Today has been a very good day-- although busy with school, it started off with getting emails from a special someone who still says "you're gorgeous"-- even from Illinois-- and ended with FHE games at some friends' ward.  In between, I sketched for homework, met my cute South Korean roommate who is finally moving in after a month, ate lots of veggies {I seriously can't get enough}, and worked out {500 crunches + 100 calf raises + 100 squats + 100 situps + 100 high knees + 100 jumping jacks + 40 pushups + 10 clap pushups + 1 minute handstand with stomach against the wall  + 1 minute plank + 1 minute candlestick all followed by some real good stretching and I feel FABULOUS}.
    Have you ever thought about what you would do without the ability to read and write?  Not only is so much of our culture founded off assumed literacy, but whether I'm at school, doing homework, or entertaining myself, my eyes are always flitting from left to right.  As a fourth-grader my life plan was to be a famous author, so my little heart would've melted upon hearing my Critical Inquiry professor complimenting the writing skills in my essay.  He commented that he was raising the bar for me because of it and hoping that I could find an outlet for such potential talent.  Oh, I was grateful! and informed him that I am writing a book and am also an avid blogger.  Without home responsibilities, I spend a lot of time evolving the ideas for my novel, and although it is so much harder than I ever anticipated, it's a work in progress and I love every minute of it.
      On the subject of blogging, I am so happy that I decided to start this blog over seven years ago.  Over the summer I dedicated weeks to organizing and condensing it all {the end of fifth grade up to high school graduation} into the physical format of a 400-large-paged-tightly-spaced book. Having the pleasure of flipping through almost a decade of precious memories that would've otherwise been lost is unbelievably satisfying, although I'm almost convinced that my dad loves it more than I do {church is just one example of the places he has brought it to show people}.  These days, I keep a little booklet with me at all times to write other, more personal  senior year/summer memories that I'd rather not share on the Internet.  The hippocampus is quite an incredible little feature our brains have, and the way our memories can store so much information continues to marvel me.  I'll have totally forgotten something and then randomly it will just resurface in my mind!   If I'm counting correctly, Dallin asked me out for the first time a year ago this week, so there have been plenty of souvenirs my memory has yielded up.  Seriously, to anyone at all reading this, I beg you to write down your memories like I do, no matter how insignificant they may seem at the time, because you'll only start to miss they when they fade away. 
On a totally random note, my friend told me that a guy she was with commented on how different my face looks from the average girl.  It was all complimentary, but here's a fun fact for y'all: I'm 1/32 Native American, and during a trip to Texas last year, my great-grandmother pointed out that I had the same face shape as herself, my grandfather and  my mother.  We all inherited it from our ancestor, a Creek Indian who was born on the Trail of Tears.  How interesting that, despite my blood being almost full-majority European, genes would work in a way to have a person from each generation display a rare physical feature of such precious and tragic heritage.   

*SO when remodeling my blog I added some coding that would make all the pictures the same width.  Unfortunately I didn't realize that, unless I went through each and every blog post and changed each and every photo size to "original," they would all be super pixelated.  Anyways apologies for what looked like crappy quality photos, I'm slowly but surely fixing them all.*
Vicodin is definitely  not my thing.  Although it saved me last night at 3:30 in the morning when the pain shot through each and every one of my teeth, taking it during the day was horrendous idea.  When going out to lunch with Dallin's saint of a mother, I ended up hunched over in my chair in a gross cold sweat fighting severe dizziness.  Needless to say we transported the food back to my house and instead chitchatted while I layed on the couch.   And as it turns out, we both brought each other dark chocolate haha!
It's a very strange time in my life. With my best friend now gone, my main focus is moving, and for someone who hasn't moved since not-quite-six-years-old... Who knew someone could have so much stuff?!  I've completely taken my room apart, emptied drawers, decluttered the closet and the space under the bed.  While some stuff ended up in a donation pile, the rest of my belongings got separated into two categories: necessary for college and to be saved in boxes in the garage basically until I get married.  I was a very imaginative child so I cannot even begin to tell you the number of half-finished homemade picture books, novels, poems, drawings and sculptures I have saved.   It's hilarious to find old journal entries, and as for the dolls?  They have their own box.  After years of creative playing that involved both wild made-up adventures and researched playgames surrounding their place in history {my two favorite dolls were from the colonial era and the Great Depression}, I can't bear the thought of giving them away.  {I was recently teased for the 2008 blog post rant about the American Girl Company putting some of the historic dolls into the "archive."}
  These past few days have been admittably sad, but I am so excited for the new change in my life.  I am ecstatic to experience the diverse culture of the island, and following those seven months I can take the even bigger step of serving a mission myself.  While Dallin was getting set apart, I met up with my own bishop and started my paperwork!
     Basically I am so so grateful for the direction my life has taken.  I can only reiterate that those going through a hard time need to just push through it, because they have no idea the unexpected blessings that can come their way at any moment.  I had heard many times that sometimes bad things happen for a reason.  But I didn't realize till it all came to a peak my senior year that it is so true-- and had it not been for the exact way those seemingly-unfortunate situations happened, the wonderful opportunites I started receiving {some within a matter of days} could not have come my way.

  It's been exactly three years since I started The Flip-Flop Fantasy.  Wow, how time flies!
  I know I have certainly changed as well.  Of course I did.  The blog was started the end of 5th grade, and tomorrow starts the last week of 8th grade.  In some ways, I even feel like a different person.  I have grown...

• Spiritually
• In maturity
• Less sensitive
• About 4 or 5 inches (Yesterday I measured myself and I am FINALLY 5' tall!)
• Musically, artistically, and in writing
• Way less shy
• Way more comfortable on stage 
• In understanding
• And in school (you should hope).

  You would not believe how glad I am that I started this blog.  I know I will forever cherish the memories tucked inside its pages.  

I had been asking my mom to let me start making my own blog... You know, just to let me stay in touch with some of my school friends and everyone else. After a while I began to forget about it, but then a few days ago my mom asked if I wanted to make one. So, here I am!

I could not find a name for my blog at first. I came up with ideas like "The Magic Ship", "The Lindenburg Time Machine" (the Lindenburg Time Machine is the time machine in the book I'm writing), "The Kalizabeth Rose", and others, but then my mom said maybe I could do "The Flip-flop Fantasy", and it was perfect!

I hope I'll be a good blogger!