First Semester of College: Check!

I survived! I was honestly a little bit worried about it for a bit. I learned a couple things from this Semester that I didn't expect to get out of it. 1) I need better study habits. 2) I need to be more social so I make friends. 3) I am so excited to go home for Christmas!! Ok I am always excited for Christmas and I'm always excited to go home but I am so super pumped to be home for Christmas this year that it is unbelievable! I am not, however, thrilled to have my wisdom teeth taken out :( I have to do that on the 20th and I am extremely nervous. I haven't gone under anesthetic since I had my tonsils taken out and I don't remember that. Oh well, it'll all be ok right? The best part is that I am no stranger to the swollen jaw thing. This should be a piece of cake! Wish me luck!!

Ah! Finals!

What are two of the scariest words to a first semester college freshmen? Finals week. I've been scared of tests before, who hasn't? However, a whole week worth of tests!?!? This is one of the most intimidating things I've ever heard of!! Almost as bad as Finals Week is the week before. I have had so many homework assignments in all of my classes that I swear I haven't had a second to breathe until tonight! So on top of all the last projects and assignments we are studying for all the finals we have to take!! I have 2 final exams next week. Calculus 2 is on Tuesday morning and then I have my General Chemistry 1 test Thursday morning. It's not that bad considering I have friends who are taking 4 tests but it's still really scary. I think I need a survival kit for my long study sessions that are coming. Any suggestions for said kit would be greatly appreciated!! On the up side I get to go home this weekend!! I am driving home after work Friday night then I get to go the the Voice Male concert with Per my mom and my aunt and cousins. Then Saturday night is Waylon's Work Christmas party. Well, good luck to any of the rest of you taking finals in the nearing weeks. May the force be with you!

Christmas Music Lovin'

I am so hooked on the Christmas music this year! I mean I'm always excited but I haven't listened to anything else since I finished Thanksgiving dinner. I love the feeling of breaking out the CDs I haven't gotten to listen to for a year. A few of my favorites include:

• Jingles (CD) by Voice Male
• Merry Christmas (CD) by Mariah Carey
• My Grown-Up Christmas List (Song) - Kelly Clarkson
• Where are you Christmas (Song) - Faith Hill
• Anything Christmasy by Frank Sinatra (I'm pretty sure I was born in the wrong decade because 50 years later his voice still completely melts my heart)
• Christmas (CD) by Michael Buble
• Noel (CD) by Josh Groben 

And those are just the one that come to mind right of the top of my head. I am loving my Pandora Christmas Radio station too. I'm up for suggestions too. I just can't get enough. So what are your favorite Christmas songs? Christmas movies? or Christmas traditions? Comment and let me know please. 

Ok this one is straight to my Aunt Lar! I'm thinking we need to get a caroling party in this year with the whole fam!! We went that one year and it was a blast. Let me know what you think. I am going to be home on the 19th and I was thinking we could go for FHE let me know what you think and which of your kids would be in. Or they can comment on their own :) 

Happy Christmas Season All :) 

Thankful!

Everyone has to have a Thanksgiving gratitude post right? I have so much to be thankful that I would feel so guilty if I didn't acknowledge it and writing stuff down seems to help me think through it on my own. This Thanksgiving was wonderful. Moving away has made me realize just how much I love and appreciate every single thing about my amazing family. I got to come home Tuesday night after work and just hang out with my parents and siblings all Wednesday and Thursday morning. My mom's siblings came over for Thanksgiving dinner as well as almost the rest of my brothers and sisters. After lunch at my house I swung over to my aunt's house to visit with the fam for a while. Last but not least we ran out to Wellsville to see my Granny and other Aunts and Uncles. It was a great day. For about a month now I have been keeping a huge secret. My friend Benny called  and told me that she was coming home for Thanksgiving but no one knew yet. It was so hard not to tell Perri or my cousin Kilee. Thursday night we surprised Per and Ki. It was so great. Then we tried to do some Black Friday/ Grey Thursday shopping. Mostly we just people watched but it was still fun. Saturday we woke up early and went to cut down our Christmas Tree. It was pretty memorable this year involving having to pull three cars out of the snow with my mom's jeep. We all survived and it was a good time. It was a wonderful weekend and it has me so grateful for all that I have in this life. So here goes my list. I am thankful for my family. From my amazing sweet mother to my caring protective Papa Sam, to my hilarious random baby sister, to my quirky strange Milo, to my awesome Big Brother Zach that I am just so glad to have back with our family after a couple of years, to all the rest of my other siblings and nephews. I am thankful for my friends. I have missed my bestie Benny so much for the past three months and I am so not thrilled to say goodbye again tomorrow. I'm thankful for my other friends like my cousin Ki and the one that I didn't get to see this weekend like my Red Head Jordi and my Hawaiian beach bum Bri. I am so excited to get everyone back together for Christmas Break. I am thankful for my wonderful patient boyfriend. He makes me so happy and is so good about how far away we live. I am thankful for the gospel in my life. It gives me direction and peace in my life that I can't find anywhere else. I am thankful that I live in this great country where I am free enjoy all my other blessings in safety. Last but not least, I am thankful for my comfortable bed which is calling to me right now. So, I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving and bring on the Christmas season!! :)

