"Maybe it's not my weekend.. But it's going to be my year"

2013

          So my dear friend Berlin has a list he makes at the beginning every year. And being a lover of lists I stole his idea and decided to make my own list for 2013. 

        I have made these kind of lists in the past and success was not mine for three reasons:

• I've learned the hard way that if you want something to get done, you need to have a plan in place to make it happened. If I don't write something down, it won't happen. If I don't actually plan out what I'm doing with a time set out for myself it really doesn't happen. I'm putting my list on my I-pod touch so I don't forget about it, on here so I have to account for it at the end of the year, and in my journal so it stays close to my heart.
• I have also learned that self-loathing attitude of I'm going to "stop drinking caffeine forever, lose weight, get straight A's, stop swearing, read the holy bible and book of Mormon in three months" is also not going to get anything done. Making cut throat rash decision goals doesn't work for me. I once went cold turkey off of Diet Coke for 14 days. Ask Kristina Blesch, I was the meanest thing on earth. I have to ease into things. I take my time getting places.  I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's good to want to improve upon our lives but it's also good to be kind and realistic with ourselves.
• Most importantly I learned I need to have FUN. Every year I read resolutions or make resolutions myself that are tedious and all around boring. But I like/need to have fun. So that's why if my goals seem odd or nerdy, it's because they are and they're exactly what I want to do with my time. 

Now that's out of the way here's my list:

1. Watch 12 Audrey Hepburn movies. I've been told I would love her so that's what I plan to do with my life. Also there is a common number of 12  in my list so that I can at least can one thing done a month. For example by the end of January I hope to see Roman Holiday.

2. Read @ least 12 books so far, I've read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert so I'm on my way!

3. Lose twelve pounds. Starting small, but we'll see how far I can get in 2013.

4. Visit Kristina in Florida. Kristina is working at Disney World for a semester and I want to make sure I go and see her. So me and my Tax Return plan to visit her.

5. Drink more water. So far, I'm not doing too well... I need to buy a water bottle. I'm kinda like the little girl from Signs who is super picky with water? I'm trying to overcome this. 

6.Write Better. I was a part of the Literary Magazine at CEU and I miss it. I want to become a better writer. I plan to join the writing center at the City Library and take a class or two to improve.

7.Get involved the Art community. Connect with people. Volunteer  

8.Find God Again

• Cuss less. No swearing at all on Sunday
• Sign up for institute and go every semester
• stay active in calling
• pay my tithing
• read the book of Mormon

9.Take more walks outside

10. Paint something new every month 

11. Read  Gone With the Wind. My grandma Wilson loved this story and movie so I want to read it this year.

12. Pinterest challenge: I plan to do 12 things off each of my Pinterest boards. I plan to take awful pictures of the disaster this will create. 

13.Catch all 150 Pokemon on Pokemon Blue version without cheating. 

14. Do good in school. Try my personal best and do everything I can do to succeed. Including, staying home on Saturday nights. 

15. Reread Jurassic Park and go see it the re-release in theaters

16. Try at least 12 new places to eat in Salt Lake City

17. Go to Cedar City for Shakespearean Festival with Kenna and Berlin this summer. 

So this my year plans. I plan to take pictures and blog about these. (I know I never post pictures..)

2012 : a year in songs.

Disclaimer: This entry is purely selfish and me talking about myself for future self reflection. It might be long, whiny, boring and meticulous. Also, reading this back again I sound much like my 15 year old Warped Tour self.

2012:

a year in songs

January

1.

Safe and Sound 

Taylor Swift[feat. The Civil Wars]

Safe & Sound (From "The Hunger Games" Soundtrack) 

This song I bought last Christmas with the i-tunes card. All I would listen to was Speak Now so I was happy to have some new t-swift. I listened to this song late one night while I was driving through the Daybreak at 11 pm at night. I was so sad because I missed Price and was so scared to leave because I didn't know what would happen to me. I was scared of who I was going to be in a year. I heard this song and it just sounded eerie enough to be pretty but not to be scary. It was peace I gained that everything going on in that moment would okay. "Safe and sound" as cheesy as it is. 

2.

My Heart is Split 

Laura Osnes & Meghann Fahy

Our First Mistake

Lisha sent this to me and it summed up ALL the things going wrong and right in my life. I've said so many times how split I felt between CEU and home. My heart being in two places was breaking. Also, I was so sad in January. This song helped me to open up to friends and not push the ones I love away. It help me walk away from my weekly identity crisis. "I'm home but I'm still here." 

February

3.

