Conveying Our Thoughts Clearly

Oftentimes when I try to speak, my words come out wrong and I say something I didn't mean to at all. I end up saying something that people think is hurtful, when my intentions were actually entirely peaceful and uplifting. This is really frustrating for me, because I never want to make anybody feel bad, but I do.
This happened more frequently when I was younger, possibly because as a little girl I got very upset with anybody who even slightly disagreed with me, and then I didn't think before I spoke. Another reason might be that I never enunciated my words very well, which can always cause confusion. Nowadays it just happens when I don't phrase my words in a clear manner.

It also happens in ways that aren't particularly hurtful, but aren't desirable. For instance, I was giving a presentation on Austrian economics in my class today, and when I was asked a couple of questions after the presentation I muddled my answers completely. What I was saying didn't even make sense to me, let alone the rest of the class.

I want to do something about this. I don't want to keep on making the same mistakes over and over, so I'm going to improve my speaking skills. One way that I'm doing this is having a debate club with my little brother, where we meet once a week and debate something, such as whether wearing boots everywhere is a socially desirable thing or not.

This is a problem that I am sure many of us deal with, as it is so easy to slip up and say something we don't mean to, or to not be clear with what we mean. I believe it is something that we can manage with practice. And I believe it is something that we should try to manage as we progress along the path to greatness.

Children of a Heavenly King

 

I found this image on Pinterest. It is so beautiful, and it reminds me of what it means to be a princess. Most of the people that are shown in this image are princesses in the sense of being born into or marrying into a position of earthly royalty, but that is not what all of us need to do. We are all heavenly princesses, because we are daughters of our Heavenly Father, who is the King of all. Please, please remember this:

Remembering who we are will save the world.

"I would charge you to say again and again to yourselves, 'I am a daughter of God' and by so doing begin today to live closer to those ideals which will make your life happier and more fruitful because of an awakened realization of who you are."
Harold B. Lee

(Notes:
I don't know where this image comes from, so I can't credit it. Much thanks to whoever made it. :)
Also, for all of you who are not daughters of God, but rather sons of God, please adapt this to fit your situation. You are incredibly important as well.)

My Garden, Part 2

Good morning!
Three days after I planted them, my pumpkins started sprouting. I wasn't expecting them to come up as quickly as they did, because it says on the seed packet that it should take between one and two weeks for pumpkins to germinate.

They are very, very tall, and have their true leaves now. I had to weed out all but one plant from each pellet, which made me very sad, but I put the plants that I took out in the compost pile, where they might grow.

Lately, the weather has not been cooperating with my plans. A couple days ago, ten days after the supposed last frost date, it frosted so heavily that we couldn't even open our car doors. The other days it has been raining very heavily.

I do, though have my box built. My dad built it for me, and I bought the lumber.
I also have soil to put in it, which I bought when I got the lumber.

My Garden, Part 1 (again)

This year for one of my school projects I am growing a garden. I try to grow a garden, or at least think about it, every year, but it usually does not work very well. (Last year I tried to grow pumpkins, and they grew decently until slugs ate them, people stepped on them, and they got mowed over by a weed whacker.)
So, I'm trying again. I'm going to grow pumpkins, corn, and Calypso beans. Two days ago I started the pumpkins indoors, where I'm going to let them grow for indoors for three weeks.
This weekend, in between sessions of General Conference (which I'm really excited about), I am planning to build boxes to fill with dirt, compost, and old leaves. Next week, I plan on planting my corn. A week after that, I plan on planting my beans.
I'm going to keep track of my garden on here, as well as in my garden journal, because I find that writing on this blog helps me to think about things better, and it is significantly easier to read something that is typed, rather than written by myself.

Here are the words to The Prophet Said to Plant a Garden, from the Children's Songbook:

 The prophet said to plant a garden, so that's what we'll do.
For God has given rich brown soil, the rain and sunshine too.
And if we plant the seeds just right and tend them carefully,
Before we know, good things will grow to feed our family.

 We'll plant the seeds to fill our needs, then plant a few to spare,
And show we love our neighbors with the harvest that we share.
Oh, won't you plant a garden, too, and share the many joys
A garden brings in health and love to happy girls and boys!

