Look what I did!

I made my blog look cute. Now someone help me think of a cute title for my blog to match my new layout... My current title is lame! Please leave ideas as a comment, I'm open to suggestions :) Thanks

Prayer really works for silly things sometimes :)

Sometimes I have really awful dreams. Scratch that, a LOT of times I have really awful dreams. I hate waking up in the morning in a panic wondering if I'm ok or if what was just happening is real. I think they are brought on a lot of the time by stress but other times they come completely on their own will. I'm a very happy person but for some reason my daily happy thoughts get skewed into a terrifying, weird, messed up conglomeration of a dream and/or nightmare. But last night when Brandon and I were praying together he prayed for me not to have any bad dreams and a restful night. Guess what??? It worked!!! I don't know why I didn't think of this before! Go prayer!

Some peoples outfits

The other day I saw a girl on campus wearing something to the effect of this:

Now imagine that with it being really poofy at the neck like a cowl neck like this:

And then make it sort of poofy in the legs but tight right around the ankles. On top of that she had a bright purple sweater with a thick stretchy black belt around the whole get up. Top that with big John Lennon glasses and hair like this:
Then put a really fake tan on all of that, minus the gorgeous model, Jesus sandals and you've got this girls um.... outfit. I suppose I have to apologize for being rude towards this girl, I'm sure she's a lovely person but that outfit was just too good not to share. I wish I could have stopped her and asked her what in the world she was thinking when she woke up and got dressed. I'm serious her outfit looked like a stretchy body suit gone totally wrong hugging in all the wrong places and loose fitting in equally as many terrible places. Poor girl.

KFC stops cancer?

Just saw an ad for KFC saying donate to help us stop breast cancer. Does anyone else see the irony in this? Really KFC??? How about rather than donating to KFC you stop eating it to solve health problems! Don't they know their horrible food is probably causing the problem in the first place? If it doesn't directly cause breast cancer it will deteriorate your overall health thus making you more susceptible to it. HMMM KFC I think you should rethink your little campaign.

Logan Job Market

Dear Logan,
Your job market sucks!!! You pay for crap and you have no places to work. One example: a job listing that was about 25 lines worth of job requirements and descriptions including a 3-5 year commitment working a few weekends and nights with 2 years previous experience. The pay rate for this full time position with extensive requirements and in depth duties: 8 dollars an hour. Let me put that into perspective, 75 cents above minimum wage. I worked for more money than that in high school! I have noticed a trend in Logan that jobs require a bachelors degree and all these qualifications and then they expect to pay 7.50 or 8.00 an hour. The website where I found this job said the median for this position is 18 dollars an hour... that's more than double! Seriously Logan please get some better jobs and better opportunities. Thanks!

Love - Whitney

homework

I would really like to switch places with the little doggie curled up next to me. Ivory is sleeping so peacefully while I'm stressing my brains out about a stupid 4 page paper. She gets to eat all day whenever she wants, look out the window all day and occasionally bark at people, get petted whenever she wants, and sleep whenever she wants. I want her to get up and put her little paws to the key board so I can sleep soundly and get a back rub and my ears scratched. If only I could magically switch spots with her so that she could write me an awesome paper and I could rest quietly. Oh if only.

Once upon a time, I was very impatient

Once upon a time I was a happy little high schooler. Then something happened, My senior year hit and it was rough, I was very very over high school and i was very ready for college. (so i thought of course :) but really I was very past high school). I never had that problem before my senior year, I loved high school but then as soon as it became my last year and I was ready to move on I was done.

Once upon a time I left highschool and was a happy little college student. My grandma always gave me amazing advice for my single life which I took. She said "just enjoy this time, this is the only time in your life when you won't have anything to do but just be with yourself and look out for you." That's exactly what I did, I went to Guatemala, Peru, worked in Yellowstone and St. Thomas, I took cake decorating classes, violin, and held many different jobs I did lots of fun and crazy things and it was awesome!!! I'm very glad I took my Grandmas advice and I was patient. But then an amazing boy came into my life, and it was time to move on.

