While I'm at it...

Hopefully the comment moderation will come in handy... should i change it to the setting that only registered users can leave comments? thoughts? discuss. Now, moving along... I think I owe you all a proper blog entry with all this hullabaloo.

And who best to turn to, but Jane Austen? By now you all know of my obsession with all things Jane. While at Barnes and Noble recently, I had wandered into the Valentine's Day section and was somehow drawn to: The Jane Austen Companion to Love. Shocking, yes, I know. It is yet another compilation of some of her quotes - both from books and letters she'd written. So, to this book I turn.

"Nothing can compare to the misery of being bound without Love, bound to one, & preferring another. That is a Punishment which you do not deserve." - from a letter to her niece, Fanny Knight.

This is what I am so often talking about. Even in today's society we see that people settle on the one who asks rather than waiting for the one which is actually worth waiting! There are, I'm sure, plenty of reasons for marrying someone for whom you have mediocre feelings... Most of which are probably centered on a lack of self-worth. But really, who are you not to be beautiful and amazing? As long as we are being our best and striving to ever improve and be the happy, confident individuals our Heavenly Father created us to be, we have every reason to expect felicity in life - with or without marriage, I daresay :)

Comment po-po

OK, after reading through the comments from those of my beloveds that would like to stay in my loop, I have decided to give the comment police deal a whirly gig... and see how that goes before I go all out and set this bad mammer jammer to private...

Going private

I keep getting some sketchy suspicious comments posted - in another language. I'm worried that it may be posting links to something inappropriate. Therefore the decision is being made to go private. Although I don't update my blog as often as i SHOULD, if you would like to maintain access to my bloggy blog, please let me know so that I might be able to send you an invite. Thanks! Sorry for any inconvenience !!

or maybe even some of this....

If you need a head start for Christmas shopping for me...

Just sayin. ;)

It's been awhile...

Well I've had another vacation and time has flown by and I have not blogged in awhile. I just got back this past Saturday from a trip to SLC. I haven't been there for 2.5 years. I can't believe it's been 3.5 years since I LIVED there. Time has flown by so quickly. So much has changed, and yet it would seem that nothing at all has changed. How does that work?!
I was reflecting on the fact that it isn't until you put yourself back into an old environment that you realize just how much you've changed. Sometimes for the better (idealy) and sometimes not so much.
Just as the streets, buildings and face of Sugarhouse have transformed, so have I within. The feeling there was different. It was beautiful, I was able to spend some delicious time with such amazing friends, visit so many old haunts and even some new ones. And yet even with so much familiarity, it was still completely different. Not bad or good, per se, just different. I am not the same woman I was 3.5 years ago. I'd like to think that I'm a bit wiser and also a bit more secure in who I am and even more resolved to follow the path that God would have me follow.
Granted, just as construction and improvements are continually being made in Sugarhouse, so I need continual change and progression, knowledge and understanding in my own life.
At any rate, that was just a little bit of thought in retrospect of my most recent travels... Other than those ramblings, I've not much else to say at the moment... It's been a long day getting back into the swing of everyday life! So for now, adieu.

Being single in an LDS world...

Apparently isn’t so unusual these days. This past weekend I participated in a Single Adult Conference in Kirtland, Ohio (I was actually part of the planning committee a little bit, too) hosted by the five northern Ohio stakes of the LDS church. Overall, it was a great weekend, spiritually speaking. We were very blessed with wonderful speakers, amazing workshops and uplifted and entertained by our keynote speaker, Catherine Stokes. The panel discussion and closing remarks after lunch on Sunday (the panel included the Columbus Ohio Temple President and Matron, Karl Anderson aka Mr. Kirtland, Catherine Stokes, Kirtland Stake President, and a couple others with much knowledge and experience with single life).

Socially, it was a little difficult at times for me – being that I was on the younger end of the spectrum. I was able to have fun and further develop a friendship with another young woman from my area, and so it was in fact good times. I definitely feel that there is a need for a mid-singles type group in my area, though.

Some interesting statistics I learned in this weekend’s festivities included the fact that the most recent studies indicate that 1/3 of the members of the LDS church are single. It seems to me to be kind of an astounding number. Even more astounding was the fact that of the single members of the Church, by the age of 30, 40% of the women are still active whereas only 8% of the men are. By age 40, the men stay stagnant at 8%, but the women drop significantly to 17%. I’m curious as to why this is.

The feeling that I got during the conference was that there are too many single members of the church just fixated on their single status. We all know that the ratio of men to women = NOT SO GOOD. So, don’t go to a conference with the expectation that you will meet somebody, and you will have a good time. What we all need to do as children of God is to focus on developing our relationship with our Father in Heaven and with our Saviour, Jesus Christ. From that we develop faith. With faith we can endure the mortal disappointment(s) we may face, but as we keep on keeping on, we are happy now, strong and able to endure now and therefore preparing for a fullness of joy in the life to come. If we are fixated on something that we can’t truly control (as it is dependent upon the agency of another person as well as our own), we lose sight of the fact that “men are that they might have joy.”

Another important point I think that I learned was that as single members of a family-focused/oriented church, we are the ones that need to reach out. We need to include ourselves and reach out to our local leaders so that they are aware of what our needs are, as they are often quite different than the needs of others. This way our local leaders will be able to help us in our individual quest to come closer to our Saviour.

Personally, I have felt very blessed and included in my ward/congregation here. There is a small group of ladies (varying in age and situation in life) and I that regularly get together for girls’ nights out. Almost every other lady that participates in these GNOs is married. But I’ve been able to cultivate good friendships with them and so when there are ward activities, I don’t feel that the rest of the ward is paired off – I’m there with my friends and their families. It further strengthens my conviction that there is nothing in this life, not situation, disappointment, nor individual that has the power to take away the testimony that I have of the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and quite literally, I’d be damned if I allowed them to rob me of my faith. Nothing is worth losing that.