I Know How You're Operating

Oh Three Days Grace. You read my mind. 

Three Days Grace - Operate

I know how you’re operating

Only come around when you know that I need it

Cut out my heart and you leave me bleeding

But you’re the only one that brings out the demon

Like pills you make me righteous

Like I can rise above it all

Like pills you leave me lifeless

Shaken in a bathroom stall

Why you wanna do this

Don’t want to see you in my phone

Leave me alone

I know how you’re operating

Only come around when you know that I need it

Cut out my heart and you leave me bleeding

You’re the only one that brings out the demon

You bring it out

You bring it out

Like pills you grab a hold of me

One hit just makes me want you more

Until we’re in a motel room

Locked up behind closed doors

Why you wanna do this

Don’t want to see you in my phone

Leave me alone

I know how you’re operating

Only come around when you know that I need it

Cut out my heart and you leave me bleeding

You’re the only one that brings out the demon

You bring it out

You bring it out

You’re doing it now

You’re doing it now

You’re doing it now

It used to be

You brought out the best in me

Now it seems

You bring out the beast in me

I know how you’re operating

Only come around when you know that I need it

Cut out my heart and you leave me bleeding

You are the only one that brings out the demon

You bring it out

(You bring it out)

You bring it out

(You bring it out)

You bring it out

(You bring it out)

Election Day 2012

This is how I'm going to feel if Obama wins the election:

I had that exact reaction when I found out one of my friends was dating her ex again. And when I got home to find my little sister had gotten hot pocket cheese and muffin crumbs all over the carpet. It's been a Toby-comes-back-from-Costa-Rica kind of day. Go Mitt Romney.

Foxes and Fleece

If I could make it Fall all year round, I probably would. I love it for so many reasons. Jackets, pretty leaves, hot chocolate, perfect temperatures, delicious smells, bonfires, pumpkin flavored things, the list goes on and on. One of these things causes a huge problem for me. That would be the jackets. I am a little obsessed. With some girls, it's shoes or purses. With me it's jackets. I LOVE THEM. Especially from PacSun. I want almost every single one they have and it takes every shred of self control I have to not load up my credit card with jacket purchases. Today I failed. I figured, I get paid on Monday, and if I just buy one now I will be satisfied so I at least have one new one. But guess what. They were having a BOGO sale. OF COURSE. They know how to suck you in. So I got two. I will not buy another jacket for the next........two months. I don't think I can realistically commit to anything longer than that. But we will see :) Here's what I got:

I love Fox. I think half my shirts and jackets are from them. I should just go work for them and try to get free stuff. Haha cause that's realistic. Anyways, my name is Jennie and I'm a jacket-aholic. I'll see you at the meetings lol. 

100 Ways to Get Rid of An Obnoxious Roommate

To all of my facebook friends who may be reading this.....you probably know by now that my sister and I DESPISE our roommate. I nicknamed her FON the first week we lived together (stands for Freak of Nature). The list of freakishly obnoxious things she has done grow longer and longer by the minute. 

FIRST OF ALL.....she is dating the definition of a hipster and he is at the apartment more than my sister is. He sleeps over on almost a daily basis. They giggle and talk late into the night while taking over the whole first floor, which consists of our kitchen and living room. Leann and I have to stay in our rooms to avoid the awkwardness. I can constantly hear them while I'm trying to sleep and it makes me so frustrated and mad that I want to run down there and force feed her gluten until her irritable bowel syndrome acts up and turns her intestines into Old Faithful. 

SECOND OF ALL.....she thinks she's God's gift to this world and acts like the princess of our castle. She clips her toenails in the living room and leaves the clippings all over. She leaves her billions of dirty dishes around the kitchen along with her mountain of garbage. She leaves all the lights on in the apartment all the time and doesn't care because her parents pay for everything for her. She isn't in school right now so all she does is work 5 hours a day and then hang out in our living room with her stupid boy toy ALL THE TIME. When Leann and I have friends over, FON hovers with her boyfriend, awkwardly standing in the doorway, until we vacate the premises because of how awkward it is. The list of obnoxious things she does goes ON AND ON. 