Once upon a time about 3 months ago I got engaged. I said I'd like to be engaged for about 5- 6 months so I could really enjoy my engagement time and prepare (grandmas advice still ringing in my ears) Well this is where I'd like to retract that statement, and where when Brandon said I told you so (he wanted a shorter one) I say yep you sure did and you were totally right. I feel like this is my senior year happening all over again. Not to say i didn't enjoy everything up until now but I'm ready to move on. I was still nervous and unsure of what marriage and engaged life would be like. I knew i wanted brandon but its still a big scary step so I thought I would need plenty of time to get ready. With 3 months left before we get married I'm going crazy with impatience, I really want to move onto the next phase and start my life with Brandon.
I took my time before i got married preparing so now that I have the right boy I don't want to wait and prepare. I always wondered if I would know when I was ready before because I didn't think I could ever give up my traveling fun loving ways, but it was because i didn't have the right guy and I wasn't ready. Now that I do, I'm not sad to move on from that life, I'm quite excited for new adventures.

Once upon a time sometime in the future, I'm sure I will look back on this time and think I'm glad we had a longer engagement to get to know each other better etc. But for right now I'm letting impatience win. I'm glad I did all my waiting and patience before I got engaged, now that I am, I would really like to be married. I know, I know, I will try to work on my impatience but when its right its right and I don't want to wait anymore. So please July 20 get here soon!! :)

Some history annoyances

I have a lot of history gripes. Lately there has been a lot of phrases and comparisons floating around using historical events when people don't really know what their talking about. I recognize I talk about things I don't really know about as well but since this is my field of study I get to gripe. Let me also preface this with I am very pro- American, I love America and I love its rules and ideals. So whatever I say does not mean I don't like America it just means I don't like the way people misuse historical events and phrases.

1. There was a facebook status the other day saying something to the effect of if you want your country back post this as your status because "this country was built on freedom." - To that all I can say is a BIG valley girl PUHLEASE! If you don't know anything about history do NOT say this country was built on freedom. This country was built on the backs of slaves and oppressed Native Americans. The first attempt to colonize the US by the British (Spanish and French were here first) was a total flop and was meant as an economic endeavor. The first people that came did not come for freedom, they came in indentured servitude which was essentially slavery so that they could attempt to make money and have land. Then came the rest who also came to make money. The South was obsessed with making money and profits so much so that they would restrict the freedom of countless people. Slavery = a country based on money and not caring how that is made. This country was not based on freedom. Even the colonists who supposedly threw off the chains of oppression by declaring independence from Britain essentially turned on their own country who they had originally come for in the first place and oppressed the Indians. They were mad about taxes that were increased for a war which they supported. If anything they went against their own ideals.

2. This country was based on religious freedom - once again not even close. Yes the Puritans came to be able to practice their religion. However, John Winthrop was incredibly oppressive and couldn't even support his own ideals. Unless you followed his religion and his rules you didn't get to be in that society. He turned around and created the exact same society that existed in England except this time the Puritans were in charge instead of the Anglican church. The framers of the constitution were mostly Deists and Atheists. There was no religious freedom that existed, you still had to fit the norm or you were kicked out.

3. We as women in history have just been so oppressed - This one I will sort of allow, yes women were oppressed, but it depends on your context, time frame and which women your talking about. If you were an upper class woman, not too much oppression going on. Plenty of women in the 1700's ran estates and the plantation owner women had a lot of power. Also just for a plug for the men, they were equally oppressed. They didn't have any rights either in the context of everything was based on the upper class men and if you didn't fit that you had no rights either. In the early society, unless you were the highest class you didn't have any rights man or woman. Just remember most men couldn't vote for a long time either. Men had just as many duties as women and women often worked right along side their husbands. John Adams listened to his wife, plenty of women were influential in society as well. Yes in the 1900's women definately had very few rights, I'm extremely grateful to the women who gained equality for the rest of us, but, women were not oppressed in their lack of rights because most men had no rights either, they just weren't as equal.

