Sunflowers

Growing up my mom would always say that the sunflowers would bloom when it was time to head back to school. Every summer I would dread the sight of the bright yellow flowers and once the first one blossomed I would begin to fear. Sunflowers meant school and school meant being locked inside all day followed by freezing winters.

This year it seems the sunflowers have bloomed earlier than usual and I am reminded that I will be starting school again soon.

The thought is exciting and absolutely terrifying. I am excited to meet new people and have the experience of going to college, but at the same time I am scared stiff of what may lie in my future. I will be moving for the first time in my life, and sharing a room with someone I have only stalked on Facebook. I will have more responsibility and more freedom, but I can no longer use my mother as a scapegoat. It just doesn't seem convincing for a college student living away from home to sat "Sorry, my mom said I'm not allowed to hang out with you. I have to stay and clean my room tonight."

I am nervous, yes, but the experiences are defiantly exciting. I just need to put my man pants on and say no to people.

Blessed

You know those moments when you wake up and shower and in hindsight realize you could have slept for at least another half hour? Yeah that was me this morning.

I woke up at 7:30 like I usually do on Sundays and showered only to remember that I work today. No church for me. I was kind of bummed. Add that to the fact that I am home working while my mom and brothers are on vacation made me a little more than bummed.

I am grateful that I paused for a moment during my pity party to look outside. The sun had risen, our horses were eating peacefully, and there was just kind of a small whisper in the back of my mind saying: "You're going to miss this in about a month."

I sighed knowing the voice was right. In three weeks I am set to move down to college. Needless to say, I am scared. However, I know that I will always have a home here with loving parents and my little brothers (even though they aren't so little anymore).

The Lord has a plan for me, I just need to have the faith to do what I need to.

Reality Check

Me and Beto at Senior Ball this past fall. 

Occasionally I forget how amazing the people in my life are. It is typically around the point that I begin to think of them as mere acquaintances when something will happen to change my view and help me realize that they really do mean a lot to me and apparently I mean something to them too.

One night in June or July someone tried to break into the store where I work while my friend and I were closing. No one was hurt and there was no damage except for the new dents in the back door and a new fear of loud noises and a near constant paranoia for me. Whenever I hear a sound similar to that of someone hitting a door I freak out. Whenever I think I see someone out of the corner of my eye at work I freak out. Whenever there are cars sitting suspiciously outside somewhere I freak out. I'm sure you get the general idea of my problem.

A while back in January or February Beto, who works with me, showed up and knocked angrily on the back door not realizing the effect it would have on me. I screamed bloody murder and was a total wreck the rest of the night. A few weeks later I was closing with another employee when the phone rang. He answered it and a moment later let Beto in through the back door. I worried that he had knocked and had been standing outside for a while before he called, but when I asked him about it he explained that he didn't want to scare me again.

Last night I was closing with Beto for the first time in a while. When we closed we noticed that there were two cars sitting in the parking lot of the gas station across the street. It was slightly suspicious because the station closed a half hour before we did. As we were about to leave we noticed that the cars were still parked across the street with their lights on as they had been for the past hour. I began to quietly freak out in the back of my mind.

For about ten minutes we hid in the office and peaked through the blinds where they couldn't see us. Once they had suspiciously left together we hurried out to leave. I reached for a bag of trash to carry to the dumpster, but he insisted that I just go start the car and make sure we were ready to leave as soon as he had everything thrown away.

After I dropped him off at his house I made my way home, freaking out the whole way I might add. When I got home I found a text from him asking if I had made it home okay. The simple acts that night had made me realize what an amazing friend he actually is and how much I didn't realize it.

I lay awake for at least an hour thinking of how blessed I was for the people that the Lord has put into my life. I realized that even if I grow apart from people they are still in my life for a reason and maybe that reason is just to be a comfort when I am scared (which is often, let's face it.)

Second Site

So I have begun a second blog to display some of my photography work. If you are interested in checking out Aften Marie Photography click here.

Manti Temple. #spiritualsunday

Letters for Later

"It's been a long day without you, my friend

And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again.

We've come a long way from where we began

Oh, I'll tell you all about it when I see you again.

When I see you again."

