Making Life Better

So I kind of love my life right now I'll be honest. But I mean, who couldn't love life when they have bright neon peach pants?! I swear ever since I bought these I've had the biggest urge to go to a blacklight party. Just sayin. 

I will be leaving for New Zealand in two and a half weeks now, and I'm so excited. extremely terrified but so excited! I now have a better idea of whats going on, as in there will be eight people in my volunteer group, and I am the only one from Utah. Talk about meeting new people right?

I also have a new baby niece! Which brings the count up to five in all-2 boys and 3 girls. Which also mean the the girls now outnumber the boys once again :) I don't know what I would do without these kids. I barely ever get to see them except for one, but they're such a big part of my life. I have no idea where I would be without them.

And can I just say that I'm pretty sure longboarding makes everything seem better? It's probably one of the most relaxing but exhilarating feelings ever. I still suck really badly too... haha but hey it's not like I'm trying to be pro or anything! 

Alright so last thing in this last quick update. I am not an extremely spiritual person. I do read my scriptures every day and I love the church so much but quite honestly right now that is almost the extent of it. Sometimes though when I read the scriptures I come across a verse that kind of hits me right where I need it. This time that would be verse 34 in 2 Ne. As much as I love my life, I've had an extremely hard week. One of those weeks where you feel like you have messed up every possible thing you could have in your life., and in my case I was feeling it mostly with the people in my life. Then here comes this scripture, and I realized why the hell do I even care?? I have been disappointed and hurt by the majority of people in my life, I am sure I have disappointed and hurt my share of people too. So why do we all put so much stock in people? Yes we love them, and yes we need them in our lives but I'm beginning to realize something-when you put God first everything else really will fall into place. When you are having a hard week and feel like you have let everyone down, God isn't a part of that. God will never leave you out of "the group," or make you feel badly of yourself. He's just there for you. Which I am thankful for. And even if you don't believe in God, and a lot of my friends don't-isn't it just a comforting and nice thought or hope that there is something out there bigger than all the drama we go through and who just wants us to be happy? And so, my new goal in life is not to live my life for anyone except myself and God. Expectations from others don't get to be a part of my decisions from now on. I just want to live a good life I would be proud of :) 

Well that's my post. I'm sure it's full of errors and grammar problems and most likely doesn't make sense but I really don't feel like reading back over it. so there we are! 

Frustration

So I have been easily... irked lately. By a lot of things that really should not bug me this much, but you know. Girls and their moods right? Here is a list of all the things that bug me.
-People who's parents buy them everything. Parents buy the car, give them x amount of money to spend each month, if the kid breaks something then the parents just buy a new one. Learn some responsibility maybe?
-People who think their life is harder than other peoples (myself included in this.) Everyone has a hard life in their own way and we are all dealing with stuff, lets all remember that and just get a long.
-I'm very annoyed by people who are insensitive. Yes it's good to be blunt and upfront about some things, but when you say you would rather risk dying of cancer than change your life, and say it to a person who's father died of cancer... no good.
-People who have no self-respect. Have some values and morals and actually stand up for them. Don't do what everyone tells you to because you're "laid back." YOLO hahaha yeah.
-People who don't write you back when you take the time to actually write them when they go on a mission. really? if you're not going to write back, then at least let the person know so they're not just chillin there wondering what the hell is going on.
-Two-faced people. Obviously one of them is the real you, embrace it and get on with your life. I promise you'll be much happier.
-People who have to be the center of everything. Newsflash most of us learned around graduation, your boyfriend problems are pretty small compared to mostly everything else out there in the world.
-People who think they know how to live my life better than I do. Yes I know I've screwed up, but I'm learning and I'll get it eventually.
-People who set me up with everyone on their contacts list! Sometimes I like to complain that I'm single, but for the most part, it's the way I like it, and I hate being set up anyway!
-finals. need I say more? I'm pretty sure that's why I've been so extremely irritable lately.
K venting = done :)

Yummy

 So I made this bread. I know right? Never thought I would be able to make bread but there we go! It was soooo good, I'll definitely be making it again. It wasn't as light and fluffy as it should have been cause I might have had a slight brain lapse and patted it down after it rose... But it was still really good!

