Beginnings: 2014.

This new year's eve was spent on top of a mountain in St. George, listening to music around a glowing fire with the best company. At midnight we joined in with the echoing countdowns from eager people on nearby streets, and shared in a long moment when fireworks exploded all over the valley. It was better than any party.

Ever since I started posting my new year's resolutions on my blog, I've gotten exponentially better at keeping them. It's incredible and you should all try it. Or, if you don't have a blog, just write them on your arm every morning or something (free tattoo). I recently learned that to really round out your life you should set goals in four categories: mind, body, spirit, and personal. Consider it done.

Mind
• Work on keeping my knowledge of French intact by watching one French movie a month and reading something in French at least once a week. Speak French (or French/Creole...) with someone twice a month for at least 20 minutes.
• Lower stress, produce creativity, and increase knowledge by practicing the guitar at least twice a month for at least 30 minutes.

Body
• Increase physical strength by working out 5-6 times a week for at least 15 minutes. This can include strength training, running, yoga, biking, swimming, hiking, or any other strenuous physical activity.
• Improve overall well-being by drinking lots of water, eating well, and getting enough sleep. Carry a water bottle everywhere possible and plan out meals the day before. Don't skip meals and get at least 7 hours of sleep a night.

Spirit
• Study the scriptures for 10-15 minutes every day. Set aside time to do this and be present during these few minutes.
• Visit the temple at least 6 times this year.
• Spend at least 5 minutes a week in meditation in order to let go of stress and be grateful.

Personal
• Become more present by leaving my cell phone in my bag and on silent in social situations such as parties, group conversations or one-on-one conversations, and church or school whenever possible. When I get the urge to pull my phone out (or distract myself any other way) because I feel uncomfortable or awkward, resist that urge.
• Celebrate small victories such as getting a good grade on an assignment, submitting applications, getting a to-do list done, or making it through the day. A celebration can be a private dance party, making a sparkling cider toast to myself, finding someone to high-five, or anything else that makes me happy. Do this at least once a week.

Let's do this, 2014.

Endings: 2013.

Time for that annual blog post called "see how I failed at my new years resolutions." This past year's resolutions, big and small, were as follows:

• Do 30 minutes of cardio at least five times a week. This definitely didn't happen. But I'm not super out of shape either, so I can't complain.
• Only drink soda on special occasions. Done. Pretty sure I only drank soda for headaches or 16 hour shifts at work. Plus a couple Martinellis at Christmas or something.
• Spend less time on my computer and phone and more time in real life. I probably did okay with this, especially in the summer. I definitely underestimated the amount of time I would spend writing papers this past semester.
• Eat healthier. I did this a lot more than I have in the past. Basically I can't afford to eat out all the time so I got forced into this one. 
• Visit my great grandparents once every two weeks. Ugh, I'm the worst.
• Take time to do things for other people. This one is a struggle because I'm so busy (which is not a good excuse), but I did pretty well overall!
• Take risks, come out of my comfort zone, and grow as a person. I've done a lot of this, especially with my job at a treatment center. I've made a conscious effort to work on my communication and be more open in relationships. It's hard for me as a quiet, independent person, but I'm doing well.

You win some, you lose some. Resolutions aside, though, this year has contained some awesome memories and amazing lessons, every minute of every day. Here are the best memories and the most important lesson of each month, along with some of my favorite pictures.

January

Memory: Reuniting with my Plato's Closet friends for dinner before all of us went our separate ways again to missions, college, or [real] jobs.

Lesson: Don't ever curl your hair with straws.

February

Memory: Ellie Goulding concert! (The first of many.) She's amazing. I'm so in love with her.

Lesson: Trying to trick your friends into giving you birthday presents four days early doesn't work. Especially if the day four days before your birthday happens to be Valentine's Day.

March

Memory: Spring break in Bear Lake with old and new friends, where we pretended to have fun on the beach but it was actually covered in snow and we weren't prepared. So we went back to the cabin and played "gang up on Shannon in ultimate spoons."

Lesson: March Madness is the worst thing that can happen to your life.

April

Memory: Meeting Colby at Smashburger when I was the biggest nervous wreck imaginable and therefore managed to say phrases like "oh good, you're a real person," "did you know they sell key lime pie at the Dollar Tree," and "one time I had to book an event for a porn author." Glad that turned out.

Lesson: Don't ever trust anyone with the name soulfulofluv on OkCupid.

May

Memory: Getting a new car and sadly saying goodbye to the old reliable Darth Evader. And then going to the Real game and eating cake.

