Count Your Many Blessings, Name Them One by One

This morning I woke up feeling especially thankful to be living this life.

I am thankful for

my really comfy bed - a heater - electricity - comfortable yet fashionable sweaters - music - food - my car - my humble apartment - this gentle winter - fuzzy socks - chapstick - perfume - my little cactus

On a more serious note, I am thankful for

a country in which I can vote and get a job and practice my faith and go to school and not worry too much about my safety and and and....

friends who give me great advice and remind me of who I am and allow me to embrace that weirdo.

a body that can climb four-story hills and several flights of stairs each day to get to class.

a university where I can expand my mind and my faith.

medicine that gets me through the many sicknesses I accumulate in the winter.

technology so that I can stay in touch with people (and so that my mom can text me about how she FaceTimed with one of my nephews and he asked her where "Missa" was).

a family that cares so deeply for one another. My parents are awesome and my siblings, despite the age differences, are my best friends (in-laws included ;) )

the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is truly the center of my life. Loving others and serving them is the most important thing in this world because A) every human is important and B) that is how we show our love for God.

Happy Friday!

And it really is just that -- a happy Friday. The apartment is clean and smells like my favorite candle (Voluspa's Goji Tarocco Orange from Anthropologie), the dryer is on which means clean clothes, I nailed my physics test, and I got paid! Woohoo!

This morning I woke up to a sweet little text from my friend Juliana along with this picture: 

Little does she know (hey Ju!) that this is something I have been thinking about a lot lately. Happiness and success are choices that I can make for myself just by putting myself in the right frame of mind and the right surroundings. Which is whyyyy I have been focusing lately on: getting more sleep, making better food choices, exercising regularly, and studying hard. Because I'm a college student, my happiness depends a lot on how I am feeling health-wise and how I am doing in school. Lastly, I finally decided to move at the end of this semester! I'm one of those weird people that likes to change stuff up every once in a while and I'm looking forward to meeting new people and making new friends for the spring term (May-June)!

If you made a New Year's Resolution, are you keeping up with it? Or has it already faded? Or if you're not much of  NYR person (like me), that's okay!! Setting goals or making changes can happen any time of the year! Just remember that everything starts in your mind, and that if you want to be happy, you'll have to make a conscious decision to be so!

Happy Friday y'all!