Diet Mountain Dew

Lana Del Rey

Born to Die

I like to think of this song as me lightening up. It's so fun and catchy. Lana Del Rey brought the city to me. The lyric "let's take Jesus off the dashboard got enough of his mind" gave me the chance to stop feeling so guilty for every little thing. It helped me to think for myself and not just about what was wrong and right. Right and wrong in Price was hard for me sometimes because everything seemed grey. Taking Jesus off the dash helped see what is right in my heart. I'm not saying I stopped being LDS but I stopped letting my guilt run my life. I learned that human emotion was normal. It's normal not to like someone. It's normal not to want to go to church sometimes. I stopped expecting myself to be perfect everyday. I love the church so much but sometimes the guilt inferred or taught over the years constricts me from ever having self-esteem when I mess up.That's a lot of heavy stuff from one lyric..

4.

Let Me Be Your Star

 Katharine McPhee & Megan Hilty

Let Me Be Your Star- Single

SMASH was my hulu joy. I love this duet and showed the different voices. I was really insecure about my singing voice all my life. I love this show because the use so many different voice styles and I realized I didn't hate my own voice. This show brought me closer to my friend Berlin. We both has similar feelings about living away and being in Murray at the same time. We bonded over this show and would queen out over it. 

March

5. 

Lua 

Bright Eyes

I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning

Though I fought the sadness a lot, the dementors would come and beat me down and suck all the happiness from me. I had days where I would work, sleep, go to class, wait for my roommate to go to  rehearsal and lay in my bed and cry. This song is the time when I was alone with myself and couldn't get happy. It was the cold windy days when everything was wrong and I couldn't find peace. It was going through all the motions and never finding what I was looking for. As sad as this time was, as awful talking and thinking about it is, it had to happen. I know I can be alone. I am strong enough to get through the sad times. But I try my best not to listen to this song on repeat because it's just that depressing.

6.

 Take Care (feat. Rihanna)

Drake

Take Care

So the last song was one side to March. The other half was all the ice melting. Take Care had been overplayed in SLC according to Mckenna which means I just had barely heard it in Price. I loved this song in the sense it woke me from haze. It says basically stop letting yourself sabotage every human relationship just because you were hurt. This other half of March was delightful. It contained the desert walks, Hunger Games premieres, the best birthday I ever had and deciding on a college. Even though I hadn't been accepted, in my heart I knew the U was going to be my path. 

April

7.
Family Business
Kanye West
The College Dropout

"And if you did, then that's family business." This song is about family. It's about all the problems you go through with them. More than anything it's about the unconditional love you have for them. This past April on easter, I listened to Kanye West and cried about my family. I cried once more about Price. I cried about the pain I inflicted on myself moving away, finishing a time of life I loathed. April was me losing my mind. Looking back on that final month, I can only imagine how much of a lion with a thorn in a paw I was.

8.
Whatsername
American Idiot Cast
American Idiot: The Original Broadway Cast Recording

There were moments and friends I lost when I graduated form CEU. It's only been six months but ties with a lot of people I made are faded and I've moved on from those times. The musical vision of Whatsername fits this feeling of all the people I met and left behind. I hope someday that I'll understand "why" everything happened the way it did. "forgetting you but not the time"

May
9.
Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)
Nancy Sinatra
Kill Bill, Vol. 1

This song is a dramatic drive through the rain with my dad heading back to Salt Lake from Price. It's bonding over Uma Thurman. It's an amazing movie and the song opens the movie with this song. It's the perfect song to begin something. It has a certain sweet sadness of letting go and moving on. "Bill it's your baby."

10.
No Church in the Wild
Kanye West and Jay-Z
Watch the Throne

Ciara and me driving to Green River the final week in Price. This is blazing down the highway, windows down May sunlight blowing my bob in face. My hair was too short for a ponytail so it goes everywhere. We are two white girls in the desert enjoying a blissful day listening to Kanye West.

June
11.
It's All Coming Back to Me
Glee Cast
Glee Cast

I love this song so much. It is so dramatic and the Celine Dion version was always my favorite. Lea Michele does another great cover of Celine Dion with this song. Berlin will sing this with me at the Karaoke Cafe every time we go there. When I hear it, it sounds like working all day and singing at night at the cafe. It's letting go and enjoying life after being so stressed all the time.

June
12.
Pass This On
The Knife
Summer Tadd vol. one

This song sounds like a Mermaid. It's a classier version/ Swedish electronic version of "My Best Friend's Brother" by Victoria Justice. Tadd Mecham makes the best mixed CD's on this Earth and this one was very good indeed.

July

13.
Gotta Be You (2012 US Version)
One Direction
Up All Night

Thanks to Mckenna Schwab, I found One Direction this year. There are probably the only pop music I fell in love with this year. This song is rainbows and puppies it's so cute and happy.

