I just dove into poverty...

One day I was driving along in my old non-functioning Volvo s80 and it hit me, I am getting a new car. I wrote down how much I make a month and subtracted all the bills I have. I don't have too many because I am technically living with my parents. So, after all my bills were paid I figured I could afford a car payment. (It's been 6 years since I've had one) That's all I could afford though. I had to talk myself into poverty because if I did it I knew all my fun extra spending would be done for. Driving a reliable car that didn't take $50 to fill won me over. Plus I figured since I will always be straddling the poverty line I better not get used to having a little spending money.

My new joy in life is a 2007 Prius. He is black and so so nice! He can stay silent under 5 miles an hour! I love it even though I know Dave Ramsey would be way disappointed in me...

God works in Mysterious Ways!

A little over a year ago I said a prayer.
I prayed for the opportunity to help someone.
I have been so blessed in my life. I have love, health, family, shelter, God, direction, goals, dreams, hope and faith. Knowing that my life is for the better because of my blessings, I felt it was my duty to, in a sense, pay it forward. Those are the thoughts that preceded this plea to the Lord to guide me to someone in my life who I could help in any way He needed.

This prayer changed things. The first thing that it changed was me. Since I was praying for this opportunity, I decided that I had to do my part by talking to others and being receptive to the needs of those around me. At that time, I had a co-worker who was a real nice, outgoing, and happy person. He was the last person I thought would be the answer to my prayers.

As I got to know him I saw that what I knew of him was just an outer shell of happy. I remember times that we would talk for hours and what I saw in him was unhappiness. The way he explained his life felt like he was following a path he didn't really want to be on but didn't know how to get off or which path to get on if he could find a way off.

I am LDS/Mormon and have worked my whole life to find my personal beliefs and discover that God has great potential for His children. The plans I know He has for me are above my highest expectations. Finding this out for myself has given me purpose and drive. So, as I sat and talked with my friend it was overwhelmingly sad. How could someone with such a good heart just let his life pass him by because he didn't know any better.

Ok Lord, you answered my prayers and showed me someone who needs help but now what am I supposed to do?

I prayed a lot the months that I was trying to help my friend. The Lord blessed me to see a glimpse of the great man my friend could be if he made the decision to leave the path that was easy, to one a little more rocky but definitely more rewarding.

This friend of mine has parents who belong to our church and he was actually baptised when he was 8. Shortly thereafter, their family stopped attending church. They were taught of Christ and standards to live by, but as my friend grew up he lacked the opportunity to grow his faith. Through much persistence and some bribing, he started going back to church.

It has been an amazing experience to see someone come to life through faith in God and Jesus Christ. He changed. His outer shell of happiness became a core of happiness that exuded out to those around him. After many steps, challenges, changes and prayers he became a new person. He is actually getting ready to serve a mission for our church and will leave in a month.

I bring this story up because yesterday, his 17 year old sister got baptized. People get baptized all over the world into all different religions every day, but hers was especially special to me because I could see the answer to a prayer I made over a year ago.

As I sat in a crowded room of friends and family, I looked at my friend and his sister and I had a very special moment. The thought went through my head that God must really love them and there is something special about them, because out of everyone in my life, God chose them to be helped. In no way am I tooting my own horn for this, I just mean to say that God had me thinking one sleepless night about my blessings, which lead to me praying to be able to help someone else, which lead to me making this new friend, which lead to his life changes, which lead to his sister getting baptized, and countless other thing God was then able to do that I don't even know about. Then, I thought if God loves the two of them that much, He loves all of us THAT much, and He loves me that much.

Needless to say that last night was very special for me. I have a strong faith in our Heavenly Father, but last night as I had that thought and feeling I just knew He loves us.

What is a Gus?

Change is good.
At least that's what I keep telling myself.
And that is why I am changing my blog's URL.

I started my blog two years ago, Tuesday August 12, 2008.
I had every intention of blogging every Tuesday, so I put my URL as
Thoughtful-Tuesdays.blogspot.com.

Well, as my favorite line of a song says "the road outside my house is paved with good intentions". As good as my intentions were, it didn't happen. Chalk it up for another failure...

So, as to rid myself of the weekly reminder of my failures, I have decided to change my URL. I know that I may lose readers for this, but it was a much needed change! (Plus, according to Google Reader, I have 13 followers... so hopefully I can keep the whole bakers dozen!) I am sorry for any inconvenience this may cause, but I think this is exactly what will spice up my blog and motivate me to become blogher worthy for next year.

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When you see:
Mind of A Gus
You may think, "what does it even mean?"

