Attention all people who follow this blog. I now have a new blog and you can see it here.

I'd love if you would follow that blog since it has all the updated information about Sam and I's adventures together.

Love you all!

Keisha

I am going to catch up at some point, but for now...

 

I would just like to say; I am so extremely excited for Thanksgiving. Mostly because of two things:

Samuel Paul Burdick

[in my presence again]

AND

approximately

50 of the World's Greatest Stewart Family members.

What else could I ever ask for?

I already know that there will be a lot of hugging and this scream/squeal thing that my sisters and I tend to do when we are reunited with our aunts.

There will be more laughing than is even fathomable to most people. My family is absolutely, irrefutably, thee funniest family around. Between my dad & my uncle's jokes, and their wives attitudes, there is never a dull moment.

We will play catch phrase. We will tell embarrassing stories. We will eat a lot of scrumptious food. We will smile until our cheeks hurt. We will visit temple square. We will stay up late talking about life, and telling stories. 

And it will all end way too soon.

If I was an artist and could paint a picture of what Thanksgiving was like to me, I would paint big smiles, tears (we laugh so hard & love so deeply that we all cry at some point), hugging, thank yous, kisses, and food. But more feelings and things come to mind when I think of family gatherings that you can't even depict in an image: 

LOVE

Memories

 growth 

 warmth

HAPPINESS

deliciousness

Joy

excellence

UNDERSTANDING

Acceptance

heart

SECURITY

I really can't wait.

PHOTO via

unfortunately in life, we are always going to have ups & downs. there will always be good weeks [maybe even months] where you feel like you are on top of the world, where everything is going just perfectly and you feel like if you really set your mind to it--you could probably fly.

then, these weeks where happiness is abundant and your heart is full of courage, are followed with days or weeks where failure flourishes and success eludes you at every turn. coming out of these down times is when you really grow. it's in these not-so-great, almost-good-for-nothing times you are forced to look back at those dicisions that you made very hastily, those goodbyes you said so easily and think, "did i do the right thing?" sometimes this period of self-inquiry lasts longer than any happy, blessed person would like to admit, but it ends nontheless.

this has been me lately--as in the last couple of weeks or so. the last few months i have been excited, elated even, looking towards my future. i was forging full force ahead into the unknown with faith strapped on my back and a lot of love in my heart. then, suddenly, all my momentum came skidding to a stop. well, maybe that's a bit dramatic. i guess what happened was, i stopped looking ahead, and started to look around me. at first, i was absorbed in the beautiful things i saw; all of my blessings right there surrounding me that i was neglecting because i stopped enjoying the present and started to just wish and wish with my whole heart that the future would hurry the freak up. and i started feeling a little bit guilty. i mean wasn't my life good enough? weren't all these things i was doing and all these people that i had around me right now good enough? hmm...

so then, i decided to try and focus on what i have now and stop worrying so much about what i was waiting for. it went okay at first, but as i shared my hopes and wishes and dreams with people in the now, their sparkle started to diminish. many disparaging voices, both audible and internal started to attack those dreams which i had given so much of my attention to for so many weeks. there were so many unknowns, and doubts started to spring up. slowly, the shine i saw in my future started to dull, and it started to dim my present too. then, as a last resort, i turned around to look at my past, hoping it would offer me a glimmer of something. i didn't know what. bad idea.

maybe some of you can look back at your past and say, "hey! look at that! i barely even remember that! and i certainly don't still care!" but, I, unfortuantely am much more sentimental than that. sadly, as i started to think back on the people that i had so expressly cut out of my life, i felt a twinge of hunger in my heart for the love that they once showed for me, and for the care that we once shared for each other. i wondered if these old friends that had been such a big part of my life even thought about me, let alone cared about me. suddenly these feelings pushed out the faith and courage i had in my heart and i started to wonder, "what the heck am i doing?"

so then there were some long phone calls with my mother. some crying with my friend camille. a lot of extra praying. and one miraculous moment.

i promise the story gets better, and that it ends soon.

