10 reasons to be happy not to have the MRS. Degree

If you had asked the eighteen year old version of me what my life would be like right now I'm pretty sure that it would be far from the way it's turned out. The eighteen year old me would have seen myself married by graduation, probably expecting my first baby and happily living in an apartment in Rexburg and waiting for my husband to finish his last year of college.
Well the current version of my is now gaging at the thought! Not that I wouldn't have been happy that way, cause I do want to get married and have children, I'm just grateful for the opportunity I have to delay those things a little bit.

So I'm leaving Rexburg, and no, I'm not married, engaged, or in anyway attached to any male. And I'm excited.
Why you may ask? I'll give you a list of things that I have the opportunity to do because I'm single, that I may have had to give up otherwise.

1. I am moving by MYSELF to Mesa, AZ for at least 3 mos.
I'm headed down there to student teach, and then we'll see what happens after that. I'm super excited too. It's going to be a completely new experience. I'm extremely happy for this opportunity. I love Idaho, but at the same time, I'm only lived in Idaho. I'll probably live down there for the 3 mos. and come back up after I'm done and decide that it's way to hot down there, and that I need to have all four seasons, but I want to see what it's like anyway. A lot of people are happy just accepting life as it is. They like it the way it's always been and they're willing to let it remain that way. I'm noticing more and more, that's not my way. When I'm content with my current circumstances, I'm still always wondering what if? So I'm moving to Mesa, just so when and if I do decide to live in IF, I'll be happy because I won't just be choosing it out of convience. I will know what life is like outside of Idaho, and I'll be able to judge what I'm doing a little bit better.

2. I'm making decisions on my own.
I'm not having to depend on someone else at least at the moment. I get to decide where I'm moving and what I'm doing with my life. At least at the moment, my life isn't based off of my husband's work or schooling. Going back to the content thing, had I got married by now, it would have probably been pretty easy to just say, yeah, wherever we need to go that's fine, I don't care. Well now I have to care!! Otherwise I may end up hanging out in my parent's basement until I do figure things out.

3. Hopefully, I'll get to serve a mission after I student teach and graduate
This is the plan, however, I've got to earn some money to pay for it before I can go. And since I thik that I'll be leaving in the fall a lot could happen between now and then. Hopefully if I do though, I'll get to experience a new culture I hope and just gain greater trust and faith.

4. Trips with the girls!
I'm hoping to go on a trip back east with some old roommates/friends. If I was married, would I have the time/money to do this? NO! And very possibly, they wouldn't even have been in my life had I not still been in a single's ward. I'm still making memories that I'll get to keep even after I get married.

5. I'm deciding who I really want to marry. ... or the type of person anyway, and becoming like them.
We had a talk in church a week or so ago, where they talked about being the type of person you want to marry. So very true. I'm going to work to become the type of person my future husband would like, and I'll hope he's working on himself for me.

6. I have the rest of eternity to be married. Just a few short years to be single.
I'm going to live life to the fullest and enjoy it as it happens. I can't wait to be married, but I am also having the best time of my life right now being just me. I'm doing stuff that I want to do and making choices and decisions that currently affect only me. (Ultimately they'll probably effect my future family when my choices lead me to Mr. Right, but you know what I mean)

7. I'm going to be more ready as a wife and a mother when I do meet Mr. Right.
I'm glad I'm going to have more growing experiences before I get married. I guess you could say more life experience. I'm going to be more independent and I'm going to know a lot more about running a household and raising kids by then to, rather than just kinda learning as I go.

8. I'm developing friendships that I hope will last into married life. I admit that things will change after I'm married, however, I don't want to just fall off the face of the earth because I'm married and we've become our own little "unit." I want to keep the people that are important to me a part of my life.

9. I will have at least a Bachelor's Degree to fall back on if something were to happen to my future husband. I have always been scared that I wouldn't finish my degree for some reason and that I'd have to go back to school. I'm just glad to know that I will have a way to support myself.

10. I'll have the opportunity to save up some money hopefully before I get married to prepare for the future. Getting married and having kids and buying houses are all expensive. It'll be nice to have some money to go towards that.

So yeah, this is an exciting time in my life. I love my family, and I'd love to add a son- in- law to it, but this is my time to do what's good for me and to experience life for myself. I will have the opportunity for a husband and kids, but I'm not going to waste my life waiting for him to show up. I'm happy with the way it's working out so far and I know that when the time is right, Heavenly Father will send an amazing guy into my life. (Until that time, I may have to suffer through a thousand dates and singles activities, but these will just make the right guy seem all that much more worth it.)

The end of an Era

So I've been doing a lot of thinking lately... amazing I know!!! And yet, again as I was getting ready for bed, a bunch of these thoughts started to come to the surface and swirl around in my brain again, and I know that I won't be sleeping until they come out in writing.
--- I'm leaving Rexburg. I know it's true, but in a lot of ways this thought still isn't really concrete. And it probably won't be until I stick the final item in my car in December and wander back into my apartment to see if all my stuff is really gone. And I'll stand there, probably turn around and survey the room and it probably still won't seem real.
See I've gotten really good at the moving thing. I've moved every three months basically since April 2008. So loading my stuff up in my car with plans to move isn't that big of deal. I've become a pro at packing now. ;D And because of that I don't know if it'll really hit me that this is the "end of the road," that I've gone as far as I can at BYU-I. It's kinda surreal, ya know, much harder than graduating high school ever was. The end of high school I knew would be a big change, but I still had several people I knew that were headed off on the same road I was. But this time, I'm leaving, and the friends that I've made are either staying or they left before me.
But unlike a lot of my friends, (some are in search of new freshman that they can marry so they can stay in Rexburg another 4-5 yrs) I am actually ready to move on. I've seen a lot of changes take place on campus and I've made a lot of fond memories, but I think that I am finally to the point where the excitement of college isn't so much anymore. I realized the other day that I can easily find my way around the library (something I never thought would happen as a freshman) and I can even go through the Snow without getting lost. I'm also attempting to have a bedtime of 11pm, and I wake up by like 6:30am (well with the exception of Thanksgiving Vacation, that's kinda thrown me a lot), completely against my nature, ask any of my former roommates. But now, here I am in my final semester, and I have classes by 8am everyday and I'm no longer complaining about them. I think I'm turning into an adult, scary!!!. And my goals now aren't about upcoming semesters anymore I'm actually trying to plan my life after college....

Ward Halloween Party

Here's a photo of Jamie, Ashley, Laura and I, almost all of our apartment, with the exception of Elizabeth who was on a date with her fiance that night, at a ward Halloween Party. This is basically four versions of Pippi Longstocking brought to you via the closets of Apartment #110. We won most creative costume.

These girls are my gorgous neighbors: they won best apartment theme.

In addition to our costume contest our ward went on a "hayride" on the flat bed of a semi with haybales. Here's some of my roommates and some girls from my ward.

Some of the scenery we saw. Can I say that I still think that Idaho is the prettiest place on the planet.