Maya Angelou (Guest Post)

I hope everybody had a wonderful Easter, and that they were able to spend time with their families and remember Jesus' resurrection.
A few days ago, I asked my friend Maggie to write a guest post on this blog. She is a blogger on The Green Theory, and on Becoming Maggie. I would encourage you to check out those blogs as well.
I really enjoyed reading her post this week, and I hope you do, too. :)

"Introduction:

Recently I came across a quote by Maya Angelou, and was thinking of what I could write about for this guest post. As I was searching my blog for past ideas, I saw this quote once again. It was, “Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all people cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.”
And so I decided to Google her name, of course. And I saw that her birthday was April 4th. And I was like “Hey! Why don’t I do a post about her, especially because her birthdays coming up!!”
So there you have it. My random yet so meaningful scholarly thoughts!

Maya Angelou & Deep Thoughts and Conversations
Here are some words I’d use to describe Maya Angelou. But of course she, and no one, should be confined to words but acquainted with such words, so that they can rise higher. After all human beings should be more than words, no?
Unshakable.

Faith.

Driven.

Strong.

Lion-hearted.

Lady.

Young.

Single Mother.

Traveler (Egypt and Ghana, Africa.)

Civil Rights Activist.

Scholar.

Role Model.

Poet.

So I guess I hope after you read the quotes below, you can challenge yourself to both inspire and to aspire. Try to write regularly. I haven’t in quite a while, but as I’ve been writing more consistently this past week it's been great! And very rewarding. So just choose to free yourself and your thoughts by writing them down. Be inspired. And I hope you choose to learn a bit more about Maya Angelou, because she’s definitely a great role model. So.. I dare you to dream a little. Inspire a little. Aspire a little. And then go make that magic happen!

“Life loves the liver of it.”---I could seriously spend all day digesting this, just thinking about what she means when she said this. I love doing this. In doing this, I’m in my element!(‘being in your element’ means doing both what you love and what you’re good at.)
When I think of [a] liver, I think of the human digestive system.. Process, challenges, digestion, filter, slimy, organ.
I know we could never be 100% sure what she meant by that. But we can try!
*from ehow.com*

The Anatomy of the liver:

“The liver weighs about 3 pounds, and the main function of the liver is to convert glucose to glycogen and back again if necessary.

Glycogen is a carbohydrate that is used to store glucose, which is used by the body as energy. Through these methods, the liver regulates the amount of glucose in the human bloodstream.”

So I challenge you to think about this, or anything that may cause you to open your mind a bit more, [and] to make you think in depth.

I crave deep conversations. People say I'm quiet, and should talk more, but when I get to know someone well enough, I open up, and usually get to have meaningful conversations with them.
The other day my brother (10years old) and I were sitting on the trampoline talking. And I decided to try having a deep conversation with him. I wasn’t sure how mature he was, or if he would just act silly about it. But I gave it a shot. And surprisingly he took it well and actually responded with depth. I was so happy, [as] not many people my age (14) can carry on a deep conversation! And that frustrates me sometimes.
I was trying to think of what we could talk about. So I asked him what he thought about rain (lol),where it came from, what (in an artistic and slightly silly sense) was it. And so we talked about it, him giving me answers, looking at me like ‘duh, anyone should know that.’ But then I would challenge his thought and say ‘well but doesn’t this…’ or ‘what about that..’ ‘how is that possible..’ ‘explain why..’ And we decided that in the artistic/silly sense..
Rain comes from the suns sweat and goes into the clouds. Then the clouds sweat, because of the hot temperature of the sun.. And then gets dripped onto the earth. And when people are being all dramatic in Movies..kissing in the rain, dancing in the rain etc. They’re really dancing/kissing in the clouds sweat. Ew. Gross! Haha. Well I guess that’s as deep a conversation you can have with a ten year old, but it was still pretty cool. He’s definitely got an imagination!
So, truth is I love deep conversations and even if their silly ones, they still have meaning and I think their important to have.(Imagination takes a huge role in the silly ones!).. Because its not good to be a shallow type of person. After all, you want people to take you seriously.

Some of Maya Angelou’s deep thoughts:

“My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.”

“My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.”

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

“Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.”

“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”
“ My life has been one great big joke, a dance that's walked a song that's spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.”
“I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.”
“At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.”
“The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.”
“How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!”
“The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.”
“There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.”
“Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.”
“Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.”
“I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.”
“The sadness of the womens movement is that they don't allow the necessity of love. See, I don't personally trust any revolution where love is not allowed.”
“For Africa to me... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.”
“There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.”

“It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.
One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.”

“If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love. “
“Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.”

“I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.”

“I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.”

“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”

“All great achievements require time.”
“Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.” "