"If the Church of Jesus Christ has not left me a better person, than I have not developed as I should"

~L. Tom Perry, BYU-I Devotional January 24, 2012

Amitié!

"But friendship is precious, not only in the shade of life, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks be to benevolent arrangement that the greater part is sunshine"

~Thomas Jefferson

We had Austin's birthday party today and it went pretty darn well. I was a little nervous cause it was the first party I've thrown for him and I wanted to make sure it was a good one. Once everyone got there and started chatting I realized how lucky we are to have such close good friends.  And lucky that I have such a affable husband. Most of my friends are not married, so more often than not we spend time with friends that were initially his. Dang he does a good job in the friend picking department! Not only are the guys funny and great company, but their wives are awesome as well! (which in the married world is sometimes a hit and miss) I really enjoy spending time with all of them!

The party list consisted mostly of Austin's study partners and wives, Jenn and Josh, and cousin Jess. I  loved having our house full of people, that we had to put in a leaf to expand the table, that most of the cake was eaten, that there was a lot of laughter :) It was fun to see how everyone interacted. None of them knew each other, but they all knew Austin. It was really neat to see them all come to support and show their love for him (in a completely manly man way). So happy birthday, Austin! I'm glad it was special for you!

Carpe Diem!

Seize the day! That has been the mind set of Heidi Beck lately. End product:

--Applied to internship at the National Rehab Hospital in Washington, DC. Gynormous city hospital, little country girl Heidi. Reviewed my application and scored an interview on Tuesday. It's going to be AWESOME!
--Feeling good in skinny jeans. Never thought it would happen, but it did.
--Applied to be the society president for my major. Made it!
--Shaved my head.  Not really.
--Schooled Austin in a game of dart gun wars. Shooting aimlessly in the dark is priceless.

I like this mind set.

Beautiful Heartbreak

I stumbled on a picture while looking up references on google. Since then I keep reading about this amazing woman and her beautiful faith:

When I first heard her story my heart broke. Plane crash, 80% of her body covered in 3rd degree burns. How could anyone come back from that? Her faith in Jesus Christ and love for her family has truly inspired me.

"I was with somebody who told me that I could choose to live and have a hard life, you know, embarassing at times and painful. Or, I could just stay there, and there's lots of work I could do there too. But I thought of my children and my husband, and it was easy. An easy choice."

Inspired me to exercise my faith in my Savior. To connect with Him, not just talk at Him. To reflect who He is through me. To not complain about how much I've been given.

Gut check one, two...

I dread deadlines. Always have. In grade school I consistently lost those extra ten points because I didn't turn in those darn parent signature slips. Sometimes it was because I forgot, but mostly it was this little resistance the swelled up inside my little body. I would worry about not turning it in, but hated having to report back soooo much. I liked to think of it as my way of sticking it to the man. I don't know where this little rebellious streak came from, I'm a middle child? Little man syndrome? I don't know.  I'm much better now, but every once and a while I find myself toe to toe with that little resistant part of me every now and again.  The problem is is that I'm not in elementary school anymore, I'm in college and "sticking it to the man" usually in tales a lot of pain and regret on my part.  My internship deadline is coming up. I've been preparing for it for almost two years. Seriously. Two years. I was on top of this. I went back east two years ago to meet the department heads for Therapeutic Rec and get a feel for who I would like to internship under. I sent thank you notes afterward, the whole suck up bid. But now I'm actually at the end of my undergrad road and I'm one step away from falling off the cliff into my internship...and I've gone all pansy on myself!!!

Mom's are good for this kind of thing. I called her up. Her advice: Don't think, just do it.

Pop! goes the mouse and other New Year's Resolutions

Nothing brings in the New Year like mouse poop on your pillow. It gets the blood going and really inspires definitive Clorox action. When we came home from our Christmas vacation many mouse poops greeted us in multiple areas in the house. But, when I saw that mouse had infested my pillow top mattress, it got personal. No mercy. Fight terror with terror. Or something to that effect. To all you mouse haters Bubblicious bubblegum can kill three mice in less than 24 hours. Well, one thing the vermin did do for us was jump start our little New Year's List: Kill all vermin.

Another list Husband and I are concocting is a BYU-I Bucket List. Being our last semester, we want to do all the things we were too busy, or under some impression we were too cool for (that impression has long since been recognize as a farce). First on the list was to become I-Reps. This is an organization complied completely of single people who are peppy at 6:00 am, which makes them freaks of nature. The real purpose for this group is to welcome new freshmen, organize on campus activities, etc. But I have a strong hunch it really is meant to match equally perky individuals with each other to ensure perky children in a few years. Okay, I'm not that cynical (but really...). Although Austin and I were one of the only married couple (they liked to fuse our identities together "Oh! You're the Becks!"), it was really fun to be with a bunch of high energy people (I cannot confirm or deny how much caffeine they did or did not ingest), it felt really good to be serving other people, and being in charge of the jousting booth at the carnival was a blast! Nothing like bouncing around a blow up jousting square and watching people hit each other with over sized padded sticks! I forget how much of a social bug I am till I get back into those situations. We both really enjoyed ourselves and would like to do it again if we could.

Some other things on the list:
        ~join a battleship team (life size battleship in a swimming pool. Last canoe not sunk wins!)
        ~get an on campus personal trainer
        ~go to at least one play, dance competition, and music concert on campus
        ~go to latin dance night
        ~win a prize for doing the weekly sudoku puzzle
        ~volunteer for something for outdoor activities

We'll see how do-able our ambitious goals are with both of us pulling 17 upper level credits, me applying for an internship and part of a research class, and he pulling physics and math tutoring. But hey! Rest when you're dead, right?