14.
Unknown Legend
Tunde Adebimpe
Rachel Getting Married (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

This song is peace. It's the open road. It's the free spirit I always want to become. Tunde Adebimpe's voice is pure. This song has that bittersweet restlessness I get sometimes. I love a quote that says "Adventure may hurt but but monotony will kill you." This song lives up to that quote.I like this idea of finding an adventure before I settle down. I know family is what I want in life, but I also want to live a life where I'm not just waiting for that to happen to me. Because waiting for it to happen would make me resent it completely.

August

15.
Wildest Moments
Jessie Ware
I made you a mix

I started life at the U on August 20 and this is the song that sounds starting this part of my life. I feel the sun burning my cheeks and being so nervous I want to throw up. If my life were a drama like Grey's Anatomy this is my "Portion for Foxes" when Meredith Grey enters Seattle Grace for the first time.

16.
Old Italian Love Song
Audra Mae and The Almighty Sound
Audra Mae & The Almighty Sound

This song is just pretty. I struck gold when I hoarded Jeff's music library. It really has no special meaning to me other than it makes me sway uncontrollably when I listen to it. It was something pretty to listen to on TRAX.

September

17.
U Remind Me
Usher
Billboard Top 100 Of 2001

As well as stealing Jeff's music, I also stole Kristina's(who also has wonderful taste). When I found this song, I screamed of excitement. It's third grade and watching MTV music videos. This song was on repeat for two and a half weeks straight. It's an instant mood changer.

18.
Ghost Town
First Aid Kit
Ghost Town - EP

This song is letting go completely of Price, America. In ways, I needed this song to be okay with the parts of me that made me grow apart from others and the place itself. A lot of my happy memories in Price happened in the fall and so when it came to be fall again, it hurt a lot to have things gone. And this neurotic tendency to never be happen with a present moment in time is my own fault. So the best I figured I could realize is that this life isn't all there is. Whatever the after life shall bring, I like to believe that people we say goodbye to in certain periods of time will be a part of us again. This song really brought closure with that for me.


"Maybe I should just turn around
And walk away
For no matter how much I really do
Want to stay
You know I can't
No it's too late

For I've found myself attached
To this railroad track
But I'll come back to you someday
To you, to you, to you someday"

October

19.
The Scientist
Glee Cast
Glee: Season 4

Glee is more awful than usual and like most of Ryan Murphy's shows it's great the first few seasons are good  then it falls apart little bit by the fourth season. But in this episode, Glee was as good as the first season. It captured the pain growing up and growing out of people and how much that can hurt. This happened a lot to me this year and because this is a blog and not my journal, I don't need to talk personally about my relationships with others.

20.
All Too Well
Taylor Swift
Red

In October, Taylor Swift came out with Red a.k.a. the album she stops being country and turns into a pop star. Being a lover of all things pop, this album is right up my alley. It's cheesy, the songs cute and gets all my white girl problems. There are two great duets one featuring Ed Sheeran and the other Gary Lightbody from Snow Patrol. All Too Well was my favorite on the album. It's the White Horse/Dear John of Red. The break up song where there's no hope of "ever ever ever getting back together."  ***after reading this, I realize it makes it sound like I'm trying to sell you a Taylor Swift album. What have I become?**

November

21.
Summertime Sadness
Lana Del Rey
Born To Die

November is my favorite cold month. It's not winter quite yet but it's still quieting down and I'm attracted to melancholy songs and movies. This puts a sad song in my head when I ever I listen to it. I was disappointed in the music video

22.
Little Things
One Direction
Take Me Home (Yearbook Edition)

Written by Ed Sheeran, this is the cutest love song of 2012. This song proves that One Direction is talented enough to be artists not just a boy band. I listened this during finals and it kept me cheerful.

December

23.
Skyfall
Adele
Skyfall - Single

The thing I missed a lot about 2012 was the lack of Adele. She was overplayed by the end of 2011, so I kinda avoided her music. Then I went to see Skyfall and this happened:

http://vimeo.com/53372914

I rekindled my love for Adele. This song was perfect to end the year.

24.
Christmas Lights
Coldplay
Christmas Lights - Single

I am a recovering Grinch whole stole Christmas. I hate it a lot. I hate the stress, the last minute hours spent at walmart, the family problems Christmas likes to drag to surface. This year I did my absolute best to try to like it. I watched Rudolph, thought about baby Jesus, wrapped presents, smiled, ate cookies but I still felt pretty grinchy. What finally melted my heart more not all the way, was this song.    It reminded me of the Giver when Jonah sees the lights of the town when it's so cold outside. His hopes are in the lights. That image has stayed with me since I was 12 and is rekindled when ever I hear this song.


Well that's 2012.
Got back a  brother, graduated, grew up, get lost, get found.

Happy New Year!