Lesson: Save room for cheesecake at Cheesecake Factory.

June

Memory: Going to California with Colby which entailed going to a wedding, hanging out with his nieces, and playing on the beach. Aka five days of heaven.

Lesson: Don't let me get starving-level-hungry and then drive around for an hour before finding food, because I will rage. Who knew.

July

Memory: Governor's Honors Academy for sure. Ten days of life lessons, spending time with the coolest kids, touring national and state parks, and making lasting friendships.

Lesson: Getting very little sleep and working from sun-up to sun-down for ten days straight will cause you to get bronchitis for the next three weeks, stomping on your dreams of running a half marathon this year. Take care of yo'self.

August

Memory: Spending a whole carefree day hiking the Narrows in Zion National Park with Colby. Despite some weird old man stalking us through the whole thing without us knowing, it was one of my favorite days of the whole summer.

Lesson: College goes by way too freaking fast.

September

Memory: A very eventful scavenger hunt in Kanab with the girls I work with. And throwing my awesome roommate of three years a surprise [sober] 21st birthday party.

Lesson: Going for a lot of bike rides and runs to avoid stress about graduate school does not actually avoid it. But it does help a lot.

October

Memory: Colby's mission reunion and a haunted house made for one very interesting and fun weekend in Salt Lake City. Plus, later in the month was homecoming containing Hellogoodbye, the roughest 5K in my lifetime, true t-bird night and my last football game as a student at SUU (sad face).

Lesson: If you're going to Colby's mission reunion with him, don't expect to ever come back.

November

Memory: Is there really any better memory than Thanksgiving with my family? If you haven't heard that story, read it here. Plus there was the jazz game and playing pranks at Temple Square. Good times, good times.

Lesson: If you get embarrassed or offended easily, don't ever meet my family.

December

Memory: Lots of Christmas parties, especially one particular ugly sweater karaoke party where I [badly] sang Adele, Justin Bieber, and Britney Spears. Followed by multiple family Christmas parties which are a whole other story.

Lesson: Writing all those papers would have been worth it if I actually got the 4.0 I wanted. But since my senior transcript is stained by one sad little A-, I should have thrown in the towel long ago. (Jokes... I love that A-.)

Overall, 2013 has honestly been the best year of my life to date. I can't wait to see what 2014 has in store. I think it's gonna be good.

Wish list or something.

Are you sick of aimlessly Christmas shopping with no idea what to get for your friends or family? Does the prospect of ordering another lame tie from Amazon make you ill? Is your mother tired of receiving lotion or soap every year in her stocking? Well ache no longer, gifts.com is here to help.

On gifts.com, there is an incredible feature called "Personality." Yes, just Personality. Calling it something like Personality Gift Finder is just too long and would make too much sense. "Personality" is an amazing service that can help you find gifts for your loved ones by simply answering a few questions about the person. Personality will then accurately find gifts that this person will love.

When I heard about gifts.com, I just had to try it. So, with my mother in mind, I answered all the questions for a middle-aged woman. Unfortunately, my mom is a cool, down to earth person who actually does not need another pair of ear buds or a personalized birthstone dog tag. However, when I decided to answer the questions for myself, gifts.com hit it right on the nose.

My own "Personality" results were just what I thought they would be, with 35% professional, 35% spiritual soul, and 30% hipster. And luckily for me, gifts.com suggested (multiple times) the exact thing I've been missing from my life: a novelty tea infuser.

And just when I thought it couldn't get any better, I saw the one thing they could never have suggested unless they knew me and my Personality on a deep, deep level.

Wow. Just wow. If you need to find the perfect gift, I recommend gifts.com every time. It's truly incredible how well a website can know you, just from a few simple questions. I hope your holidays and merry, bright, and gift-shopping-stress free.

How to survive finals week: A guide.

Supplies:

• healthy snacks (granola bars, veggies, trail mix)
• water bottle (reusable - save the environment)
• scantrons and $0.50 to buy extra scantrons in case you lose/bend yours
• Indie Holidays playlist on Pandora
• textbooks and all your notes from the whole semester
• scratch paper to doodle/plan your ideas on
• tbirdnation.org or SUU Confessions open in a tab for your study break distractions
• ugly sweater

Step One: Go to the library. You can't get studying done outside the library. Trust me, I've tried. Set up your station on the third floor with your computer surrounded by notes, books, snacks, and water. You'll probably see your friends there but put in your headphones (playing Pandora of course) to get rid of the temptation to talk to them.

