Adjusting Focus

My motto for 2015.  This year has been an interesting one! So, here is a quick review of what has happened over the past 12 months of my oh-so interesting life. JANUARY: I started my second semester at MWCC, taking classes that were more relevant to my major. FEBRUARY: I turned 17 and got asked to church prom, on the same night in which I had a surprise birthday party! MARCH: I went to Michigan with my mom to visit my brother and sister-in-law. APRIL: Prom month once again. Cherish and I got ready together which was really fun. Here are some pictures below. prom 2k15 MAY: Finally finished my second semester of college/my junior year. I also ran my first 5k! I figured my next step would be a 10k, but so far I've never run further than 6.5 miles. And that was once. And then I took a two month long break on running. So, there's that. Cherish left which was sad, and I became an only child once again. But I am grateful for the internet and text messaging. And Snapc...

Umm, technically it's "The End Part 4", but I failed to write a post when my summer semester finished. I only took 3 classes, and 2 were online, but it still sort of counts. But since I didn't write a post, here we are. I am glad to announce that I have finished my 4th semester at MWCC. I only have one left before I graduate, which is kind of terrifying and exciting all at once. It's hard to believe that I'll be done with high school and two years of college. A year ago I was just finishing up my first semester... and that thought makes me slightly uncomfortable. At this point I had barely decided what I was going to do with the rest of my college career. Nursing, or human services? In the end, I know I made the right choice for me. All of the classes I have taken related to my major have continued to confirm to me that I am doing the right thing. I know I'm where I'm supposed to be. My college applications have finished, which is a huge relief. ...

Tonight I had the opportunity to speak at the Interfaith Thanksgiving Service with the churches of Littleton. It was really nice and I enjoyed hearing others speak. Although kind of nerve wracking, I was glad I had the opportunity to give a small talk. I've decided to post it up here for others who weren't there, or perhaps missed some things with my habit of talking too fast in front of large groups (I apologize). You'll find it down below. Tonight I would like to start with a quote by President Gordon B. Hinckley, prophet of the LDS church, who once said, “When you walk with gratitude, you do not walk with arrogance and conceit and egotism, you walk with a spirit of thanksgiving that is becoming to you and will bless your lives.” I like this quote because it's very true. Gratitude enables us to focus on all that is good, instead of all that is bad. It is not prideful and believing you are better. It is thanking the Lord and being humble. People enjoy being around ...

home. This Saturday marks the last day in my home of 15 years. It's a weird thing to think about. I'm not even quite sure it's really hit me yet, even though my room is practically empty and basically everything in our house is in boxes. My room echoes, our living room is piled with boxes and furniture, our driveway has two huge PODs in the middle of it. Moving is a weird thing. I had to pick out clothes that I would wear for the last week and pack the rest away, and let me tell you, I was not prepared. I picked out clothes I would wear, but I only saved one sweatshirt, which I regret. Since the colder weather has come, I've been living in sweatshirts, so the other day I went tripping over boxes and using my phone as a flashlight to find that one box that had all of my sweaters/sweatshirts. It was almost worth it. Also, the emptiness of everything is kinda weird. But, spacious. Like I said, I've lived in my home for 15 years. While I've certainly had many ...

This week has been a decently good week, I would say. On Monday I ran 6.5 miles, which was pretty cool. It was pretty rough there for a while, but, I took it slow and did it! My legs were pretty sore the next day but definitely worth it. We'll see if that ever happens again, though... I've been able to manage my homework pretty well and haven't screwed up too badly, which is also pretty nice. I could probably be more efficient with how I get my work done, but at least it always gets finished. I'm still wicked good at procrastinating, but still. I mean, I've managed to get this far in school with decent grades. Along with homework has come the time to start thinking about college and what to do and where to go. While I have been thinking about this since last year (when I entered into college), it just didn't seem as real when I was a junior. It felt so far away. Now, here I am. I have two semesters left and it's time to get my life together and apply. Alt...

I've successfully completed my first (half) week of the Fall semester. I think the majority of my classes will end up going pretty well. I'll be honest, I'm kind of only looking forward to about 3 of the 5, but that's okay. There's only one class I haven't had yet, which would be my Life Sciences class, but that's a Monday night one, so I still have another week until I have to mentally prepare for that mess. I'm excited for it, but I've heard it's supposed to be kind of rough. It's kind of like and introduction to Anatomy & Physiology, which I hope to take next semester. Oh those prerequisites for BYU-I I need.  I had US History II as my first class. It so happens to be from 4:30 until 7:00, so I have almost the entire day to relax... or do homework (joke's on me). My professor's method of getting people to participate is the good ol' elementary way of using popsicle sticks with everyone's names on each stick. As a young...

Last week I went to Maine with my mom for our 3rd annual Mother-Daughter Camping Trip. Technically, it was only our 2nd annual, as after our first year we skipped one, but to make life a lot easier, I just say 3rd annual. It was a good time. I really like Maine and we were by the ocean so everything smelled like sea salt, which is the best. It was really pretty, too. The weather was nice. We walked along Marginal Way (which I have some pictures of below) and then on Friday we went on a whale watch (more pictures). We saw a lot of dolphins and a couple of whales. There was a sunfish too, which was huge. A couple of the dolphins jumped out of the water and they were so close but I DIDN'T HAVE MY CAMERA WITH ME AT THE TIME. I was (and low-key still am) disappointed. I even got a sunburn on my nose which was pretty lame. But I also tanned, so you know, that was cool. Every night and morning we had a fire and we sat by it and talked. Overall the trip was really great and I really enjoy...