And the recipe is: Rosemary Olive Oil Bread

Rosemary Olive Oil Bread
INGREDIENTS
1 cup warm water (100-110 F)
1 Tbsp. organic cane sugar
2 tsp. active dry yeast
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. fresh rosemary, chopped (or 2 tsp. dried)
1/4 tsp. Italian seasoning (or pinch of each ground garlic, dried oregano, and dried basil)
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup bread flour + extra for kneading
1 egg, whisked + 1 Tbsp. water, for egg wash
dried rosemary, for sprinkling

DIRECTIONS
1. In a large bowl, combine the warm water, sugar, and yeast. Let sit 10 minutes to proof.

2. Stir in the salt, rosemary, seasonings, olive oil, and whole wheat flour. Add the bread flour and stir until the dough forms a ball. Knead on a lightly floured surface for about 5 minutes, adding more flour as necessary to prevent sticking, until smooth.

3. Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl; cover; and let rise until doubled in size, about1 hour.

4. Punch down the dough and form it into a round loaf. Place it on a cornmeal dusted pizza peel or parchment paper; cover; and let rise until doubled in size, about 45 minutes.

5. Meanwhile, preheat oven (and pizza stone) to 400 F. Once the dough has risen, gently brush the top with egg wash and sprinkle with dried rosemary.

6. Bake on preheated stone for 20-25 minutes until the top is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped.

Makes 1 round loaf.

(I got this recipe from pinterest, who got it from ahintofhoney.com, who has tons of good recipes!!)

Grateful for

Something in the 60 ways list is to keep a gratitude journal. I recently started that one, and it's amazing what it does. It actually makes you feel grateful! Recently I've been feeling extremely grateful for my dad, he was so amazing. When I was little, I will never forget how he taught me to fish. I would cast the line from his boat into the yard, and he would act like a fish while I tried to reel him in. To an 8 year old, this time with him meant the world to me. I'm so grateful that he took the time to teach me how to shoot a gun, and that he would let me drive his truck around, even if he always had to be in the passenger seat. I'm grateful for the big wheel rides when I was small, and the Harley rides with him into the canyon when I was older. Those rides were, excuse how cheesy this sounds, but, they were almost magical. It was like a different world on the back of the bike with the wind, and how the sun would hit the trees sometimes. I'm grateful that my nephews got to ride with him a few times. I'm grateful for the daddy-daughter dates he took me on throughout my life. He was at work uncomplaining about the pain he was in 4 days before he died. Thinking of that is how I get through a lot of things. If he could do that, then I can do this. He taught me the value of work, and also the value of living to the fullest. I'm thankful that we were able to pick out the perfect casket and flowers for him. As much as I miss him every single day, I'm beyond thankful that he is out of pain. If there's one life lesson that his passing taught me also, it's that I'm done taking anyone for granted. I can honestly say, that I am thankful for every single person that has come into my life. There is always a lesson to be learned from everyone. The majority of my gratitude journal is people. There are people that I only talked to for 5 minutes and I'm never going to see them again, and there are people who I've known my whole life, and I'm grateful for all of them. I miss him every day, but the depth of gratitude I feel toward my dad, is almost impossible to put into words. Rock on :)

Wow

Wow it's been a while hasn't it? Basically I've been super caught up with work and school and trying to balance it all out. I've also recently come to the realization that sharing an apartment with six other girls means the following: I will never have an organized house no matter what I do until I have my own house or I find roommates that are dedicated to having it clean and organized like I am; and so the focal point of this blog changes. It will definitely still be based towards having a better and healthier life, but organization will be a whole lot less. I'm probably going to be focused just more on personal habits and foods and etc. I will also be using this as a normal blog too so it won't all be about healthiness! If anyone ever does actually want to go the whole 60 ways thing then here is the link:
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/60-small-ways-to-improve-your-life-in-the-next-100-days.html

If you decide to go for it good luck!

