Don't give up.

I was listening to Pandora today while I was making delicious cookies. 

(milk chocolate, white chocolate and walnut cookies to be exact)

And this beautiful song came on. 

It was exactly what I needed to hear. 

Sometimes trials can be really hard. 

They can be so hard that you feel defeated. 

Lately I have been going through one of those trials. 

I am trying to be brave and fight through it by doing everything in my power. 

However, sometimes I feel like calling it quits. 

It is just too hard. 

One of those times was yesterday. 

Then I have those moments of light. 

And I realize, it is all worth it. 

I realize that giving up is not an option. 

and I feel inspired. 

Inspired to keep at it. 

Inspired to do everything I can. 

Inspired to trust in my loving Heavenly Father

because He will provide. 

Remember. 

Don't give up. 

Beauty of the Earth.

It is no secret that I love nature. 

flowers. mountains. fall leaves. fresh grass. sandy beach. ocean waves. 

You name it, I love it. 

There really is nothing more beautiful than Earth. 

I truly believe it was divinely created. 

I love that every where in the world is unique.

I think about all the places I have been in my life. 

I am not a world traveler by any means but I have seen some beautiful things. 

Today I want to tell you how much I love Spring. 

Living in Florida during the Winter is a treat. 

But I am not going to have the fabulous Spring that I am used to. 

These beautiful photos below are courtesy of the lovely Tulip festival at Thanksgiving point.

I try to make a stop by every year because it is stunning...

The beauty of the earth is so inspiring. 

 I promise sun is coming your way :)

Inspired by two years

Missionary service is incredible. 

I cannot even imagine what it would be like to dedicate two years of my life like they do. 

No music. No media entertainment. No dating. No seeing family. 

All you do is strengthen your testimony and preach the gospel to those around you. 

I truly think missionaries are amazing. 

The stud in the picture above is my husband when he was a missionary. 

I am so grateful for his service as a missionary and the way it has shaped his life. 

I have had many cousins go on missions. 

I dated guys before they went on missions. 

I missed my brother like crazy while he was on his mission. 

I have written a lot of missionaries. 

I have been to a lot of missionary farewells and homecomings. 

I feed the missionaries dinner when I can. 

I love missionaries. 

I am grateful for the way they inspire me to be better. 

To be more dedicated and devoted to sharing the gospel with those around me. 

Have you ever met any missionaries?

Have you known anyone who has served a mission?

Inspired by Core Values

via

I know what you are thinking when you see this photo... no, this post is not about politics. Seeing as I am an Alumni now, I get the Brigham Young University magazine in the mail a few times a year. I normally don't take the time to look through it because it just isn't my first choice. However, someone I think very strongly of was on the cover of the most recent issue. His name is Mitt Romney. You may remember this post where I told you how I am related to this fine gentlemen. No, we have never met. Yes, I was a little disappointed when he lost the election. Yes, I still believe he is an incredible man.

Obviously, when I saw this man on the front cover I had to look in the magazine to see what the article was all about. It was titled 'Forty Years On.' Mitt Romney graduated from BYU with his bachelor's degree in 1971. The article is actually from a speech he gave to students at the University a few years ago. It talks a lot about how he got to be so successful and about his life journey.

He talks about a time where the firm he had founded seemed to be coming apart. Everyone wanted to go in different directions and he was struggling to find a balance between his goals of faith and the money he was making. His team met with a consultant-psychologist who shared with him something very profound. This is where I am going to quote the article for you...

     'He said that if we lived our lives in conflict with our core values, we would experience stress, ill health, and deep regret. How, we asked, could we know what our core values were? He proceeded to ask us to think of the five or six people we most admired and respected, people currently living or who had ever lived. . . Then he asked us to write down next to each of those names the five or six attributes we thought of when we thought of that person. The attributes that we had then listed most frequently, he explained, represented our core values.' 