Now I know this song is supposed to be for Fast and Furious star Paul Walker, but whenever I hear it I can't help but think about my future husband. I know I knew him in the past, before either of us were born, before this life. I know he is out there somewhere right now. 

It is so strange to think that the person I am going to spend the rest of eternity with is out there somewhere. He could be one of my friends right now, or a complete stranger. I could meet him at college, or work, or later in life. I could know him now and just not realize that he is my Mr. Right.

Since I know he is out there somewhere, I have begun writing letters to him. Letters no one will ever see until I am married and even then only he will be able to see them. It is kind of like keeping a journal except each entry starts with "Dear Mr. Faith," and ends with "I love you, Aften Marie". Each day I just write about things that had happened, things I wish he had been there for, and things that I know I will want to tell him, but I know I will forget about it by the time I actually meet him. I write about things I want for us and things that I hope for our children.

It may seem strange to others looking for an outside point of view, but for me it helps me keeps my eyes on the path ahead of me. I want to stay worthy to marry my husband and to go to the temple and be sealed with him for time and all eternity. Even though I haven't met him yet in this life I miss him and I want him to feel like he has been a part of my life. I want him to know how often I think of him during the day.

To my future Husband just incase you ever stumble upon this (and I am really sorry if you do):

It's been a long day without you, my friend, and I'll tell you all about it when I see you again. We've come a long way from where we began, oh, I'll tell you all about it when I see you again. When I see you again.

I can't wait and I love you.
I love you,
Aften Marie

Photo Albums

So today I am sitting in the school library scanning pages from all of my photo albums just incase something happens we have a copy of all the pictures. Some of them are pretty amazing, so I figured I would share some of my childhood foolishness!

Some of them are rather amusing and have funny backstories, and others are just random things I enjoyed.

Back when I was cute :) haha

This one right here was taken in second grade. It was the first time I chopped my hair off and I was so nervous to go to the photographer, because I didn't know what to expect.

I remember I wore the necklace because it was my favorite one ever, not because it matched or anything. Then that night I went to bed still wearing it (despite having my mother tell me several times to never wear necklaces to bed) and it broke. I sobbed for hours. Daddy ended up fixing it for me, probably because he was sick of hearing me cry about my now broken favorite necklace.

Fat babies are the cutest babies!

I was a super chubby baby. My dad used to pretend I was a sumo wrestler and we would pretend to fight. I think it was his favorite pastime.

Yes. My parents dressed me as a boy for about
the first five or six years of my life… 

I vaguely remember this experience. My dad and I decided to go sledding one day and he put me on the sled and sent me down. Somewhere in the midst of the ride I went careening into a snow bank and face planted on the icy road. Not fun. I remember being really upset that Craig didn't feel any sympathy either… Then we went and built a giant snowman because that was probably much safer than riding a piece of plastic down a giant hill.










Well, that's all for now! I have to go pack to leave for Region Debate tomorrow.

Inner Monologue of My Sleep Cycle

So right now I am procrastinating away my time, money, and life. There is really no better way to put it than that. I know I need to be filling out scholarship stuff, doing chores, preparing for life after high school, but all I really want to do is take a nap. This is how my life has gone lately:

10:00 pm: Hmm… maybe I should go to bed now… Nahhh, I'll just scroll really quickly through Facebook and Pinterest really quick, then I'll go to bed. No harm done.

11:30 pm: Oh crap! It's so much later than I thought it was! I better go to bed right now.

12:00am: Finally fall asleep.

5:00 am: Do I really need a shower this morning? Yes, Aften, you are disgusting. Go get in the shower, but make it quick.

5:30am: If I fall back asleep right now I could probably get another 40 minutes of sleep!

5:40am: Fall asleep you idiot.

5:50am: Come on, it's really not that hard to sleep.

6:00am: Oh my heavens you stupid human being why won't you fall asleep!!??

6:05am: Finally fall asleep again.

6:10am: OH MY FREAKING GOSH YOU STUPID PERSON!! NOW YOU HAVE TO WAKE UP AGAIN!!!

From then on I am pretty much a zombie for the rest of the day and everyone thinks I am angry with them, but I'm really not. Well, maybe I am, depending on who it is. There are just some people you can't stand when your brain is fully functioning, but once it isn't they just trigger your inner serial killer…