Sweet Wonderful Joyful Chaos!!!

Well friends. We all survived. My cute family made it through 2 years without our favorite redhead and we survived that massive party that occurred when we got him home!! I have a lot of thoughts to download into this blog so if you are someone that has hard time stopping reading something once you start make sure that you have got a second before you go any further.

My long week began last Saturday. I spent all day with various members of my family attending wedding festivities for my cousin. When we were done at the reception my parents took Per, My cousin Kilee and Me to dinner down in Salt Lake City. When we got done with dinner Kilee and Per came to spend that night at my house before heading back Sunday Morning. I woke up Sunday morning with the worst tooth ache I have ever experienced. It may have been the worst pain I've ever experienced in general. I could not figure out what was wrong to save my life and it was a very long day. After about 2 hours of sleep Sunday night I decided that it was time to call the big man and see if he could help me out. Papa Sam and my wonderful mother got to work trying to find me a dentists down here in SLC from all the way back at home. With some help from my Aunt Tammie in Sandy we found a dentist and made an appointment for Tuesday morning because I have late classes on Mondays. It was another nearly sleepless night Monday night but I got two or three hours and for the first time in my life I was excited to go to the dentist when I got up Tuesday morning. I got there at about 8 and it wasn't long before I was in the chair and taking X-rays. The Dr. finally made it in and said I needed to have  root canal done but he didn't actually do those so he sent me to a specialist. Dr. Vahrenburg was great. He was a really nice guy and I felt a lot better when I left his office. Of course, I was still numb from Novocaine. So Tuesday night rolled around and because of my horrible tooth situation on of the cute girls I work with said that she would cover my shift at work. I was so happy and grateful that she did that for me. With my night free I decided to go over to my older sister Erin's house to see my San Diego-ans and the new baby nephew. It was great to see everyone and we had a good night talking and getting ready to get our brother back!!!