Today, my blogger friends, you will find out.
{However, I am quite sure I probably know all 13 of you followers and you'd already know, so this would just be a waist of both my time and your time, but in the event that there are readers who I don't know, I will commence my explanation.}

Growing up I loved to watch the classic Disney Movie, Cinderella. In small ways I related to Cinderella and loved to fantasize that my ending would end up like hers. {Still, to this day, I would love to have a shower via a soaked sponge twisted in the air above my head by two beautiful blue birds.}

I'll cut to the chase because there is no real need to go on and on for my love of that film. I will instead call your attention to one character that I also related to {even more so than Cinderella}, Gus Gus: the newly initiated, naked, chubby, and unacquainted mouse.

So innocent and happy, full of gumption and love.

Poor guy, he just didn't know the ways of the world.

The clincher for knowing Gus and I are MFEO {Made for Each Other} was when he went outside to pick up some corn kernel and had to pick them all up. He got his little chubby arms so full, he had to use his teeth to balance everything.

Yes, he had good intentions to take the food back and not have to go through the trouble of distracting cats, dogs, and chickens so often. But, good intentions don't always have good outcomes...

As, you can see, he lost all but one lousy piece of corn that probably won't even fill his tummy.

I have always been a go-getter. I was raised to have high expectations and not settle for mediocrity in myself. This lead to accelerated high school classes, concurrent college classes during high school, band, religion studies, a job... As a direct result to that, I always was in a hurry and had a lot of things to carry. Books, a flute, Scriptures, my work uniform, lunch... so a common sight was me walking from one class to another, or my car to the lockers, loaded so high with my needed paraphernalia, that I often looked like Gus Gus.

I still tend to keep myself fairly hectic all the time, and when I am too overwhelmed I recall those days and claim that I feel like Gus Gus.

Thus, I am a Gus.
And my random posts are what you'd find in the Mind of a Gus.

Euphoria

I just had the perfect moment of euphoria.
This moment came as I got in my car to come to class tonight.
It had rained all day and finally got down to 69 degrees so I decided to sport a sweatshirt for the first time this season. That alone could have evoked my moment of euphoria but it wasn't.
Bath and Body works just came out with their fall line of scents which means that I could get a refill for my car air-freshener and I got "Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin".... mmm

Can you imagine that?
Cold and rainy,
Sweater attired,
and Christmas sent filled nostrils!

It was perfect... until I looked down and saw an all too familiar sight


Check Engine
No Oil Pressure stop car now
No Gas

Need I say that the distance between euphoria and dysphoria is small! ! !

New York, New York!!!

Two months ago, I was in New York City with my dear friend Camille.
We went for the BlogHer conference that was held in Manhattan.
As you know from reading my blog, I am no devout blogger and really had no place with an entire hotel full of die-hard, devout, multi-weekly bloggers.
I did learn a lot and walked away wishing I had the motivation to blog more.
Our days were jam packed with blog related workshops, panels, food, and parties. You might ask why I went... well, my heart has a firm devotion and love to Broadway. As busy as we were, we found time to sneak out, stand in line, and buy tickets to at least one show.

After a very confusing confrontation with the ticket booth lady, Camille and I walked a block back to the hotel with our tickets in hand.

Our sneaking, waiting, and confrontationing, was well worth it because we got student rush tickets to Promises, Promises. This is a very new show and only few have seen it. We were privileged to not only see it, but see it in New York with it's original cast.
WHAT A STEAL!!!


Bazinga! That is not the real steal we walked away with... After the show, Camille and I waited along with hundreds of others to see Kristin Chenoweth and Sean Hayes in person.

There, in the blue shirt is Sean Hayes himself.
and....

yes, this is her in the flesh!
She signed my Playbill and said "you're welcome" in response to my feeble "thank you".

This in an experience of a life time and it only cost me 30 bucks!!!

1/4 of 100 years old

This morning I was thinking what to write in a Birthday card to my dear friend Camille. And it reminded me that after high School, we went to Disneyland together. It was the best time I ever had at Disneyland. No lines, eating pp&j while under the protective roof of Pirates of the Caribbean, eating Rosa's tomatillo salsa in the car, pulling over for imagined flat tires, finding random dentures, eating free oranges, and splurging to eat at the Blue Bayou.

We said that we wanted to make a tradition of coming when we were 25 and then every 5 years after.

I am turning 25 this year.

That sudden reminder brought a waft of melancholy over me today.

I remember the imagined 25 self and to see the actual 25 year old self is a little...

It's a love hate relationship...