Step Two: Actually study. Bury yourself in those notes and learn, learn, learn. Or, if you're writing a paper or doing an assignment, make yourself work on it for 30 minutes before taking a break. Repeat.

Step Three: Take a break. Read tbirdnation.org or SUU Confessions to entertain yourself, walk around, say hi to one of your friends who is also taking a break (don't distract your friends who are working). Give yourself a time limit on your break and then get back to work.

Step Four: If you find that you can't concentrate at all and you're getting nothing done, head over to the PE Building and go for a jog. It will relax your mind and make it easier for you to concentrate when you return.

Step Five: Chances are, during finals week you'll be invited to at least one ugly sweater party. (I'm going to one tonight.) Allow yourself to go, at least for a little while. Ugly sweater parties are awesome.

Step Six: Get enough sleep. Then study some more.

Step Seven: Ace that final! You've done all you can and there's no reason to stress about it now. Don't forget your scantron, be confident, and walk out of there with your head held high. You did it!

Lessons learned on turkey day 2013.

My family has no shame.
It's Thanksgiving morning and the phone rings.

      Me: Hello?
      Grandma: Shannon! Oh, thank goodness! I need help! Bring Colby! I ruined the stuffing!
      Me: Oh, um, okay. We're about to leave.
      Grandma: Hurry!

Upon arrival in Bountiful, we are ushered inside to the helpless stuffing and my boyfriend goes on to not only fix the stuffing, but also carve the turkey and make gravy from scratch. Cue my cheeks to flush from embarrassment.

When the turkey is finally carved (and seasoned), it's time to eat.

      Grandpa: Shannon, you can say the prayer since you and Colby are running the show. (?)
      Chorus of children: Yay Shannon! Woohoo! Go Shannon!
      Me: (prays)
      Mom: (after the prayer) Did you even bless the food?
      Me: (blushing again) Oops. Don't tell anyone.

Thanksgiving dinner, luckily, goes smoothly. But next is the family Minute-to-Win-it tradition, except without the timer. Last three people to complete each game are out.

Game 1: Toss marshmallows into your partner's mouth. Colby and I win in two seconds flat on the first try.

Game 2: Slide a cookie from your forehead into your mouth without using your hands. I beat this one in about a minute. Everyone else slowly makes it in. Colby is still struggling. Blake is yelling pointers at him at the top of his lungs. It comes down to the last four. Finally he does it. Isn't even happy.

Game 3: Blow a bubble with really crappy bubble gum. I'm around fourth on this one. I learn that Colby doesn't know how to blow bubbles with gum (at all). He's out.

Game 4: "Water pong." (self explanatory) I win this one easily.

Game 5: Move sixlets by sucking them in with a straw from one cup to another cup on the other side of the room. I'm the last person to qualify on this one. Literally cannot breathe by the end and have to sit down because I'm so lightheaded.

Game 6: Hold a popsicle stick in your mouth and stack 6 die on top of it. I own this one. On to the final round.

Game 7: Hold a tennis racket between your legs and move a bead into a marked square. I get destroyed by my aunt who does this before I even move. Kiss the fame goodbye. I still can't breathe thanks to game 5.

At this point, Colby's pretty upset because he can't blow bubbles, I'm about to pass out due to lack of oxygen, and the day is only half over. I get dragged into a game of children's bingo while everyone else gets to relax. "Pay attention Shannon!"

Finally, we eat pie. Chocolate is greater than pumpkin.

Can't forget the other family tradition of adult bingo, though. I already won a Duck Dynasty novel from children's bingo but oh, that's not all. Adult bingo is still on the schedule and destined to last at least 14 hours. Children keep talking over the numbers being read, "prizes" are being rapidly traded or given away, and rules are changing by the second. At the end, I have acquired salt and pepper shakers, a fake rat, and a Post-It note handbag. Colby has a diary, a foreign sun hat, and a women's RSL shirt. (I was pretty stoked about the latter.)

It was definitely time to go. Thanksgiving was a pretty wild time.
And the fact that I still have a boyfriend amazes me.

How being a senior is not like being a freshman.

Sometimes I wonder how I ever became a senior in college. And then I look back at my life as a freshman and I'm like "oh."