"when I read the book of mormon it creates miracles, it brings love."

i have been reading in third nephi, you see, and well Jesus says some pretty amazing things to the nephites in those chapters. and while nothing he was teaching them seemed to apply to the feelings i was having, as i read those words, those feelings began to leave. i read my scriptures pretty much everyday, so i wondered why reading hadn't helped before. then i realized, that i hadn't wanted it to help. i think that sometimes we get caught up in feeling sorry for ourselves. we justify our doubts and our fears by our past expereinces. we let what other people say or think about what we are doing shake our resolve, and we let ourselves take an extra long time to abandon those feelings of discouragement. we have to abandon them.

as i walked out of my house a few mornings ago after this expereince it was with restored faith and trust in what i was doing. i knew that the decisions i had made were right, and that i had every right to look forward to my future full of hope and excitement. i no longer cared if people in my past thought of me, or cared about me. i no longer worried about what people were saying about how they felt about my decisions. i once again trusted myself, and trusted the Lord. all this from reading a couple chapeters in the book of mormon? amazing.

being happy is a choice. trusting and having faith in God's plan for us, and that he really is guiding and directing each of us is a choice. taking in the positive and leaving out the negative is a choice. so i choose faith, not fear. i choose trust, not doubt.

i think the hardest part about trying to live your life by faith is letting go of wanting to be in control all the time. sometimes you don't need to know HOW things are going to work out, you just have to trust that they WILL. and i know they will. i know that i have been doing nothing but following my heart, and following the spirit as it guides me where Heavenly Father wants me to be. there will always be naysayers, but don't let them make you skeptical. people say to look before you jump. but if you know you're supposed to jump, and that there will be a giant bed of marshmellows at the bottom that will catch you [and also provide a delicious snack] then just jump! yep, that's right, don't even bother looking. don't look at the people pointing their fingers at you and telling you how silly you are to just leave everything behind based on...based on...based on so little in their eyes. don't look back. and don't look down with fear that those marshmellows down there are going to turn into glass shards at the last minute. listen to your heart, let love fill it up, pushing out all of the doubt. and jump. head first. leaving nothing behind.

“if love is a labor i’ll slave ‘til the end…” – rise against

on friday [9.2.11] megan and i kicked off our labor day weekend with a little bootcamp action. it’s this fun thing we’ve been doing together that is also known as: we go to the gym for an hour and a trainer pushes us and about 10-15 other poor souls to the point of almost throwing up. we love it. but also hate it at the same time, you know?

and megan is way stronger than me because she has been doing it for way longer, but then i see this little tid-bit on the wall at the gym:

so then how can i complain, right?

running on the indoor track with her during our workout sure takes me back to my years of running high school track with her by my side. we broke the state record in the 4x800m relay my freshman, her junior year. man, those were the days. she always had my back, even though we were competing. we pushed each other a lot, and that sibling rivalry drove us to work harder in practice everyday. good times.

after bootcamp we had a long over-due sister date. since i’ve been back we haven’t been able to spend a ton of time together, but we got some dinner at buffalo wild wings & then went and watched the help. best movie i have seen in a long, long time. i can’t say enough great things about it. seriously, so good. and megan so lovingly paid for me since i am so poor. gosh i love sisters, i am one lucky girl.

but it’ not always easy, loving someone. because when you do, you have to make all kinds of sacrifices for them. like borrowing your one sister’s car to drive to your other sister’s soccer game that is an hour away because your car needs new tires. then the car has no air conditioning and black leather interior and it’s 100 degrees outside. so then you are all sweating & all hot & all not sexy like. and your shirt is all wet on your back and your jeans are all damp and uncomfortable. that is ALL love, people.

 

it is also love to sit in the hot sun all day just so you can hang out with said sister. and to cancel your hair cut so you can stay and watch another game. also, i think that going to the store and getting her water in that hot car again counts as love, too. but i would do it all again tomorrow if i could. because it was all worth it when she said, “thanks for coming to my game sissy.” and everyday that we are on this earth together it will be worth it. because how nice is it to know that you have a best friend for the rest of forever? how great does it feel to know that when no one else particularly likes you, and people are telling you that you suck, you have like 3, THREE, three amazing sisters that will be there for you and love you no matter what.

i would go to hell and back (or in this case, fallon) for any of my sisters. the benefits of loving someone and having them always far out weigh the sacrifices that are made. and soon, sacrifices aren’t noticed because they turn into what you actually want to do. you want to drive to fallon on a saturday and love on your sis and embarrass her in front of her friends.

sunday was another great day at the singles ward and a yummy break-the-fast lunch. it was a nap in my dress between the two functions and then a kidnapping by my megan sister to the rib cook-off. the famous, "Nugget, Best-In-The-West, Rib Cook-off." people come from everywhere, people. there are soooo many ribs. you can smell them all cooking for miles upon miles and man--there is nothing like 'em. it is one of thee top reasons why i keep coming back to reno every fall, ha. seriously though.