Today was a breaking point. After her boy toy constantly being here and her doing all the obnoxious things she does, Leann and I finally decided to do something about it. So we are currently blasting rock and metal from the top of the stairs hoping it will force their anything-but-folk-music-intolerance to act up and leave so we can actually go downstairs. If that doesn't work, I guess Leann will just have to confront her since I am completely non confrontational and get anxiety at the very thought of having to deal with that awkward situation. OR.........we could try any number of the 100 Ways to Annoy Your Roommate that we found while googling how to get make her move out!

Here are some of my favorites:

1. Get some hair. Disperse it around your roommate's head while he/she is asleep. Keep a pair of scissors by your bed. Snicker at your roommate every morning. 
2. Every time your roommate walks in yell, "Hooray! You're back!" as loud as you can and dance around the room for 5 minutes. Afterwards keep looking at your watch and saying, "Shouldn't you be going somewhere?"
3. Every time you see your roommate yell, "You son of a..." and kick him/her in the stomach. Then buy him/her some ice cream.
4. Set your roommate's bed on fire. Apologize and explain that you've been watching too much Beavis and Butthead. Do it again. Tell him/her that your not sorry because this time they deserved it.
5. Eat lots of Lucky Charms. Pick out all the yellow moons and stockpile them in the closet. If your roommate inquires, explain that visitors are coming, but you can't say anything more, or you'll have to face the consequences.
6. Draw a tiny, black spot on your arm. Make it bigger every day. Look at it and say, "It's spreading, it's spreading!"
7. Buy a Jack-In-The-Box. Every day, turn the handle until the clown pops out. Scream continuously for twenty minutes.
8. Buy some knives. Sharpen them every night. While you're doing so, look at your roommate and mutter, "Soon, soon..."
9. If your roommate comes home after midnight, hit him/her on the head with a rolling pin. Immediately go to bed, muttering, "Ungrateful little..."
10. While your roommate is out, glue your shoes to the ceiling. When your roommate walks in, sit on the floor, hold your head, and moan.
11. Make a sandwich. Don't eat it, leave it on the floor. Ignore the sandwich. Wait until your roommate gets rid of it, and then say, "Hey, where the hell is my sandwich!?" Complain loudly that you are hungry.
12. Collect potatoes. Paint faces on them and give them names. Name one after your roommate. Separate your roommate's potato from the others. Wait a few days, and then bake your roommate's potato and eat it. Explain to your roommate, "He just didn't belong."
13. Cover your bed with a tent. Live inside it for a week. If your roommate asks, explain that "It's a jungle out there." Get your roommate to bring you food and water.
14. Talk back to your Rice Krispies. All of a sudden, act offended, throw the bowl on the floor and kick it. Refuse to clean it up, explaining, "No, I want to watch them suffer."
15. Sign your roommate up for various activities. (Campus tour guide, blood donor, organ donor)
16. Hit your roommate on the head with a brick. Claim that you were trying to kill a mosquito.
17. Instead of turning off the light switch, smash the light bulb with a hammer. Put a new bulb in the next day. Complain often about the cost of lightbulbs.
18. When you walk into the room, look at the roommate in disgust and yell, "Oh you're here!" Walk away yelling and cursing.
19. Buy a watermelon. Draw a face on it and give it a name. Ask your roommate if the watermelon can sleep in his/her bed. If your roommate says no, drop the watermelon out the window. Make it look like a suicide. Say nasty things about your roommate at the funeral.
20. Drink a cup of coffee every morning. When you finish it, gnaw on the mug for about ten minutes. Then look at your roommate, immediately put the mug away, and quickly leave the room.
21. Hold a raffle, offering your roommate as first prize. If he/she protests, tell him/her that it's all for charity.
22. Watch "Psycho" every day for a month. Then act excited every time your roommate goes to take a shower.
23. Go through your roommate's textbooks with a red pen, changing things and making random corrections. If your roommate protests, tell him/her that you just couldn't take it anymore.
24. As soon as your roommate turns off the light at night, begin singing famous operas as loud as you can. When your roommate turns on the light, look around and pretend to be confused.
25. Late at night, start conversations that begin with, "Remember the good old days, when we used to..." and make up stories involving you and your roommate.
26. Sit and stare at your roommate for hours. Bring others in to join you. Eat peanuts, throwing a few at your roommate. Then say, "Boy, these zoos just aren't what they used to be."
27. Buy a lobster. Pretend to play cards with it. Complain to your roommate that the lobster is making up his own rules.
28. Make pancakes every morning, but don't eat them. Draw faces on them, and toss them in the closet. Watch them for several hours each day. Complain to your roommate that your "pancake farm" isn't evolving into a self-sufficient community. Confide to your roommate that you think the king of the pancakes has been taking bribes