I remember the day my life changed, like it was yesterday. (Now envision that the remainder of this post is in a hazy dull colored memory cloud)

My best friend was down from good ol' Alberta for the summer (ironic, I know) and we were doing a little shopping. We were at Ross looking for some steals and my phone rang. It was my brother, Adam. He said he was getting an iphone and wanted me to go in on a family plan with him.

Just the thought of having my very own iphone made me forget that I am up to my eyeballs in debt, have a job that pays me way less than I had hoped, have never paid my own cell phone bill, am no longer receiving student loans and will need to start paying those back come January. So I said yes without hesitation (actually, there was a little hesitation but not quite enough).

Now, I am a proud owner of an iphone 4.
I made this purchase on a whim, knowing that my house is a black whole for cell phone coverage. We had to cancel many contracts because we couldn't handle all the missed calls.
I just prayed that we would get coverage with At&t. . . that was to no avail, because I have lost just about every call I have ever taken inside my house. This is no fault of the cell phone (I know it has a bad rep on the consumer report) and all to do with At&t. I haven't lost calls anywhere else but inside my house. Let me tell you, this is FRUSTRATING.

Frustrating enough to give back my iphone?
NO
Frustrating enough to collect my FREE case knowing it won't help my situation?
YES!

To make up a little for their bad rep, my pal Steve announced that he'd give everyone a free case:

If you purchased an iPhone 4 before September 30, 2010, follow these steps to receive an iPhone 4 Bumper or a select third-party case from Apple at no charge.

1. Download the iPhone 4 Case Program app from the App Store.
2. Launch the app on your iPhone 4 and sign in using your iTunes Store account or Apple ID.
3. Select your Bumper or case.

For iPhone 4 purchases made before July 23, 2010, you must apply no later than August 22, 2010; otherwise, you must apply within 30 days of your iPhone 4 purchase. To qualify for this program, you must purchase your iPhone 4 by September 30, 2010.

I followed these instructions.

This was the easiest free thing that I have ever acquired! No driving all around town with coupons, no early morning garage saleing, no "with a little paint...", just one itsy bitsy tap of the finger and POOF! A free case.

The hardest part was deciding which to get. You see, I believe it is a tragedy to cover any part of the iphone 4. It is beautiful! Have you seen it? It is sleek, smooth, shiny... WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD COVER IT UP???

I wanted a clear bumper case. But there wasn't one, so I decided to go with the clear wrap around case. How could I go wrong, it's free?!

The official price tag at goincase.com is $34.95. Or in other words 41 Diet Dr. Peppers from QT.

*** This post is in correlation with Camille over at Archive of Our Lives.

The end of an era...

Awesome Steal of the WEEK!!!

After reading I Heart Monster's steel of some books a or so ago, I was reminded that I needed to pre-order my Mocking Jay book!

Promptly I ordered it.
Got it on sale for $8.50
AND got free shipping just for pre-ordering!

As if that wasn't a good enough deal as it is, It was the best deal to come home on a bad day, having totally forgotten about ordering it and have it sitting there ready to cheer me up! .

Have I Eaten? Have I Prayed? Have I Loved?

Has every step of my life really been taken blindly?

Sometimes as I go from step to step it seems like I'm getting on and off the bucket seat of the haunted mansion ride at Disneyland. It just flows one, even, steady, emotionless speed. The path has an array of aesthetic effects but the flow stays the same. You can start and never stop. The beginning is a running start and the end (if you recognize it) is a running jump. If there weren't an employee there to tell you to get off you would literally go on for ever in the same melancholy motions. on...see...hear...feel...repeat...

Every decision in my life, I haven't had to make, things just happen. High school comes and goes, friends are placed in my path, job opportunities come, applications to college are accepted, favors are asked, love is found, love is lost, money is given, money is taken, rules come and go... I always just took it as fate. They offered me the job? I have to take it, fate gave me this opportunity. I got into that school? Well, I have to go there, the fates want me there. So-and-so likes me? I have to like him back, the fates want it.... If fate didn't want these things to happen, they wouldn't have come up. RIGHT???

It's almost like I'm a horse that takes people on the same path every day all day, and today, I am boringly taking it again. Today though, I get done with one round and feel this overwhelming sense of excitement that today will be the day for my real adventure. Only to find out it's the same dang path masked in a tropical climate or a fancy outfit.

I read today that "it's better to live your destiny imperfectly than live an imitation of someone else's life perfectly."

I think that up to this point in my life I have lived an imitated life as perfect as possible and don't have any clue what MY destiny is.When I try and imagine a change in speed or a directional change that would enhance the ride, I don't know what I'd do or even if I should do anything different. I really don't know who I am. What do I love to do? What are my passions? What would make ME happy? What makes my life, MY LIFE?