The five people Mitt chose were the Savior, Joseph Smith, his father, mother and his wife. The five attributes that were listed most frequently were all similar: love, family, service and devotion. This is what he says next about living with these core values in his life...

      'Now, some twenty years later, I have discovered something else about these core values, about living with integrity, about these fundamental measures of successful living; with these at our center, chance does not come into play in determining our success or failure. The ability to live with integrity with the core of our values of love, family, service, and devotion is entirely up to us. Fundamentally, this is the business of successful living.'

These words really hit me. If I want to be successful, all I need to do is stay focused on my core values. Normally I wouldn't quote an article with this much depth on my blog but I truly found this inspiring. I hope this is something that you will take time to think about... 

What are your core values?

If you want to read the full article, click here. 

Inspired by LOVE

This is one of my all time favorite love quotes. I remember hearing it while I was in high school and I remember thinking how I couldn't wait to feel that way about someone. I couldn't wait to get home after a date and be so in love that I literally didn't want to sleep because my dreams could not be better than the love I had with someone. I remember when I started to feel this way about Dave. It was in December of 2009 that I first told him I love him. I gave him a book of pictures I had made and I remember writing a personal letter to him in the back of it, telling him that I knew I was so in love with him because of this very quote.

Love is an incredible emotion. It is an emotion that makes me strive to be a better person. Love makes me want to serve others. It makes me want to work hard at the things I am doing in my life. It makes me want to make the bed in the morning so we can have a nice bed to go to sleep in at night. Love makes me miss Utah because I love so many people there. It makes me cry even when I feel happy too. Love makes me realize that it is the only thing I need to be happy. It makes me stay true to who I really am when life gets hard. It is an emotion that makes me want to cook dinner and clean up the apartment. Love makes me be my best.

My love is certainly not perfect. I do not always act on the love that I feel for people. But I am so incredibly grateful that I feel love in my life because it really does inspire me in so many ways. I hope you will be inspired this week by the love that you have for the people around you.

Inspired by Happiness

Do you ever have those moments where everything seems to weigh you down? 

You feel like the whole world is against you for some reason?

Like those days when the car runs out of gas or you burn dinner or you were short with someone

and there is contention (I hate contention) or the internet is soooo slow. 

Or maybe your child woke you up every hour last night and you didn't get any sleep at all.

Or you studied really hard for your test and you didn't get the grade that you wanted. 

Life is full of these moments. 

They seem to happen to me multiple times EVERYDAY. 

This is something I really struggle with. 

When something like this happens to me, I immediately become a negative person. 

I constantly think of how it has ruined my entire day and now everything else is ruined too.  

It is so easy to be critical. It takes so much more effort to be positive. 

This is obviously something I really need to work on. 

Because. 

I do notice that when I choose to be happy instead of critical, 

it makes everything so much better. 

Whatever happened seems insignificant and I am in a much better mood. 

I love the quote above because I really think happiness is contagious. 

The thought of being somebody who is that happy all the time, inspires me to be better. 

So. 

Just for today I hope you will choose to be happy.

Be so happy that when others look at you, 

they become HAPPY too. 

Don't forget to stop by and see what this lady is inspired by today because she is seriously one of the happiest people I know...

Far better things ahead.

-via-

Do new beginnings thrill you as much as they do me?
I love the idea of starting our fresh with something.
Whether it is a brand new day ahead of you or a new semester in school
or even a new car load of groceries that offers new things to make for dinner...
I love have a fresh slate ahead of me.

I have had my share of new beginnings in the last 5 months of my life.
I moved across the country to a place that was completely foreign to me,
into an apartment I had never seen. Bought all new furniture and started
multiple different new jobs. Which by the way, I am in love with my job right now. 
I have met so many new people and made some really great friends.
Moving here has been a fabulous adventure, hard but fabulous.

So... here is to our next big new beginning...we are moving!
I love where we live now but our apartment is SO SMALL...
and we live on campus... and it is so small.