And this one I just want to do for fun :)

   29.  Buy some turtles. Paint numbers on their backs. Race them down the hall.

I'm hoping the blasting music thing doesn't work just so we can try some of these things.

Wish us luck with expelling the spawn of Satan!

Sometimes You Just Need a Little Home

These lyrics couldn't be more spot on. Being sick for a month gets you down. And all I want is my family, my home, and my puppy. Luckily that's only a half hour away for me. These past few days with my mom and sisters have been exactly what I needed. Sometimes you just need a little home. 

This Sucks

You know what sucks? Being sick. Know what sucks more? Being sick for over two weeks and not knowing what the heck is wrong. Know what sucks even more? Going to the doctor and them not being helpful AT ALL, on top of having a really attractive male nurse come in and you have to tell him in detail all your symptoms. Yeah. That sucks. I just wanna get better and have life stop sucking. 

Being Mormon in Happy Valley

The current presidential race has shone a lot of light on Mormons, due to the fact that candidate Mitt Romney is a Mormon. While the light has been shone, it hasn't all shown truths. I really don't understand what it is about the world and media that devotes almost all of its energy on tearing other people and beliefs down, whether the stuff they are saying is true or not. Most of the time it's not. What blows my mind the most is that people don't see the hypocrisy of it all. If a Mormon is around a group of non-mormons who are drinking, more often than not, they will be asked why they aren't drinking. They give their answer. And then they get harassed about it (not all the time, I'm not generalizing, but a lot of the time). Think about if the roles were reversed. That Mormon, being around a group of non-mormons drinking could ask them why the ARE drinking, and then harass them about it. They could shove their point of view down the non-mormons' throats all night long. And guess what. That Mormon would be considered arrogant, preachy, judgmental, etc. So how come it doesn't go both ways? How come people who aren't Mormons can harass Mormons about their beliefs, openly and harshly, but nobody says anything? Why is it ok for people to shove their anti-religious beliefs down Mormons throats, but when Mormons try and say what they believe they are being judgmental, un-accepting, and arrogant? I really don't get it. The hypocrisy is ridiculous. 


I read a post on the internet that said "Mormons are arrogant". Come on. Really? You're going to stereotype every single Mormon on the planet because maybe you met a handful of arrogant Mormons? I have lived in Utah Valley my whole life, so I have obviously been around my fair share of Mormons. Are some Mormons arrogant? Yes. Are all Mormons arrogant? No. Generalizations and stereotypes are ridiculous. Try not to be in the high school mentality, okay? Realize that not all people are what ONE person is. That's like saying all Hispanic people are illegal, or all Black people are criminals, or all White people are racist, etc, etc, etc. It's ridiculous. There are endless amounts of stereotypes and generalizations that are completely FALSE. 