Freshman year:

• Somehow have all the money in the world even though you have no job. Let's totally drive to Vegas, back to Cedar, to St. George, and then to Salt Lake all in the same week and pay for all the gas.
• Craziest social life ever. Stay up until 2 a.m. watching your friends play Call of Duty until they finally let you play and then ridicule you the entire time and then never let you play again. Or watch all the Paranormal Activity movies in a row on the floor of a dorm room. Or wander around Walmart in the middle of the night for no reason.
• Be an idiot about dating. But all the older guys are into you because you're so cool (*clueless)!
• Never have homework. Or maybe you do have homework but you never do it? Or you just have no recollection of doing it because you spent too much time watching Call of Duty and now your brain is fried.
• Don't go to class but also don't fail class. Freshmen never go to class and they're totally fine! How is that even possible? Also what do they do when they're not in class?
• Eat a ton of food but never gain wait. Freshman 15 is a total lie. I could eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted and I felt super great. Dining hall all day every day.
• Go home in the middle of the school day and take a nap. After all, you just live right across the street! And what else do you have to do?
• Keep the same backpack all year. You don't have any heavy books to carry. Most of the time you barely need a notebook, let alone your laptop. Sometimes you use your backpack to hold an apple you took from the dining hall.

Senior year:

• Work two jobs and never have money. Oh, you're going out for ice cream at Carl's Junior? Let me see if I have an extra 50 cents in my budget this month.
• No social life whatsoever. Sleep, eat, school, work, homework, sleep, repeat. And on the weekends, watch an entire season of New Girl on Netflix and don't talk to anyone unless it's your neighbor's cat.
• The only person you think about talking to is your boyfriend. At least you're not that clueless about dating anymore, I guess.
• Do nothing but homework. Write eight essays in two weeks. Oh and do a project, and write a speech, and then two more projects. But hey, also don't forget about your grad school apps.
• Go to every single class and have a full fledged panic attack if you have to miss a class for any reason even if it's valid. Oh my gosh did we have a pop quiz? What if I don't have the notes for the next test? Maybe the essay was explained and now I'm going to have no clue what to write. Life is over.
• Eat nothing but healthy food and work out for an hour every day and still gain weight. I swear I just ran fourteen miles so it's all muscle weight right? I knew I would never recover from eating all those crepes in France. But also... worth it.
• Stay at the school for at least 12 hours every day. There are a million essays to write and also who can afford the gas it takes to get home and back an extra time?
• Break two backpacks in the first three months of school. I don't understand why this $15 Urban Outfitters bag can't handle holding my laptop, five textbooks, and a massive planner. What a rip-off. 

Okay, okay, senior year isn't as bad as I make it out to be. It's actually a lot of fun! But it's definitely no care-free freshman year. I can't believe I only have one semester left.

College. Yikes.

This time of year can get crazy. Finals are coming up, projects are due, and you're trying to apply to college. Here's a list of ten pointers to follow when you're getting ready to submit those applications.

• DON'T panic. Deciding to go to college is a big step, especially if you're not sure exactly where you want to go. But don't worry, it will all work out. The more you panic, the more unnecessary stress you will put on yourself.
• DO apply to more than one school. Even if you do know exactly where you want to go, it's not wise to put all your eggs in one basket. If you don't get in to your dream school, you will want to have other options.
• DON'T only apply where your friends are going. If you actually want to go to that school for good reasons, go ahead and apply. But don't just set your sights on a school that might not have your hear just because all your friends want to go there. College is a new start and a good time to expand your circle of friends.
• DO apply to schools that you love. Even if it's not your parents' top choice for you and even if you won't know a single person going there. My choice fell in both of those categories and it worked out pretty well. In the end, where you go to college is about you and your life.
• DON'T wait until the last minute. Applications take time, and the sooner you get yours in, the better chance you will have of getting scholarships and other opportunities. SUU's priority scholarship deadline is December 1st, which is just around the corner.
• DO take your time. Most schools require essays as part of the application, and you definitely want to take the time to make sure you write a quality paper and don't just throw it together to get it over with.
• DON'T only look at schools online. Call or email your admissions counselors, talk to your teachers at school, learn from people in your community about their college experiences and what they recommend. 
• DO visit the schools you are thinking about. Take a tour, attend a class, get to know current students and what their life is like. At SUU, you can sign up for a campus tour any weekday and there are tons of upcoming events for high school students.
• DON'T worry about committing yet. Applying to a school and being accepted isn't a commitment until you make it one.
• DO attend events to gain more opportunities. For example, SUU has leadership weekends that showcase all of the leadership organizations on campus, and just by coming you will be placed in one. Many other universities have similar opportunities.

I know applying for college can be crazy and overwhelming. The thought of moving out and leaving your home and your comfort zone can be terrifying, but I promise it is worth it! I wouldn't change or take back the experiences I have had at SUU for anything. Don't worry. You'll make it.