From Start to Finish

Happy New Year Readers!


I wondered if an obligatory end of the year post is necessary. But if many of you are like me the end of the year is time for reflection of the past year. I am not a big New Years Resolution type. I set them and usually don't even do them for one day!! haha. Let's be honest that is the way it usually goes. I do spend time thinking about where I started though and how I got to where I am, for better or worse here I am.


This year, wow, to think about it is a lot to take in. I first wonder where this year has gone. It is the end of December. It is snowy and cold, and the next time I will see the warmth and the beautiful sun for an extended period of time will be spring. When the year started I thought this year was going to be different in so many ways. But how different this year turned out. For one I didn't expect to have Gallbladder Surgery!! It was a year of hope, of faith, of tears, of disappointment, of good friends, of living life.

I remember at the end of 2009 I was looking forward to 2010. It had much to offer. New friends, service opportunities in my church, and most important to me Love. It was my year. He was coming home. No more letters to write, but they were to be replaced with, as I hoped, phone calls and visits. Cuddling, first kisses, and realizations that life was finally going in the direction I was ready for. But as I said before. This year didn't go the way I hoped, the way I could only dream. Some dreams made in your heart, in dreams, and even on stars come to pass. Others don't. But either way I was and am changed. I am different. Somehow I feel stuck between what could have been and what is to be.

I love Music. I love to sit at a piano and know that when I hit a set of keys together in rhythm I get music. Lyrics too, often say the words that my heart longs to write but is unable. I was listening to Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten". It reminded me that the future ahead isn't written for me yet. I don't have a path so set out I have no choice as to where it leads. That to me is the beauty of the future. It scares me often to have no idea of where my life is going. But I love the idea that my path is there to be written. My story only has one author, and I am it, I am the main character and life is the plot. I want love, life's thick plots will provide it, whether or not it is returned in one way or another is the plot of life. I want new friends and opportunities, I can be sure the life's plot too will write that into my life.

I look back, I see how I have grown, how spiritually I had to have faith when faith was hard to have. When things I was asked to do didn't and still don't make sense. I see now things I did not see then. Often hindsight is 20/20. I have grown, I have become someone different then Keri of 2009. I am older, and maybe even wiser. I think today of where my life has taken me from, and where is has to take me to. This year is over. The heartache of this year is over. Next year may be a different story, one filled with love or one filled with more heartache. I don't know yet. I do know this. Life no matter who you are always has something to offer. Someone is always watching out for you, And though sometimes life's little moments get you down, tomorrow is a new day to write your own story. To become who you want to be. I can see myself today. I already know what I plan to change for the coming year. Not as a resolution but as a real life change. As a girl who writes her own story.

What will your story be?

Christmas Time Again~

Merry Christmas Readers!


I love the movie Polar Express, the boy hasn't seen Santa, he has been told, seeing isn't always believing. He wants to see, but he has to believe first! By believing he hears the bell, he catches the attention of the big man. In the old version of Miracle on Thirty fourth street the little girl didn't find her gift under the tree, her mom tells Susan that sometimes you have to have faith and believe even when it doesn't make sense. This season is one of belief, one of faith. Faith in mankind, being a little softer, a little kinder, a little nicer.


I have been thinking about this idea of faith, of Santa much. As a child I was so excited for Santa to come, I never realized how absurd the idea of a man in a flying sleigh was. I was a child, I has child like faith in him to come, to bring me the desires of my heart. I wanted dolls, watches, teddy bears, and usually got much more. I of course have fabulous parents who love me dearly. But why do we put our faith in men with white beards who bring us gifts that lay broken after a time, or outgrown after time. I think of the real reason for Christmas this morning.


Christmas is not about Santa for me anymore. It hasn't been in a while. I find more joy in the giving then in the receiving. But I think today of the reason we celebrate this season. The ultimate gift giver. We celebrate Christmas today because of the birth of our Savior. The story of his birth hold miracles, of a virgin mother, who gave birth to her child, angels announcing his birth, stars shining brightly in the sky. And wise men searching for him from afar.


I know the stories of those who took part in the birth of our Savior, you read them in the bible, but I often think of the Wise men, why were they wise? What made them search out the Savior of the World? What faith they had to follow the signs of his birth, to look until they found him. Do we look like the wise men? Do we seek him today? Our world is so easy to get lost in. Technology, Violence, Sexuality, all the enticing things the world has to offer side track us. We too could get lost on our way to the Savior. But as the Wise men do we seek his path, the signs that lead us to his path?


My year didn't happen like it was supposed to. I thought this Christmas would be different, I was going to have love again. Something I had sought for my entire life. He was going to come home and it was going to be perfect. I had faith, I believed. But Love isn't a gift brought by Santa, wrapped in bows and shiny wrapping paper under the tree. It is given freely, to those around you. Sometimes it is given back in return, sometimes it is not. Sometimes you feel impressed to act, to love someone. Sometimes you think things will work out in a way that makes your life change, and sometimes things don't work out the way you thought but your life is changed anyways. Love has a funny way of doing that. See Love is the reason for this very season. Out of Love our Savior came to earth. Out of love he gave himself as the ultimate gift for each of us. Like in our own love we can choose to accept it, or pass it by. Are we like the wise men? Do we seek him, his love? Or are we like those who pass love by? Do we let his ultimate gift lay wayside because we do not seek him?