I've heard people say that being a non-mormon in Utah sucks. Well guess what. Being a Mormon in Utah sucks too. I can imagine what it would be like to be the minority somewhere. I've grown up in an environment where the majority of the people around me have the same beliefs. It's a weird way to grow up, considering that most of the other places in the US aren't like that. Except in the South maybe....anyway. I can understand why it would be hard for non-mormons to try and fit in in Utah. Mormonism isn't just a religion in Utah, it's a culture too, because it's so condensed. I'll tell you a secret. It's hard for Mormons to fit in in Utah too. The Mormon culture is definitely unique. There are a lot of desserts involved, along with a lot of overly friendly people and pot luck dinners. There's a lot of pressure. A lot of insecurities. But most Mormons really are just trying to be good people. Sometimes Mormons might come off arrogant, because they ARE overly friendly and cheerful. It might come off fake or condescending. But guess what. Every single person in this world is just trying to live life the best way they know how. Nobodies opinions and beliefs are exactly the same. Mormons try to be friendly because the religion focuses on service and helping the people around them. Cue the enormous amounts of food. And crafts. Some Mormons ARE self righteous. But a lot aren't. 


I don't understand why people have so many negative things to say about Mormons anyway. The religion promotes lots of service, families, education, travel, morality, health, ethics, etc. None of those things sound bad to me. When there are natural disasters, Mormons are usually a huge part of the people who volunteer to help. When people are moving, Mormons usually stop by to help whether they know the person or not. If your neighbor is a Mormon and they see your sidewalk covered in snow, they usually come shovel it. Mormons donate to charity. They visit old people. They travel to 3rd world countries and try to help the people there. I'm not saying all Mormons are good people, cause some aren't. But nobody is perfect. Mormons aren't polygamists. They don't wear weird clothes or eat weird food. They don't live on compounds. They are regular people. 


I have been a Mormon my whole life, and will always be a Mormon. I am sick of people telling me that I let other people make my decisions and think for me, BECAUSE I'm Mormon. Just cause I've grown up being Mormon doesn't mean it's always been easy to be one. We all go through stages where we try to figure out what we personally believe. We question things and try to make sense of the world around us. I questioned a lot of stuff. I studied scriptures, read articles, prayed, soul searched, you know the drill. I came to believe, BY MYSELF, that I believe in the LDS church (aka Mormonism). Nobody forced me to believe it or brainwashed me. I make my own choices. I'm not saying that I don't still wonder about stuff and question stuff, but everyone does. We are all just trying to find a belief system that works for us. I am not a lemming who just follows along with everyone else. So people, STOP SAYING MORMONS DON'T MAKE THEIR OWN DECISIONS. We are normal freakin people like everyone else. We just believe in stuff that maybe you don't. Big deal. You can go smoke, drink until you puke, sleep around, steal, do whatever, and I don't care. I seriously don't judge. It's your life. I don't want people judging me for what I do, so I'm not going to judge anyone for what they do. It's their life, and their decisions, and if they decide to believe in Buddha, Ra, nobody, the cult leader down the street, GO FOR IT. More power to ya. I'm not going to force my beliefs on anyone, but if anyone wants to actually have an open, intellectual, respectful discussion about religion or just beliefs in general I'm completely open to it. Just don't come bash my religion and beliefs when you wouldn't want me to do that to you. Simple enough concept, I think. 


If you come to Utah, don't automatically assume everyone is judging you if you're not Mormon. Or that they're judging you BECAUSE you are Mormon and you might not live up to their standards or expectations or whatever. Live your life however it makes you happy. Don't judge other people. We are all human beings on planet earth and that is one thing that ties us all together. You know the saying "I'm only human"? Well it means we all make mistakes. We all have things we need to learn. So stop judging people because of the ways they are different from you, and try to focus on what is the same. We can all learn from each other if we just try. 


And that is the end of this rant. It didn't quite go where I was expecting it to go since I just winged it, but you get what I'm trying to say. I hope. 

Happy Belated Birthday America

Once upon a time, after a super long struggle, a really great country was born. The birth certificate was signed by many great men, and America was official. People now had freedoms, rights, and endless opportunities. So what do we do to celebrate this birth? We shoot off fireworks and play with other forms of fire. We eat delicious meat and juicy watermelon and just enjoy being free. The 4th of July is my absolute favorite holiday. Witness the celebration:

Turns out it's a lot easier to write your name with a sparkler than with the moon.