I went home and packed and tried to fall asleep. Again, I was not very successful at all but it was enough to get me through the day. I had to go to one class Wednesday morning but then I was out of there. I ran home quick, picked up my bags and headed to the airport. When I got there my parents grandma and some of my siblings were already waiting... That was one got of the longest hours of my life. We were all really happy to be there and together again but honestly we all just wanted Little Red back with us. It finally came time for him to be coming out of the terminal. We all went over and stood by where he would be coming out and waited some more. Finally we saw him come down the escalator and then all the tears started. I am thinking that the Lindley's are about as bad as the Rutledges when it comes to crying on about every occasion. All the nephews sprinted up to see their Uncle Zachy and the rest of us followed suit. I don't have my camera cord with me right now but I'll get it and upload the pictures as soon as I can. When we got all wrapped up  at the airport we started our journey home. (Keep in mind my face is still pretty puffy but since I'm on cloud nine I'm not really thinking about it too much.) Per rode with me and we met the fam at Maddox for lunch. When we lunch wrapped up we started on the last 30 minutes home. Once we finally got there it was all good. We all hung out and talked with all the people that came to see Zach. It was a long night but we did eventually make it to sleep. Well Wednesday night was another rough one and I think that I wound up with 3 hours that night. At 6 o clock I got dressed to go to breakfast with Sam and Per at Angie's. After breakfast I had a nail appointment and then the day just got busier from there. We hung out with the boys. Went shopping to get Zach a phone and then eventually some clothes.... Someone took all his while he was away :P When we finally made it home Zach and my parents went to the temple while the rest of us had Fredrico's Pizza. I got all packed up to come back to Salt Lake because I had a test Friday morning and my tooth started to flare up again. I was in tears and was extremely worried about the drive home. When they got back from the Temple I asked if my Dad and Zach would wait a second before they changed out of their church clothes because I needed a blessing. Zach did the anointing in Spanish and then Dad gave me a blessing with the help of all 4 of my older brothers and brothers in law. It was one of the coolest blessings I've ever been able to receive and I'll remember it forever. I made it back down to SLC safely but had a night with 0 hours of sleep!! I got dressed and went to stumble through a chemistry test Friday which I of course had not studied for I had more important things on my mind for the past week. When I got done with the test I went back to my house to try to sleep a little bit. I got a little bit of  a nap but then I had to go to work. I woke up a little early so I could go pick something up for my mom. I noticed when I got up that my lower jaw had actually swelled worse than when I had started this whole endeavor so I asked my mom to call the family dentist at home and get me and antibiotic. Friday night was the longest night I've ever had a work. My face was huge and painful and I had to close. I finally got done at work and headed home for Logan. I made it in at about 1 o clock in the morning and when my mother saw me see cringed and told me I looked like elephant man!! I started taking my antibiotics and It is now on its way down.

Saturday we had a baby shower for my sister-in-law Sabrina. It was good to see all the aunts and cousins! When we were done with the shower and had dinner we had a Harry Potter marathon because Zach hadn't seen either of the number 7 movies. We were up pretty late that night but I did get like a full 6 hours of sleep that night and it was magical!!!

Sunday was Zach's homecoming. He and I went to one of his teammate's from High School ball farewell in the morning. It was nice to get to hang out with him again. The funniest thing happened when we were walking out of the church. It was snowing and my brother being the wonderful man that he is was perfect gentleman and he walked me to my side of the door and opened it for me. I sat down and waited for him to  walk over to the drivers side. As I glanced over to the car next to me I noticed a little old grandma looking over at me beaming and giving me a thumbs up as if to tell me that he was a keeper. I laughed pretty hard to myself. We went straight from the farewell to our home ward. Zach did great. He stood up there and just spewed wisdom for like 20 minutes without notes. I was very impressed. It took me almost a half hour to get Zach out of the chapel to go home but when we finally did it was good to be at home surrounded with EVERYONE!! My mom and I did the math and concluded that we fed between 120 and 130 people yesterday afternoon. After everyone left we took a family picture and started the clean up. I headed back to SLC at about 9 last night. I had a couple classes today and I have one more and work tomorrow. Then I'll be back up in Logan for Thanksgiving. All in all it has been a great week and I'm looking forward to the holidays with my family :)

Less than 1 week!!

We are now down to under 7 days until I get my big brother back from Mexico!! I am so excited!! My oldest sister Amber and her cute family fly in on Tuesday. I am so excited to see them and meet my newest nephew Rawley James Hansen. Then Wednesday at 12:35 the ENTIRE Sam Lindley Family will be at the SLC International airport to welcome Elder Lindley home. In my e-mail from him this week he told me he didn't want to come home. It made me so sad to think that we are all so excited for him to come home and he doesn't even want to!! The more I've thought about it the more I have come to be ok with it. I just realized how hard it would be to go from sharing the gospel 24-7 for 2 full years and then just being done the next day. It's got to be hard but we'll try to help him get used to it. Just in case anyone who reads this doesn't know. Elder Lindley will be speaking in the River Heights 2nd ward on Sunday November 20th at 1:00 PM and we'll have lunch at my parent's home following the meeting :)

