Fun Facts!

1. Otters hold hands so that they don't drift apart.

2. Butterflies taste with their feet.

3. The voice of Mickey and Minnie got married in real life.

4. A group of pugs is called a grumble.

5. When puffins mate, they mate for life.

6. Kissing is healthier and more hygienic than shaking hands.

7. Men change their minds 2 to 3 more times than women do.

8. The three most common lies on the internet: I have read and agree to the terms of service, Status: offline, Yes I am over 18 years old.

9. There are 84 people in the United States named LOL.

10. You see your nose at all times, your brain just chooses to ignore it.

11. The first man to survive going over Niagara Falls later died by slipping on an orange peel.

12. When a person cried and the first drop of tears comes from the right eye, it's happiness. If it comes from the left, it's pain.

13. 99% of people backspace their whole password when they mess up just one letter.

14. The sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter in the English language.

15. The word "goodbye" came from "God bye" which came from "God be with you."

Day 3: The Truth about Prince Charming.

It's funny, the feelings you get after a fallout. Like you want to be angry and sad and happy and disappointed all at the same time. You feel remorse, regret, anger...and you almost want to just run back to them and beg for forgiveness.
But you don't.
Because in the end, you have to do what's best for you.
I saw him today. But he didn't look at me. He didn't talk to me...it was like we were strangers.
I understand it, I really do. I hurt him...and now he wants to hurt me. But then again, maybe that's just me hoping for something, anything.
Maybe the whole truth is that he's forgotten about me completely. That when he looks at her, he really does love her, and he's not just covering up what he feels for me.
Yet, there's always that little part of me that hopes. Gosh, I hate that little part of me. That little voice that tells me he loves me, that tells me he's thinking about me. Yet, reason always wins in the end...and my hopeful self is rarely rewarded. The naked truth is this: He doesn't care. It hurts...but there isn't a thing I can do but try to forget even though I know for a fact that I'll always remember.
I've been trying really hard lately to do things that take my mind off of him. I'll go to school and then think "Hey, I didn't think about him for two whole periods! I'm making progress!" Yet, I know, that even in those two periods, he's somewhere in my mind. 
It kills me because I know that together, we could be something so wonderful and special. I think of all the guys in high school...and then I think of him and how I'd want him to be the first boy I ever love. 
But love is such a big, strong word. I can't bare to say I love him...it just seems too dramatic, too utterly depressing.
But what do you do? What do you do when you've finally found your prince charming, but you're not his princess? 
Well, maybe he isn't Prince Charming after all.

Day 2: My Epiphany About Love.

Love is all around me. Whether I'm at school, home, or the grocery store. I see it in people's eyes and I want it.
I want the kind of love that makes me feel excited. The kind that makes me feel like I'm enough. I think, being a sixteen year old girl, that's what I want most right now. 
It's not just me.
I walk around high school and I see people going through extreme measures to be noticed, to be laughed at, to be acknowledged  I discovered, through my daily people watching, something that I think I already knew. Yet, it hit me with a strong force.
Everyone wants to love and be loved. It doesn't matter who. It doesn't matter if your short or fat or old or young...everyone in some way craves love. They crave that feeling of being utterly accepted and adored by that one person. They crave having a hand to hold or a shoulder to cry on. 
It turns out that I'm not much different from everyone else. I'm in love with the idea of love. Yet, this scares me. It's alarming of how much I would give up for love...too much I think. 
Love doesn't always last. That's the problem. I'm the type of person who gives my heart out too easily. I've gotten hurt in the past because I trusted too much to be loved...when it was too much to ask.
Sometimes to ask someone to love you is just too much.
Yet, in my fiery teenage mind, I think "Why? Why is that too much? I just want to be loved! Is that really so much to ask?" 
So many people can't see who I really am. So many people would love what they saw if they only took the time. 
Love is a funny thing. It makes people do crazy things. It makes people hurt so much they can hardly stand it. So, why then do we, as human beings, crave it so much?
Because love can also make you incandescently happy.
Love can make you feel something that nothing else can.
Love can make you feel beautiful and special and significant in a world where it's hard to be noticed.
I've never been in love. Yet, one of my goals is to fall in love this year. Yeah, I know that love is something that you just can't plan.
So, here's my plan.
I will forget about love and I will forget about him. I've learned that we can't be looking for love. Love has to find us. It's almost like watching for the mail to come.
It never comes when you wait and watch and anticipate.
It just happens.