I Love You

Shooting star

Recreation of the duel in Harry Potter

America is great. I am proud to be an American, and I'm proud of all the men and women who fight to keep us free. 

There Is No [wh]Y in Happiness

Today has been a sick day. I don't mind sick days as long as they are only once in a while. It forces people to rest and take care of themselves, which many people can't afford to do on a regular basis, depending on their job, school, or family situation. Or a combination of two or all of them. Anyway, sick days give me a lot of time to think. The things I see, read, hear, or do provoke a more intensive, deep thought process than they normally would. That may be a side effect of whatever type of meds I take for that particular problem, but I like to think it's more of my brain being more active and compensating for when my body has to be  more inactive. I have read a few things today that really caught my attention.


Number One: I ordered a fitness DVD called BBX Hardcore that finally arrived in the mail. It comes with a booklet with an entire 90 day meal plan, recipes, life coaching, stuff like that. One part that hit me said:

"You can't focus on the negative. You can't dwell on the wrong that you have done, or what other people have done to you; how crappy you feel, or how bad you think you look, or how nothing ever goes right for you. By focusing on the negative, you keep yourself there and so continues a very vicious cycle. Change begins with, ends with, and can only happen within you." -Dede Barbantts

Pretty deep for a fitness DVD huh?

Number Two: I started reading this book called "Broken for You" by Stephanie Kallos. I am only 34 pages into it, but it has already got me thinking. One part talks about how one of the characters read a book about writing down affirmations and says:

"If Wanda felt like writing, 'Nobody will ever love me again,' which, according to the book's author, was a lie, she wrote instead, 'A loving relationship awaits me.' If Wanda felt like writing, 'All men are [messed up jerks] who deserve to die,' she forced her hand into a steady calmness and wrote instead, 'There are good men in the world, somewhere.' If she felt like writing, '[Screw] the survival of the species. The world would be better off if humans became extinct,' she wrote, 'Save the whales.' And if she felt her spooks coming on, those familiar voices that said, 'You're going to die alone. People started leaving you when you were six years old and they're going to keep leaving you, so why bother?' she would print, as if she were competing for a penmanship prize, 'I love myself. I. Love. Myself. I do not need another person's love to make me whole.'"

Stephanie Kallos used relationships in that particular part of the book to describe affirmations, but I think it is actually a useful technique that can be applied to any situation. If you constantly tell yourself you are going to fail or that you are going nowhere, then that it what will happen to you. If you tell yourself you amazing and will succeed at whatever it is you put your mind to, then you will. I firmly believe we are our greatest roadblocks in life. We are the only thing holding ourselves back from reaching our full potential. We can spend all our time blaming God or the people around us, but in the end, deep down we all know that the blame really falls on us. 

Number Three: I was watching Community since I ran out of other things to watch and the character Jeff, played by Joel McHale said:

"He has nothing to prove or disprove about himself or to himself. He has no shame because he didn't care if you knew. We can't keep going to each other until we learn to go to ourselves. We need to stop turning our hatred of ourselves into someones else's job and just stop hating ourselves."

Now, taken out of context it doesn't make tons of sense. And granted, Community is about stupid humor and being sarcastic most of the time. But what I got from it was that the reason we sometimes hate ourselves is because we feel like we have to prove ourselves in comparison to those around us. We constantly compare our shortcomings to other people's strengths and beat ourselves up for NO GOOD REASON. I read somewhere once something along the lines of, "Would you be friends with someone who talked to you the way you talk to yourself." Essentially, if someone criticized you and was as hard on you as you are on yourself, you probably wouldn't want to be around them. We should all cut ourselves some slack every now and then. Nobody is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone has room for improvement, no matter how old they are. We should all try to be more positive and nicer to ourselves and the people around us. I think that is one thing that could help us all in the pursuit of happiness. And as Will Smith says ON The Pursuit of Happyness,

"There is no [wh]Y in happiness."