Day 2

Day two:

A place for everything, and everything in it's place. When you pick it up, put it down where you got it. If you drop it, put it back. Take it out, put it back. Open it, close it. No more letting outfits you changed your mind about slowly cover your floor. When you get some important papers in the mail, file them away and don't put them on your nightstand to 'deal with tomorrow.'

I might not be the best at this one. I'm notorious for starting something and getting bored and just leaving it there... It's probably the thing that annoys my roommates the most. This is going to be one of those things where I just need to remember to clean up after myself. This is definitely going to help me with the clutter situation.

And on that note, day two for my clutter calendar is put all your cans in one place and organize them accordingly. I went to gather my canned foods and I realized-I have a total of 5 cans. 3 of which is canned tuna. Soooo that pretty much ruined that plan. I did put them all together though! BUT if i did have enough cans and a place to put them I would use something else i learned from pinterest :)

My dream can organizer:

Paint them the accent color of your kitchen or something! I've also seen similar things made out of the big huge 24 cardboard box things of soda.

Day 1 :)

First way to make your life better? Make a declutter calendar. Basically do one thing each day to declutter your house. For myself, I just got online and found a declutter calendar, wrote it in my own calendar, and made it applicable to my life. Because obviously, me sharing an apartment and room with other girls with no way of hanging shelves etc. up-my declutter list will probably be a little bit different than someone with their own home and all the space in the pantry instead of just one little shelf! :)

So I figure that being clutter free seems kind of insignificant sometimes-but it's really not. We all know that stress is related to clutter, which in turns lead to health problems like high blood pressure and tension and the works. Other little ways that we might not think about clutter affecting us is time, (who doesn't know where the keys are, or your phone, or your wallet because they're covered in clutter?) money, (bills that get lost in the mess? change and currency getting lost in the mess?) the list of how much clutter doesn't help a healthy life is endless.

So use the declutter calendar and use it over and over again and keep things clean! Don't just go back to your ways once you've cleaned it once. That's the trick to anything, you have to keep doing it.

Day 1 on my declutter calendar:

Confession: this isn't really day one for my calendar, it's just something that's really been bugging me. The DVDs in our living room are ridiculous. My closet- ridiculous. Our DVDs are ridiculous because they're all just put into boxes and bins and crowded around the TV. My closet is ridiculous because I bought some shelves thinking they would belp organize when in reality it just takes up a bunch of space that i kind of need.

See- DVDs everywhere. It makes it hard to get to them cause you have to dig through all of the bins and some are double stacked so you have to get others out to get to even one.

We have multiple bins for all of the DVDs

Then we have my closet:

Very crowded. You can't get to the clothes because of the big shelves that I thought would help. Obviously it didn't.

Now for the remedy!

Take the shelves that the shoes are on, and turn them into shelves for the dvds :)

Before & After

The shelves make it appear much more organized obviously, and it makes the room look a little more spacious.

And as for my closet, cause I'm too broke and lazy to get a shoe organizer, I'm doing things the old fashioned way and going with an old laundry basket :)

Before & After

It's still kind of a lot a bit crowded and cluttered looking, but at least I can get to my clothes? And I'm sure I can find something to make it more organized!

First Post Whoo!!!

Well heyy!

So I'm Taylor :)

This whole blog came about because I was looking at a pin on PINTEREST (yes I'm extremely addicted.) So this pin had 6o ways to make your life better. And even though my life is actually really good, except for some key parts like everyone else's in the world... I thought, what if I could make it more enjoyable? So this is my blog towards making me a better person. :)

Now the way that I'm gonna be running this blog is:

I will post one new way to make your life better each post! I'll update my progress on it and I'd love feedback! So everyone tell everyone about this blog and lets see what happens :) Imagine if everyone told everyone and everyone tried to be better with each other. Imagine what that could do to our little corner of the world. Just imagine :)