looking like this after my get-into-shape initiative, i will be satisfied that my "registrar's wariness" will have been worth it..

life as i know it...

something new to go with the new blog, i guess...i'm going to try the whole "this is what's going on in my life" thing...granted it might be a total disaster, but i'm going to give it a shot...this last weekend we celebrated addie's first birthday...and just for clarification, no, addie is NOT my child..she's my gorgeous sister's...i can't believe addie's one already...it's been a crazy first year! she's so adorable, i can't even stand it...

Equally adorable is my nephew, braden...he is legitimately the most content baby i've ever seen..i've heard him cry maybe twice...i'm going to miss him so much when he moves to South Carolina in a couple months...he's my oldest brother and his beautiful wife, savvy's son..this picture is from our trip to the zoo..
my summer has gotten off to a slow start, thanks in part to the unendingly bipolar utah weather...i feel like i've moved to seattle, where the rain never stops...i'm still working at APX until i go back to school in august, at which time i will start taking classes for my newly-changed major, athletic training...i've never been one to THINK this, let alone verbalize it, but...i'm actually pretty excited for school to start...

found this somewhere...and liked it..

My bible.

The explanation of why I don’t go out every night fully equipped with my beer, boys, and bad decisions. Why I’m not the loudest, least covered, blondest, biggest chested girl at the party (okay, okay sometimes the blondest). Explanation of why I know there is much more to life than happy hour at my local strip club and of why I choose to keep my top on when someone asks for a photo. Why I know how to strive for my goals, but understand my limits.

Explanation of why I choose to be, and am, a lady.

I know I don’t know it all and I’m ready to learn more. All in time for my 21st birthday. I think this is a monumental time in my life. I didn’t view 20 as adulthood. I viewed it as the second year of my 19th birthday. By 21, I’ll be ready to do it right and as always, do it classy.

“A girl should be two things, classy and fabulous.” —Coco Chanel.

12 things of winter (and apparently, the first 3 months of summer...)

here is my own personal spin on the 12 days of christmas...only i'm changing it somewhat: i LOVE christmas, it's just winter i have a problem with...here are the main 12 reasons that i am totally a summer girl, regardless of how long i've live in utah...
#12: wet hair freezes...up-do's freeze your ears..so even though you don't WANT to get out of your warm bed earlier, comfort and survival necessitate actually doing your hair..
#11: mass boredom..there are only so many activites that can be done indoors, and only a certain amount of time outdoor activities remain fun/safe..after watching a movie every night for 2 months, cabin fever WILL ensue..
#10: windshield wipers that don't work..driving with a pile of snow on top of your car is scary enough..it gets exponentially more scary when there's snow slipping down your windshield, and the wipers are out on holiday..
#9: ice..i trip enough without having to make the sidewalk a slip 'n slide..winter just increases the already high probability that i will end up on my butt somewhere on byu's campus more than once a day..
#8: wet floors (see #9)
#7: too many temperature extremes...outside, it's 4 degrees, and some places you go inside, it's 89 degrees..my body can't deal with that many bipolar temperature fluctuations..it gets confused...then i have to deal with putting on a coat, then taking it off 3 minutes later because i walked inside, then quickly pulling it back on 5 minutes later because i'm back outside..
#6:there is no sun..and if there is, it just blinds you because it reflects off of all the snow...and, it doesn't do anything for your skin...which leads me to #5..
#5: pale skin..winter only perpetuates pale skin(and a LOT of acne, which the summer sun seems to miraculously cure), which has been overcome somewhat with summer...winter just sets you back at square one for having any skin pigmentation ..
#4: shaving...it's so pointless to shave your legs in the winter...i mean, you shave, and almost instantaneously get goosebumps, so your just-finished shaving has become completely useless..and if you're lucky enough to make it through a shower without goosebumps, your luck runs out as soon as you open the front door..and then men complain that girls never bother to shave their legs in the winter..excuse me for being economical with my time!
#3: scraping my car windows..it messes with my personal routine..my schedule for getting to school on time is based on precision...through trial and error over the years, i have calculated the exact number of minutes it takes me to get ready and get to school on time so that i can sleep in as long as possible before i have to wake up and get ready...when winter hits, i forget that i have to add a good 5 minutes for scraping my windows, and it throws everything out of whack..
#2: snow somehow inspires people to park like morons. i can understand not being able to see the parking stalls, but that is no excuse to park completely horizontal to everybody else..
#1: wet pant legs..like i've said before, wet pant legs are the most irritating and frustrating thing about the winter season..it's not like you did anything to deserve wet pants: you didn't pee yourself or fall in a puddle, you simply did the unavoidable, which everyone who has walked outside can sympathize with...you have to have at least 2 pairs of pants to make it through the day, or else your legs are soggy and you are miserable the entire day.
..so these are the things that, were they absent from the whole winter/snow experience, wouldn't make me totally hate winter...but since they exist, i'm not the #1 fan of wintertime..