I Am Very Lucky

These last few weeks have been very eye opening for me. They have been hard, but I am grateful to have gone through what I have gone through. I feel happier than I've been in a while, which gives me hope for the future. I feel like it will only get better from here, and I will only get better. The trials I have been through have already pushed me onto a better path and I know it is God's way of pointing me in the direction I need to go. For that I feel very grateful and blessed to have His guidance. I don't mean to get preachy but I recognize God's role in my life and know I have Him to thank for everything I have. The good, and what sometimes appears to be the bad. In all reality though, all the bad is for our good. Sometimes it's hard to realize that, but it's true. 


I'm in love with Rascal Flatts right now. Always have been, but I always get more obsessed with country music in the summer. Here are some of my favorite songs of theirs right now:

No Reins

Mayberry

Banjo

Here are some quotes that I love right now:

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." (The Serenity Prayer)

That quote has really really made a difference in my life. A lot of the time, people are unhappy because they feel like their life is out of control. When you actually think about the situations you are in and realize you can't control them, it brings acceptance and a sense of peace in some way. At least for me. And if you realize you can control it, then you are in the power position to change whatever it is that is making you unhappy. Either way, you can be happy no matter what is happening to you. Everything happens for a reason. 

Proverbs 3: 5-6

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. 

That is my favorite scripture of all time. 

I stumbled upon this quote by Marilyn Monroe and ordered a vinyl lettering of it and put it on my wall:

“I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.” 

Also, now that school is over I have had time to work on my art. It makes me happy :) I will probably start posting some of my new stuff soon. I really need to get out and take some more pictures since I haven't done that in far too long. Keep an eye out :) Hopefully I can make it worth your wait. 

Freedom Isn't Free

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Today is also the day that my best friend was deployed to Afghanistan. He will be in Texas for a little bit at first but then be flown over to Afghanistan. Dealing with this is possibly one of the hardest things I have had to deal with. There is a chance he many not come home alive. There is a chance he may not come back in one piece. There is a chance that he will be psychologically traumatized by what goes on over there. You never know. 

I was lucky enough to be born an American, where I have freedoms, rights, and opportunities. I think a lot of times we take our blessings for granted. I know I do sometimes. Our rights and freedoms did not come for free. Millions of people throughout history have fought for freedom and given their lives for it, like Martin Luther King Jr. I have been feeling very grateful today for all the people who have made my freedoms possible, and it really opened my eyes to how ridiculous we can be sometimes. People at work today were more concerned about getting a good deal on a snowboard instead of realizing that there are more important things to be worried about, and definitely more important things to get upset about than me not accepting a coupon that expired over a month ago. 

I wish it would be easier to encourage people to open their eyes and realize all the wonderful things they have in their lives. Yeah, nobody's life is perfect, but if it was there would be no room for growth. We go through trials for a reason. We are obviously supposed to learn from every moment in our lives, especially the bad times. It helps make us stronger as people. I know having my best friend in Afghanistan for a year is going to be tough, but I know we will both be stronger people because of it. I can only hope and pray that God will protect him and if it is his will, that my friend will return home safely. And I really hope that he does.

Me vs. Jimi Hendrix and the Eiffel Tower

I am in love with posters. I found this great website with thousands of awesome posters and I am now addicted. I recently bought about six new posters from there to decorate my room. These posters seem to have created a pact to try and fall down as much as possible to get me as pissed off as they can. No amount of poster putty or tape will keep this things stuck to the wall! It's like they're possessed or something....

There are two posters in particular that fall down the most. They are:

Jimi Hendrix

The Eiffel Tower

You wouldn't think it would be so supremely difficult to keep a large piece of paper stuck to a wall. These posters have proven me wrong. They seem to like falling down at the least convenient times too. The Eiffel Tower poster has fallen on my head twice while I was sleeping. It scared me so much I couldn't fall back asleep either time. I just have one thing go say about this. If either one of them fall ONE MORE TIME....the duct tape is coming out. Don't say I didn't warn you, Jimi.