4. The tea partiers - I respect their opinion and if they want to express their view thats awesome, this has nothing to do with their ideas as a group, this has to do with their name. They clearly know nothing about the Boston Tea Party. They chose a really stupid event to use as their banner and slogan. The Tea Party was a lot of whiney colonists trying to stop a tax. The best they could do was throw some of it in the harbor? Now they still have to pay the taxes and they have no tea, good job guys! Beyond that, they masqueraded as Indians in order to blame it on them, now that's a classy move you can stand behind! They weren't overthrowing oppression; from who the leader of their own country? It wasn't like George was a ruthless dictator committing genocide, now thats something you can stand behind to say your overthrowing oppression.

5. People who compare things to Hitler and reference Nazi Germany in ways that it doesn't fit - It's generally the only person they know of that committed mass genocide and the only major event they know that was extremely terrible. Well guess what, he's not the first to take over a country and kill half the people in it. He's also not the only instance of state takeover and dictatorship. So stop comparing Obama to Hitler or talking about Hitlers rise to power if you haven't researched it and understand the extreme complexity of Europe and the world as a whole at that time.

I didn't mean this to be as angry as it all came out. This was all meant mostly just to show an annoyance with misuse of historical events and terms. Please just don't use historical events to make a point if you have not researched the event and understand it in its context and complexity. Thanks :) I in turn will try to stop referencing events that I don't understand to make points.

four wheeling

This weekend I took my first trip with Brandon's family. I think the first family trip is kind of a big and a little bit scary step. On top of that we were going four wheeling, which I have never really done before, I wasn't sure what to expect. It's interesting how different peoples families are, my family goes camping in a tent and we go hiking, backpacking, and boating, all sans motor. His family camps in their fancy fifth wheel and goes fourwheeling, fishing, and their activities usually involve a motor. I was a little nervous to go because its all very different than my family. With my moms voice in the back of my mind worriedly saying be careful, I embarked on quite an adventure.

I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun I had. I think I could get used to luxury camping in a fifth wheel. Showers, bathroom, thermostats, and stoves (real stoves not small backpacking ones) are quite deluxe and nice. I also had a lot of fun four wheeling, I got scared a few times because lets face it, its dangerous and kind of scary especially when your hanging on for dear life to Brandon and nothing else. I feel a little bad that I kind of kept squealing at Brandon when I got scared. I did at least give him fair warning twice about not doing wheelies before I kidney punched him (in my defense I was given the go ahead from their family friend Paul and it really wasn't that hard). It was scary and crazy but overall it's pretty fun. I tried driving a few times but can definitely see I need some more practice. We'll take it one step at a time.

I found that I really like pretending I was in star wars. The helmets looked exactly like the ones in Dallas' star wars computer games when we were kids. All the sand dunes looked just like the ones they drive around on and I thought if i just had a light saber the journey would be complete. What can I say thats just the nerd in me. I felt a little like this:
Now just add even more to the face mask and you've got it. See why I pretended I was in Star Wars, Its quite fun.












Overall it was a really great weekend. I made a few dumb moves with differences in food and families, at one point I blurted out "thats the weirdest thing I've ever seen anyone do." WHOOPS! I wish I could take that one back but I suppose everyone has a few moments like that entering into a new family. Its very scary trying to fit in and impress and adapt to other peoples way of doing things. I love it though and Brandon's family is SO GREAT! I think Brandon and I are both in a place where we are still connected to our families way of doing things, we still are in the place where we think our way is the right way and the other one is weird. As we actually get married and start to create our own family, I think it will be interesting to make our own traditions and way of doing things. It will be fun when we can change and adapt aspects from both of our families to start our family way of doing things. Hopefully there will be many more great family trips. I'm excited to take Brandon on a family trip of mine so that he can experience our way of doing things. I'm excited to get more and more comfortable with his family and to keep doing things together that we love. I guess I'm just excited for the future. I suppose the best way to deal with differences is just to laugh about it and realize that people are different and thats what makes everything so great. So thanks for a fun trip, and here's to many more. :)

Conference

I love conference! This Easter conference was so good!!! I loved spending the entire weekend with Brandon's family. We got to relax and do nothing but watch conference and hang out together. I missed my family and my Easter basket but it was still fun. There were so many uplifting messages and it was just a great way to spend the weekend :).