The Universal Power of Love and Forgiveness? Pt. 1

In light of recent events, I have a major topic weighing heavily on my mind. It saddens me to know one of the Boston bombers is only 19 years old. In my eyes, he is a baby. He was going to school to be a doctor. Now, I am not stating that what he and his brother did can be condoned. They committed a crime. They killed four people and severely wounded many others. Nonetheless, Jesus suffered for the bombers sins too. No one is perfect; He suffered for everyone.

I am a firm believer in a simple and still so complicated concept. We as a society can save the world through love and forgiveness. That is it. I know...you are thinking it is a crazy out-of-this-world concept, but I truly believe the lack of these two ideas are what is causing so much turmoil in the first place.

I have this weird...ability?...blessing?...not sure what to call it...what I tend to do is think about everyone involved. I have been praying for the families affected by the bombings. However, another life has been taken in this whole event. This 19-year-old kid lost his life. He will not be able to live his life in the manner that every 19-year old should live it. He will either live his entire life (a rather long life) in prison or in ten years time (maybe even fifteen or twenty years) be executed for crimes against humanity. Whatever the scenario his life has ended.

This saddens me profusely. Whenever, I hear the story of the Boston bombings retold, all I can think about is how scared this young man must have been. I can see him making attempts to stay strong and claim that he has no regard for his life, but I often still wonder if through all of this, he just wanted it all to go away. I believe he was so scared that, in the end, he just didn't know what to do anymore. In the end, he gave up.

Love and forgiveness go hand and hand. If you love someone, you will forgive them. I have forgiven this boy. Something inside of me wants to hug him and say "this, too, shall pass. You were stupid and very wrong. You took so many lives. What were you thinking? I know you did wrong, but I forgive you." Now, maybe it's all because I was not directly effected by the bombers. Maybe I can forgive easily because I see everything from afar and have never experienced what many of the people of Boston have experienced. Maybe I am too young too understand certain concepts of forgiveness. Yet, I feel this kid needs it now more than ever. Families need to heal and this kid needs someone to forgive him.

I was raised in a Christian household. I have many friends who are of different faiths. I even have atheist friends. I don't care what you believe. I love all of my friends. If I ever need to remind someone that I would do anything for them, including forgive them, then they don't know me well enough. I am not angered easily. Somehow, I am able to forgive even though there have been times when, according to others, I shouldn't forgive. I just ask one thing in return...to forgive me of any wrongdoings that I have done. I never intentionally hurt people, regardless of what some may think. Maybe that is where this forgiveness aspect comes from. I want to be forgiven whenever I do something wrong, but how can I be forgiven if I fail to forgive, even those who are terrible people.

Someday, everyone will understand the concept of love and forgiveness. Then our world will be better...at least in my opinion.

Being as it is Friday, and I have some free time before diving into some major studying, I thought I would update my blog! I have away for so long, I may as well update to say I am here and still alive...barely.

I am carrying a huge workload at school. I am not necessarily carrying a lot of credits...I just have a whole heckva lot of homework and studying to do. I have test at least one every two weeks...sometimes once a week. On top of all of that I work at least 20 hours a week.

I still have plans to write more blogs of certain topics. I may start making my blog look better and sectioning off certain posts. BIG ideas coming soon...

I will be back, hopefully sometime this weekend!

Long Awaited Band Tour Post (words)

I started writing this post back in November but did not have time to finish it. So, here is the exciting band tour...

You know you are a colorguard director when...?

How do you tell that a colorguard director is exhausted after a 26 hour bus ride and a 5-6 day tour with the marching band kiddos?

When...

~receiving a joyous 2nd place in the division (and a mighty big trophy) and high colorguard in the smallest and lowest division

~being told I am crazy for enduring a second year of band tour with my kiddos is not a shocking statement...and you nod your head in agreement

~realizing that if you had been promoted to the next division you would received 3rd place (out of 9 bands)

~understanding that every band is judged the same and therefore means your colorguard beat a 4A (second highest division) colorguard

~touring San Francicso, Lodi, Elko and Reno are on the agenda

~assisting in taking care of 21 teenagers ranging in age from 14-18 becomes exciting (I know...I am a bit crazy)

~sleeping a maximum of 4 hours each night is a HUGE blessing

~getting the kiddos on the bus, through all of tour and off the bus in one piece proves to be a life success

~exhaustion hits the teenage boys (who never really stop for anything)

~Dr. Pepper is your saving grace

~a four hour rehearsal two days in a row without complaining kids is heavenly and a once in a lifetime opportunity

~you slept through chaperone check and your students had to let the band director know that they "have the chaperone and she is safe!"

~being called "Mommy Goose" by the senior Drum Major is a sign of respect

~calling my kids "my little ducklings" is a sign of love from me

~checking in my kids every five minutes causes them to roll their eyes because I am "acting like a parent"

~starting everyday at 5:30am and not getting to bed until at least 12:30am (the next day) is the second sign of love

~touring Alcatraz and teasing the kids about leaving them their if they behave poorly is NOT considered child abuse

~watching 18 year old tough boys, known as drummers, melt at the sight of a fluffy baby snow leopard and cry when the zoo sign says the tigers are highly endangered and rapidly disappearing

~kicking the kids butts when the staff (including me) and chaperones beat the kids (by a whole lot) in laser tag and bowling

~explaining to the hotel manager that taping the kids into their room simply means to put tape on their doors so we know who broke the rules is not what the hotel manager thought (he was thinking child abuse for sure...)

~hearing the hotel manager think we literally tape the kids to their beds confuses me (I don't think scotch tape would hold up).