We are going to be renting a town home and I am thrilled about it!
Double the space, more to decorate, off campus and it even has our
own little deck. It is a fabulous price.  And it has a washer & dryer :)

More about our actual new place will come in a month when we move
BUT as for now, I feel really inspired by all the opportunities that lie ahead of me.
I love the quote above and I believe it to be true. We are so happy where
we are but I can only imagine what 'far better things lie ahead.'

Don't forget to check out what this lovely lady is inspired by today...

Husband.

When I was in High school, I made the LIST. Don't act like you don't know what I am talking about.  You know the LIST, the one where you write down every little thing that you want your future husband to have. I wrote a list like this several times in my few young single adult years I had before I got married. I was always adding things to it and taking things away. As I became more 'mature' or closer to getting married, I started to really look at my list and think about what really mattered to me. Did it matter that he loves watching sports? Did it matter that he was a BYU fan? You know what I mean. . .

Well let me tell you. My husband is meant for me in every single way possible. He is the most handsome man I know. Is he a brunette?  Nope. Does he love watching sports? Nope. He has all the things on the list that really matter to me. He loves me for who I am and doesn't try to change me. He has a strong testimony and has a close relationship with God. He loves family. You know, all the important things.

One of the things that was so important to me in my future husband was a man who lifts me up and encourages me to be better. A man who would Inspire me always. Dave does that very thing. He is always inspiring me to be a better person. Work harder. Play more often. Live life to the fullest. Love everyone I meet. Laugh at the little things. You name it, he is always so encouraging and inspiring. He does this for me by being that way himself. He is incredible.

This very day is this incredible man's birthday. I love him with all my heart and I am so thankful for the inspiration he is to me. Happy birthday Dave, I love you!

Don't forget to stop by Elisabeth's lovely blog to see what inspires her this week...

You are unrepeatable.

via / via / via

When I was in young and naive (high school), I always felt like I wanted to be more like other people. I wanted to fit in with the cool crowd and wear the cool clothes and drive the cool car. I wanted to be from a rich family and have the coolest parents that didn't give me a curfew on the weekends. Now that I am sophisticated and mature older and married, I often think about how grateful I am that we are all different. Each of us was created to be our own individual. There is no one like us in the entire universe, what a special thing to sit and ponder. I came across the thoughts above when I was reading through my stash of quotes. I love how the three of them together sum up the importance of being yourself. Everyone around you can make their own choices and be whoever they want to be but YOU get to choose who YOU are. You get to be yourself and no one can mold you into something different.  Today I am inspired by the uniqueness of an individual. It is encouraging to know that I was divinely designed to be just the way I am. This profound knowledge inspires me to be the best SarahJane that I can be. 

Don't forget to stop by and visit this lovely lady to hear all about what inspires her this week...

inspired by: my new birthday

The New Year brings with it the opportunity to start out fresh. With our three week vacation to Utah, our lives have been all over the place lately. Therefore, I am counting tomorrow as our New Years Day. My husband starts school Monday, I am starting a new job and we both are excited to get back into the swing of things at home. Sometime this week I will share more about my New Years goals that will hopefully make my life a little more balanced. 

We have really enjoyed looking back on the year of 2012 and remembering all the wonderful things we accomplished together and individually but there is something that inspires me about a fresh slate. There are so many opportunities that lie ahead of us this year. Whether it be a big trip, school opportunities, time with family, etc. I am thrilled with excitement about it.  When I was contemplating the wonderful things that lie ahead of us this year, I came across this little thought:

Charles Lamb is right on the money in my opinion, The New Year is just like having a birthday.  A brand new year ahead to do whatever you imagine, why not reach for the stars? I am thrilled to celebrate this 'birthday' and rededicate myself to the things that matter most. 

We spent as much time as we possibly could with this lovely lady and her husband while we were in Utah. She is one of my favorite people and I am excited for her to keep me in check of the little things that inspire me each week. If you are looking for something inspiring, stop by her blog today. As for me, today I am inspired by all the amazing opportunities that lie ahead.