ah, my very first post...

i felt compelled to copy and paste this particular post because it spawned the rest of my musings on life:

I'm blogging..for some reason that word sounds like it could be synonymous with vomit...i could imagine some conversation somewhere going something like this: "OMG girls i totally blogged last night!" "Really? Ewwww..that's so bloggable." but since I didn't write the English language, I have to deal with the fact that someone named this activity blogging..

and for the record books, I am not a blogger by nature...nothing interesting happens to me (except for the occasional trip up the large staircase at BYU), but since my roommate Jana insisted on something exciting to read, here goes nothing..

illiteracy in sports..

i recently came to a conclusion in regards to sports....i don't understand how so many people (people of the female variety especially) that know absolutely nothing about any sort of athletic endeavor...I can somewhat understand being disinterested...i am personally not interested in baseball...but at least i know who Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth are...but when it comes to people (like a girl in class last semester) who ask absurd questions like, "isn't Michael Jordan was that one black swimmer guy?", i feel that there is some kind of intervention needed..really, have you been living under a rock for 19 years? you don't have to know about sports to know the greats..or to even appreciate the athletic talent that sports take...but if you don't know the most iconic basketball player possibly ever, i get the feeling that there is obstinate ignorance at work here....that or this girl had legitimately no contact with the outside world for 19 years...i also met a girl that asked me what sport the world series was...you might go ask well go ask someone the function of a steering wheel...i may not know who won the Stanley Cup in 1996, but i at least know that the Stanley Cup goes to the winner of a hockey game..and when i go to a football game with girls, i'd rather not have to explain that "offense" is "the guys with the ball"..and "defense" is "the guys trying to stop them"...there should be a mandatory sports 101 class in high school to save me from questions like these..i feel like that would be more functional than Home Ec.

trial and error...

i will be the first to admit that i'm completely computer-illiterate..i know you should only hear that from people whose birth years are before 1980, but here i am...20 years old, and most complicated thing i can do on the computer is update my facebook status...that being said, my first blog is now dead, mainly because i got sick of attempting to change the settings to my liking..starting over was a better option for me...however, i took the liberty of taking my personally favorite posts from that blog and putting them on here..enjoy...

thank you, mono..

in celebration of the end of everyone's freshman year of college (or sophomore, junior, or senior year..whatever the case may be), i have decided to outline how best to FAIL a full year of college..i like to think i'm an expert at this practice because of my perfectly-timed attainment of mono during my first semester...i guess it was nature's way of saying, "welcome to college..good luck making it."
(for those ambitious people that want to PASS a full year of college, my advice would be to stop reading..now..)
Step 1: start out the year well, doing everything that you've been taught to in school as far as study habits, prioritizing, etc..
Step 2: mid-semester, contract an infectious disease like mononucleosis (or if you're going to be all technical, the Epstein-Barr virus, human herpesvirus 4, etc.) from a person you kissed six months before..
Step 3: sleep non-stop for basically three weeks out of the semester, going to class a grand total of 0 times..
Step 4: withdraw from 3 of your 5 classes, with a signed doctor's note of course..
Step 5:attempt to catch up on said three weeks of class work in less than a week, spending about 50 hours locked in your 9'x9' room..
Step 6:spend approximately the same amount of time studying for exams
Step 7: with the aid of 4 different alarm clocks placed strategically around the room so you are forced to get out of bed, wake up at 6 am for your first final, walk through a blizzard to get there, upon arrival looking quite similar to a lost hobo
Step 8: proceed to fail [insert course name] test..
Step 9:repeat previous step 4 times
Step 10: complete the semester more than a little bewildered about the whole college experience
Step 11: start the second semester the same as the first, only already having mononucleosis
Step 12: complete second semester with steps 3-9

so there you have it...amy's simple steps to NOT passing your first year of college..i hope this has been..er..educational..