megan & i ate at texas outlaws. they won first place this year, and it was well deserved. we also enjoyed some delicious fire-roasted corn on the cob & fresh-squeezed (not squoze) lemonade. we sat and reminisced about our first semester at unr when we could barely afford to eat there (a half rack of ribs is usually around $13, a full one about $23, corn: 2 for $7, lemonade: large for $5) but went anyway. oh the good 'ol days.

monday was an extra-long session of boot camp for the holiday. then i got my haircut, finally. and really just had a nice catch-up day before week two of the semester started. thank goodness for holidays! :)

I think that’s the title of a really bad movie about Reno that I have never seen because I heard it was really, terribly awful...

Anyway.

I woke up in Reno on August 22, 2011. And since then, well: I’ve scrubbed down my apartment (I’m talking really deep cleaning, you guys); unpacked; finished all my laundry; washed, vacuumed, and ArmorAll-ed my car; successfully registered for classes last minute—again; stocked my fridge; spent a lot of time with Jen; celebrated Cambria’s birthday; gone to several church activities; met a new best-friend-to-be (JoyceAnn); and successfully made an address change with the missionary so that I have received “letters on letters” this week.

Mostly though, I have been thinking a lot. Because I’m pretty much completely different from how I was when left Reno. So coming back is tricky. I’ve learned in one short week that you can’t let go & still hold on. Even a little. I’ve learned that you can’t walk the edge for very long unless you really wanna fall. And I’ve learned that sometimes the past is only the past if you leave it there.

Only sometimes it isn’t your choice. And sometimes your past comes back and bites you. Sometimes it stops you from taking a course in your life that you really wanted to take—like maybe going on a mission. And the answer is, “no.” That’s when your past is fresh in your mind. And your guilt is hammered into your heart once again. And the tears fall freely down your cheeks. And you remember again how truly sorry you are. And how bad you wish you could take it all back, but you can’t. And you wish you could call that missionary, but you can’t. And you wish you could just start over, but you can’t. 


The only thing you can do is stand up, wipe your eyes, turn around, and walk. And keep walking. And maybe even run. You can leave that past far, far, far away from your present. You can keep growing. You can keep moving forward. You can pray. You can read that amazing book. You can be a missionary here. But really, the only thing you can do is just try to be better than your past.

"He gave me my eyes that I may see the color of butterfly wings..."

8.21.11

Oh I know those words well... one of my favorite primary songs, "My Heavenly Father Loves Me," wrapped up my summer in Lund. Lucky me, I got to sing it as a solo in church on my last day at home. I was so nervous. But that day was great--everything about it. The smiling faces at church, that amazing lesson on sacrifice, the wispy clouds in the bright blue sky, that giant field of sun flowers, and yes, the color of butterfly wings.

I was sad to leave. Like really sad. Nychea made me cry at the door dang it. And I drove that six hours by myself back to Reno. I left behind the wide open spaces, the amazing Sunday dinners, my mom being at an arms length away, a job I really loved, and that security you always feel when you're at home.


I'm going to miss my family a lot. I used to want to be so far away, but now all I want is to be closer. I am so grateful, though, that I got to be home this summer. I needed that so much. I loved every minute of it--even chasing the piglets when they got out. Those little oinkers.


Some positives about a six hour drive alone:

-you can stop and take pictures and no one complains.

-you get to play your music as loud as you want and sing as loud as you want, too.

-you notice how beautiful--oh I don't know--EVERYTHING, is.

-you can think a lot.

-yeah, I'm fresh out of positives at this point.

So I'm back! 

while we were in the salt lake area for eleshia's wedding, my family spent the morning of 8.13.11 at this is the place monument in salt lake city. for those of you who don't know, this is a monument dedicated to the pioneers who came west with brigham young. when they came up over the mountains and saw the salt lake valley brigham young said, "this is the place." and it was here that they settled, finally free from religious persecution. 


my dad is basically a genius and gave us all the history we could ever want as we spent the day walking around hearing different stories of the families who settled the wasatch valley. my great-great-great-grandfather's house was there in the heritage village.

we had a fun day of learning about our pioneer heritage and making crafts. the best part about hearing of other people's hardships is it kinda makes you forget your own. that, or realize that yours weren't so bad in the first place. those great people endured so much. i'm so glad that there is a beautiful monument dedicated to their sacrifices. it was so awesome to be able to spend some time with the whole family together, too.