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of Adjusting Focus! I can't believe that a year ago I started this little blog. It all started because I saw other blogs and thought that it would be cool to start one of my own. I love writing, and I wanted to share my ideas and thoughts about things with other people. I wasn't sure what I was going to write about, or what I wanted my focus to be. I Googled ways to start a blog. I thought of all all these ideas, but I just needed one thing for my blog to focus on. I even looked at my Pinterest quote board to find some inspiration there. I finally settled on the quote, "When life gets blurry, adjust your focus." It was then that I decided to have my blog focus on finding the good and positive, even when life gets a little 'blurry'. I turned it into a Personal Progress project and now... Here we are. I have used the quote as a reminder to find the good in the bad. It's helped me stay more positive. When something ...

My blog post for today will be about depression and suicide. I think that when people hear these words, they aren't really sure what to do or say. No one's sure how to really handle the subjects.  But let me be very real with you; depression and suicide are very, very serious, and people everywhere need to come to understand these matters better. People all over the world struggle with depression and suicidal thoughts/tendencies, and people die from suicide attempts too often. Depression is more than just a bad day, and it's not something someone can overcome easily. Suicide is not a joke. These matters are very serious. I, myself, have struggled with depression. This is hard for me to say (or rather write), seeing as for most of my life I tried to hide it. There has always been a bad stigma around the word, and I was always scared of what people would think of me, and in some ways, I still am. But due to recent events, I want people to know that they aren't alone in t...

Recently I've returned from the usual 2 week New Hampshire trip. We had to go extra early in the summer due to the fact that I have classes starting next Monday (*cries*). Until then, I have one more day of freedom, Youth Conference, and Sunday before I start waking up before 7:30am. I'm only excited because it now means I don't ever have to take gym for the rest of my life, and it's only a month and a half of going to class 2-3 days a week, 4 hours a day. New Hampshire was good, though, and I enjoyed it for the most part. After Cherish left I was pretty lonely, but I managed to do a boatload of homework while my parents worked on the house. I did some tests and quizzes. My parents and I went to Castle in the Clouds (the coolest/prettiest house-mansion I've ever seen). One day my mom and I went out to pick fabric for a quilt she'll make for me. We played some games and watched a lot of Criminal Minds at night. I ran most mornings, doing 3-4 miles after the firs...

First off, Happy Father's Day to all of the father's out there! AND... HAPPY FATHER'S  DAY TO MY DAD! Dear Daddy, For the past slightly more than 16 years of my life I have been blessed to have a wonderful, kind, and loving father, which is you. You have been there to help me with a lot of different aspects of my life. Some of my favorite memories consist of you helping me build my simple machine in 4th grade (my automatic dog feeder), and playing the guitar at night, in which I remember falling asleep to when I was little. You used to sing that Sugar Mountain song and when I hear it, I still think back to when I was a little girl and I would hear you playing it on your guitar and singing it. This used to be the days when I was in my old room and I had to leave my door open a little so I wouldn't get scared. And even though it takes 5x longer for help on a math question, I always get the right answer, even if I don't understand most of the logic of how you got t...

Wow. I sound like I'm writing a college essay or something with that title... Well, long story short, I decided sometime in early October that I needed to start doing physical activity if I wanted to be healthy. So I started running. I began just doing a mile and for a while I just tried to run a mile faster and faster each time. One day I learned that a 5k was about 3.1 miles. I decided that the next time I ran, I was going to just keep on running as long as I could, but at least try to get to 3ish miles. That was in November and my time was about 35 minutes. I signed up for a 5k and kept on running 3.1+ miles on the treadmill (which I realize now that there are better/more efficient ways to train for a 5k, but I really just went for it). Eventually my time got better and better, but, I was running on a treadmill where my pace was kept pretty steady for me. So when the weather got nice and I could run outside, I started to have a hard time. Eventually I just started off by runnin...

Before I continue with this post, I just want to thank you all for reading my last blog post , as well as for the support. I was a little hesitant about putting it up at first, but I'm glad I did. So, in December of last year I put up a post about the end of my first semester at MWCC. Now, the end of my second semester has finally come... and to be quite honest, it was as good as I had hoped. I came away with a lot of good lessons and I had amazing professors this semester. My English professor was literally my favorite teacher I've had and his obsession with Elizabeth Strout and her book, Olive Kitteridge , was quite entertaining. And, don't forget Stoner . I had one professor for three of my classes (Sociology, Intro to Human Services, and Psych of Self), which may sound terrible, but she was awesome, and when you have her for some 8:00am classes and the weather is really bad, life is pretty rockin' because you can sleep in for once in your life. Plus, her classes w...

Before I continue on with this blog post, I just want to apologize in advance for how wordy it will most likely be and how it may sound a little disorganized. Also, the post I'm about to write is strictly from my point of view and how I feel about this topic. Obviously everyone's situations and feelings about it are different. So here it goes. After a conversation yesterday and while I was lying in bed, I started to write this blog post in my head. I guess I've never really talked about being adopted to anyone else besides my family, because there are few people who really understand what it's like. It's hard to explain the feelings and half the time I can't even put it into words and it's literally been like that my entire life. But now, I think I'm at a place in my life where I want more people to understand what it's like (and like I said before, from my point of view) to really be different from everyone around you. I was scrolling through my ...