~realizing you are not as good at kickball as you thought you were turns into being upstaged by ALL 21 kids

~eating fast food, tour food and all-you-can-eat buffets are not sounding pleasant at the moment

~bribing the drumline with eight 24 packs of caffeinated soda if they give us (the staff) the best rehearsals and performance seems like no big deal (there are only nine of them on the line...one is a girl who hates soda)

~the kids post on facebook how much fun they had, how worn out they are and how excited they are for next years marching band endeavors

Exhausting band tour? You bet. Successful trip? I say yes!

Now, to tackle mountains of homework and catch up on some sleep.

Oh Boy

I realize I have not updated in quite sometime (August?). I have been super busy. I will leave you with a preview of what I plan to update on before the year is out. So, in no particular order here are some upcoming topics I plan to blog about:

-My students amazing band tour (maybe two? One in just words and one in pictures?)
-My failed attempts at NaNoWriMo (if you don't know what that is I will explain later)
-My plans for my 25th year of life
-Projects I have been completing at work
-A politic/religion post (I have actually already started this but it is so long it is taking forever to complete)
-Some of my goals for 2013
-Project updates
-A book review or two
-BIG ideas I have

I think I could go on but these are some of the posts I either have started and haven't had time to finish or plan on posting so very soon. Bear with me.

Last Day in Washington

Tonight is the last night I am in Washington. Boo. However, I believe this trip was a success! I needed time away from everything to just relax and have fun! I would say lots of swimming, watching movies, going shopping, viewing the Snowqualmie Falls and Train Museum, making and eating blueberry pie and peach cobbler, picking blueberries, reading and relaxing are my idea of a vacation! I just wish I could stay a little longer.

I sense things will change from here on out. Grandpa is slowing way down. I fear he will not make it past a year, or, if he does, he will not have a clear memory of some of his Grandchildren 9such as those of us who live in another State). I do want to come back next year since I love the Northwest so much! Aside from a few scorching hot days, the weather was pleasant! I want the 70 degree weather to come to Utah and stay for a while! I may need to have an extra big hug ready for Grandpa in case I am unable to do so in the future.

I will return to Washington and visit Oregon soon!

Exhaustingly Sucessful Day pt. 2

As you can tell, today is Sunday, deemed as the day of rest for many of the religious variety. Yesterday (and part of today) is the basis for my blog title.

Last week after our successful yard sale, it was decided to have our multi-family yard sale again only this time have it on Friday and Saturday for only four hours each day (8am-1pm). Another success for all of us. This was actually a little bit better than the previous weekend because we weren't sitting out in the yucky heat for several hours (in case you are wondering we are in the high 90's and will be in triple digits this upcoming week...yuck). This weekend, Kory's father brought over some toy cars and we slashed prices left and right just to get rid of everything. This helped a lot. Last I heard, over the three days we had the sale we came close to, or made over $800. Not a bad haul. Most of my sales were in clothing...and I am still selling some at a store known as Trendy Exchange (they give you cash for clothes they want to sell in their store). I feel as though I have lighted a BIG load by getting rid of everything. Anything that did not sell, we took to Goodwill and dropped it off. We all agreed, none of it was going back into the house!

After we tallied up everyone's total, I went to go take a test. It was not necessarily difficult, just time consuming. I did fairly well, scoring high on the multiple choice portion. I am pretty confident about the written part but I won't know until tomorrow how I did!

I may post again today...maybe not. I want to show some before and after pictures of my room, but I am not 100% confident it will get done tonight.

Exhaustingly Successful Day...

I really don't understand how yard sales can make someone so exhausted. Initially I was mentally exhausted and thought that I could go the rest of the day with regular Saturday evening plans. Then I woke up to dinner being ready. Yes, the yard sell ended at 4pm, money was counted and distributed and I sat down at about 5:30pm. I woke up at about 6pm (ish) so really only a 30 minute nap, but the fact that I slept means I was (and currently am) much more physically exhausted than I thought. I think everyone is...even my dad who did not man the stations but did in fact provide fans on a 90+ degree day, babysat the little one (my niece), got out all the lunch products, set up the canopies (and help break down the yard sale) and check on us occasionally! My mom worked all day so she wasn't there but it is exhausting preparing for such endeavor and then heading to a long day at work to come home and help finish the last remaining details of the yard sale are just as exhausting. Note that it was a MASSIVE sale...as in multifamily...literally. My family, my sister's in-laws and a neighbor all had contributed to this sale. We sold a whole of items but still have a lot more to go. Which is why we are going to have another yard sale on Friday and Saturday this next weekend! To let you know how successful this yard sale was without going into too many details, the total profit all three families made combined was over $400 and that was for eight hours. Again, we still have so much more stuff to sell, but all-in-all a rather successful day!

To give you an idea of how and why I found the garage sale successful, I will give you some thoughts to ponder. Going into the garage sale I for sure had seven of those printer paper boxes of clothing and a large box (I am guessing at least an 8 x 4 x 4 box of clothing) that I had ready to be put out into the yard sale last night. I woke up at 5am this morning to over a few things in the basement and find two ore paper boxes worth of clothing to put out. I am pretty sure of the nine paper boxes and one big box (at least) I sold about 65% of those items of clothing and I still have more to contribute to next weekends yard sale! I still have so much more to do and go through but I am happy with the results and hope to have as good, if not better, results next weekend *crosses fingers* I still have a lot more work to do and an anticipating more late nights this week, but all for the better!

Now, I will be showering and going to bed! I will post more tomorrow!