Happy Thought #2: We're more beautiful than we think.

http://youtu.be/iswiKQbtwXQ

Day 1: A day of impossible equations.

Today was one of those days where nothing really went my way. Yet, through it all I managed to keep a smile on my face and that's all that matters.
One of my goals from the checklist is to get a 4.0 GPA. I know what your thinking. Wow, she's one of those. And yet, I don't really think I am one of those. In fact, I don't really even know what one of those means. 
I know that it's unrealistic to hope for straight A's for the next two and a half semesters I have left in high school. I know perfectly well that smarts don't come naturally for me. Yet, I know that I can do it...I know that I'm really capable of anything if I try my hardest.
Today in Math, we started our statistics unit and it went over my head. Yet, as I sat there with my assignment staring me in the face, feeling frustrated that I didn't understand, I wondered if I was really trying my best or if I was just looking for the easy way. 
I mean, my first reaction to that thought was "NO! Of course not!" I've been taking four online courses, I'm planning on graduating high school a year early...there is no way that I'm looking for the easy way. 
But I doubt myself...I do. Just like every other human being on the planet at one point in their life or another. I started to question everything...my motives, my attitudes, my beliefs, my, well, my everything. 
It's weird...those moments when everything freezes and you analyze your life and where it seems to be going. I've come to find that usually when that happens, you don't like what you see. 
I wanted to change and so now I'm doing this. I'm doing the checklist to improve and to discover who it is that I am. That way, when the moment comes again, where everything seems out of place and I doubt who I'm becoming, I'll have something more to hold onto than I have now.
So, back to the 4.0. It became clearly evident that this term wouldn't be the term to get the straight A's. Trigonometry ruined that...but I'm not giving up.
One thing I'll absolutely never do is give up.
I read a book called "Thirteen Reasons Why" by Jay Asher just the other day. It was about a girl who gave up. She killed herself. She left behind 13 tapes for the people who were the "reason" for her death. In those tapes, she revealed all of the instances that led her to give up.
I think about my life now. And I know more than I know anything else that no matter how hard my life gets, I won't give up. I know at times I don't feel like I'm strong enough to handle what's coming my way. But so far, it's been okay. I've found strength through God and through angels that show their faces to me at tumultuous times in my life. 
Thank you to those angels. You've given me the courage and strength to never give up.
Thank you Heavenly Father...for sending them to me.

Happy thought #1

Hey! So, I've decided to do a happy thought every time I'm blogging.
So, here goes.
Marilyn Monroe...we all love her and adore her and think she's gorgeous. Well, hey, guess what? She wore a size 14. Yeah, and nowadays I'm considered fat because I'm not a double zero.
There are things we can learn from the past. One thing being that there was such beauty and eloquence in those women and now look at those considered "beautiful"? They are nothing but skin and bone and angular. They have no curves because curves are banned from society's definition of beauty. Well, hey, society, get a load of this and then tell me what you think beauty is!

Happy thought: We're all beautiful in our own way. We don't need to be stick skinny to be happy. We just need to be happy with who we are!




























I always loved this picture...it reminds me that women have beauty who are content with who they are and feel confident no matter what size.

The Beginning

The one year checklist.

You're probably wondering what the heck that even is.

Yeah, well I'm still trying to work it out too.

The basic gist of my little "project" is simple...I want to find out who I am. I want to love that person and be perfectly content with the real me.

There are a series of goals that I've made for myself with the idea to accomplish them in one year. Meanwhile, I'll be blogging about my experiences and what this is really doing for me.

I guess I should tell you my goals now.

The list is lengthy but I figure that I shouldn't really leave out the most important factor for this blog.

Oh, what the heck. We all love a little bit of suspense! I will reveal my goals to you as we go along...and we can both see if I can accomplish them!

Wish me luck!

Love, Dev.