I know Christ is the Reason for our season, I know the wise men and women throughout the world reach search for him everyday. He is my Savior, the Savior of our world. He came to earth as a baby, his birth was celebrated and today we have a choice, and my choice is to choose him. To have faith in his plan. Trust him. It will work out. Merry Christmas and may the new year bring all of you peace, happiness, and love!

Nightmare's and Loneliness

Good Morning friends!


Every had a morning where you wish you could turn your brain off? Where you could crawl back under the covers and go back to bed, hoping the feeling of despair you are feeling just might go away? Well welcome to my morning. It is bizarre I haven't felt like this in a while.

I am not a fan of loneliness, and even less a fan of loneliness at Christmas. I thought for sure something would be different this year. I loved him, I waited, I knew things would work out just right. But here I am today, two weeks until Christmas, nothing changed, and I still love him, I am still lonely. Sometimes it feels like everyone else has someone. Like nothing will change, like I will always feel this way. I hope that isn't the case that something will change, that I won't always feel alone, that I will have someone special to shop for. That I won't feel the heartache, and the yearning, and most of all feel like I miss him.

Second why does the inner turmoil you feel manifest itself in dreams? Sometimes he is there and it is taunting me, like I cannot have him. Last night was the worst, he was together with another girl. But if that isn't bad enough I was caught in the middle of it! I was so upset in my dream, and when I awoke I realized how real it felt. How hurt I felt. I couldn't shake the feeling I lost him, lost him forever. That meant my brain wouldn't turn off. Instead continued to think of the possibilities of him never realizing that he loves me. That I am his girl. That he doesn't want to give back the heart I gave him.

I hate feeling like this. I am not one to be stuck in a rut, but I am in one. I always thought life would be easier, that I could make sense of my heart. But hearts are not something to be made sense of. They are to be listened to, and only in listening does someone come to understand one's own heart. But that is not to be confused with making sense of it. Understanding why it feels the way it does sometimes. Happy in good times, sad, scared, afraid. You learn about you, about your heart, about your strengths, your weaknesses and your worries. My weakness, impatience. I am ready for answers, ready for life to move forward. I know I can do that with out a man, with out him, but I do not want that. I want my other half, my best half, someone to finish my thoughts, who knows how I think and why. I want someone who can make me smile, to hold me in the hard times, who hurts because I hurt, to dance with me in the kitchen, and I am ready for it now.  Ready for all that comes with it, the good, the bad, the hard, and the easy. Ready to not have nightmares of loosing him to another girl, ready to not feel lonely like I do today!

Live, Laugh, Love!

Welcome to my super thought highway!!

Today I am thinking about the memories of days gone by, and maybe even yearning to do them all over again!! Last night was a great night! I got to get together with a group of friends who I made the fondest memories with! These people became some of my dearest friends! Last night we got together before my friend Stephanie got married. Talked about how Adam got stuck in a train door in Rome, reminisced about Taylor running to boat yelling policia so the people would move, while Dr Money straddled the Dock and the boat so the guy wouldn't leave Taylor, I remembered the nights spent wondering beautiful cities all over Europe, and most importantly being grateful for wonderful experiences and friends to share them and the memories of them with!

This morning I find myself trying to wish myself there again! To live those memories over again, not changing a thing! It seems so perfect looking back. The late nights, early mornings, burning the candle at both ends really, but it was perfect! Whether it be the underground ghost tours, and being pinned to the wall by the a terrified Vanessa; or jumping from a 3 foot brick wall (my idea of course) and when others worried of getting hurt, me scoffing the idea any one could get hurt jumping from a three foot wall. But you ask who got hurt? Why of course it was me who went tumbling head over heals, down the hill, laughing, wound up with large bruises! But would I do it again? You Bet!! Everything seemed so perfect, even the weather cooperated with our trip! It never rained on our parade! I would do it again in a heart beat.

But today we are all different, some married, some graduated with jobs, some soon to graduate. Those times are gone. New ones instead take their place, new memories to make, new friends to be had. But we take with us things learned from the past, things to being to the new places, new friends, and most importantly in our hearts to permanently stay. For me this experience taught me to love more deeply. I was thrown into a group of people I hardly knew, and in days we became life long friends. We still talk, know about each other, are genuinely interested in each others lives and hoping we find the happiness we all search for. I never experienced this with such a large group of friends. I learned to have faith. You leave all familiar faces, and places and leave for a places you hope to find happiness. I had some doubts, I felt going to Europe on the study abroad was right, but I couldn't shake the doubts, I had to trust God, that he want me there, have faith he would take care of my familiar faces at home, and take care of me where I was. I also had to find faith in my friends, that they would love me, see me, and befriend me like I wanted to them. It was nice to have my faith fulfilled, deeply fulfilled. I learned to have faith in myself. I often let myself believe that there were things i couldn't do. But I could and I can! I found that out climbing the in the beautiful Swiss Alps!

Life is about experiences, you learn to love, you learn to live, you learn that each experience inherently changes who you are as a person, makes you better, makes you stronger, makes you see the world hopefully for the better. You cannot hide from the world, you have to live and experience it! It will change you for the best if you let it make you better! Though I often remember my days of old with fondness I look to the bright new ones with enthusiasm hoping for the good they have in store! And one day to be back in the lovely streets of London and the mountains of Switzerland!