An ordinary day in the life

So I realized I haven't blogged for a while but that is mostly because I don't have anything to say! Oh well I make stuff up and turn it in for a grade at school so why not do it on a blog ;) Most everybody agrees that Monday's are a long day but I swear mine last a week all by themselves. My morning starts at 6:00, I get up and am out the door to catch the bus to campus by 6:40. Chemistry starts at 7:30, whatever sick individual decided that Chemistry should be taught at that time of the morning should sizzle!! After that I have a break for an hour before Writing 2010, which isn't all that hard but I am just not creative. Then I have another hour long break before Calculus II. That class is horrible. There is no other way to put it. I am so glad this is the last math class I have to take! After that class I have another hour long break before my chemistry lab. My chem lab is 3 hours long. It doesn't usually take that long but sometimes it does and it about kills me. After I am finally done with that awful lab I get to trek back to the bus stop, which was extra fun today because there was an added element... snow :( When I finally make it home at about 5:30 it's time to start doing homework! At about 10:30 I get sick of doing homework and decided that I am going to procrastinate and finish tomorrow after I get home from work and I decide to spend a few minutes before bed to blog. And with that I am ready to hit the hay! On a side note. I am 8 days away from getting my big brother back from Mexico! I can't believe it's almost here. It's honestly too good to be true! I am getting so anxious the only bad part is I have to try to focus long enough to take a Chemistry test the morning before he gets home! Wish me luck on that one!!

Ode to Per

Today my baby sister Per (I love to call her that, I think she hates it) turned 15!! I can't believe she is that old. Now she can go get her learner's permit and start driving legally! That is not to say that me and her haven't been going on drives since she turned 14 but that is beside the point. Per is honestly my best friend in this whole world. I am so blessed to have her in my life! She is so funny and can always keep our family laughing! This weekend I got to have Per come down and go to a football game with me Saturday night. I met her and Sam in Layton and we spent the day down at my house until it was time for the game. After the game (The Utes finally won a PAC 12 game :) Hallelujah!!) we loaded up and drove back to Logan. We carved pumpkins with the fam that night and then went to sleep. We woke up went to stake conference on Sunday and had all the family over for cake and ice cream for Perri and Jayden's Birthday!! It was a great weekend and I am so glad that I got to go spend some time at home with her and the family!! I don't think Per reads this but just in case she does. HaPpY BiRtHdAY!!! I love you Perri Ann!!!

Cowboy Grub-isms

     Ok, That's it. My friend Kelsey has officially challenged me to a blogging war. Basically I don't think this is fair 'cause she has way more things to say than I do but I can't just admit defeat without trying! So tonight I was trying to think about what has happened since Monday that is worth blogging about... I got nothing. I had a chemistry test this morning that I've been studying for all week and that basically took up all the free time that something interesting could happened in. Right now my life is pretty boring and constant and a large amount of my time is taken up by school, work, sleeping, and eating. There isn't enough of the third one but that's what Sunday is for right? So as I was think about this, it led me to my topic for my post tonight.... Cowboy Grub-isms!!!

The Logo from work :)

   

    I am confident that I work with the greatest group of people ever!! That is not to say that I like them all, or that I can even stand most of them but... There is never a dull moment at the Grub!! I have just a couple stories from work that got a chuckle out of me and might give you a giggle. First I have to tell you about Piper, Yes, that is her real name. Honest. Piper is.... hard to describe. She is a few inches taller that me, quite a few inches rounder than me, or most of the people at work for that matter, and she has a very unique personality. When I say unique, I mean she has an abrasive personality that I didn't know how to handle the first night I met her. My first interaction with Piper consisted of her smacking me on the behind with her ticket book and muttering something to the effect of "Move new girl." I wasn't sure I had heard her correctly the first time but as the night went on I learned that my new name at work was "New girl." I asked around to see how worried I should be about this and I learned that Piper just refuses to like people. She says that everyone annoys her and is incompetent. That settled it, forget goals concerning school or personal improvement. My goal is to make Piper like me. Mark my words, she will admit to liking me before either her or I quit working there! Last night I was working and Lindsey one of the other waitresses was talking to Piper about how she felt about different people we work with. She told us how Rachel (Piper calls her flower head, because she wore flowers in her hair one night) didn't bug her until she asked her how to fill the lemonade machine 4 times in one night. Since then she says "She annoys the crap out of me." I took this opportunity to ask Piper if I had done anything to annoy her that badly yet, Her response? "I don't even know your name yet." Ugh, Fail!! I'm pretty sure that she is just bitter with the world and refuses to like anyone... I'm not giving up, just need new tactics. So I'll let you all know how my Piper battles go in the future.

      My other stories are not exciting or really relevant but I feel like venting. I didn't have the best attitude through my high school career but I was at least able to convince myself that it was all worth it because I needed to learn something from my time there... I'm still not sure what it is that I learned there but I can tell you what I did not learn. I most definitely did not learn any Spanish that is in any way useful in the real world!! I am so disappointed. I was mislead by my good grades in my two years of Spanish classes to think that I was at least ok in my Spanish speaking skills. Not so! All of our cooks at work are Hispanic and while some of them speak English... All of them speak Spanish (If that even makes sense.) You've all seen the movie The Best Two Years where the one elder says "What language was she speaking? That is not the language they taught me in the MTC!!!" well that's how I feel about the Spanish the cooks speak and the language that I thought I could speak...Not the same thing! So, that is my second Cowboy Grub-ism: I must learn the Spanish!!

 My third is closely related to my second and that is BE NICE TO THE COOKS!!!! This is the probably the Grub-ism that I am trying my best to apply to all aspects of my life. I think we all take the people in our lives for granted! It's amazing how friendly my Hispanic chef friends can be. Jaime (Hi-May not Jaime like my mom's name) Is the sweetest little man ever. Weekends are crazy at the Grub and sometimes, especially being the new girl, I feel like I am not going to make it through the night! Several times when I've been teetering on the edge of snapping my friend Jaime will look over the counter at me and say "Dani...Breathe, Smile. 's ok." It amazes me how harsh some of the servers can be when they are in a crunch and the chefs don't have everything just right when in reality it is sometimes the servers own fault. So I guess my Grub-ism is more or less to appreciate everyone that does anything for you!! Even the littlest things that people do for you, they are still often doing something that they don't really have to do for you.

     My final Grub-ism for the night is: Be Happy and Polite! I am so grateful that my parents especially my mom taught me the importance of manners. Since I'm the new girl, the managers are usually really good about looking out for me and will asking me how I'm doing a couple of times a night. So, in my world when someone ask you how you are doing the polite response is something to the effect of "I'm good, How are you?" You should have seen my manager, Doug's, face the first time I replied that way. I honestly thought I'd done something wrong the way her looked at me. I asked him what was up and he just said "I literally don't think I've ever got that response from someone when I asked them that." This job has helped me realize how much I like happy people. It is so difficult to wait on people who have already decided that they are unhappy when they come in. I know everyone has bad days but everyone should try to be happy. I am a firm believer that if you put your mind to it you can make your day better! You just gotta concentrate on the good things. I hope you enjoyed my Grub-isms and that you can all find a way to apply maybe one of them to your lives.

New Blog....Hopefully New Habits

I hope you all found me alright. I got sick of some of the messed up settings on my old blog so I decided that the best way for me to fix it was to just start all over!! Well my wonderful bestest friend/sister Benny texted me tonight to remind me that I have not blogged in quite a while. When I told her that she was one to talk, she pointed out that she has blogged 5 times since I last blogged so.... Here I am. Since I've been so horrible about blogging lately I better do a quick little recap. I'm down to school at The University of Utah. I live in Salt Lake with my roommate Whitley. I'm working towards an undergraduate degree in Exercise Sports Science, and getting ready to apply to the Pharmacy graduate school program in about 3 years. I am currently working as a waitress at The Cowboy Grub. It's a restaurant up on Foothill Drive, about 5 mins from my house. It's a good job, the people are really nice, I make pretty good money.... I just really hate saying the name. Despite the way it sounds, it is actually really clean so if you are in Salt Lake swing by and see me. The food is great!! That's about all I have for now. I do have a couple of pictures that I'll put on the end of this just for the sake of trying to make this post a little longer. I'll  try to be better about blogging since I know that at least Benny reads this :) 

A couple weeks ago me and Per went up the canyon and made paintball splatter shirts :D

Per looks like she is a paintball master

Waylon came down to see me this past weekend. We went to Lagoon, out to dinner, watched movies, and carved pumpkins :)