Me Time

I'm not usually a post without pictures type of girl, but I've just been thinking a lot today and had to write some of it down. One of my favorite things in the whole world is running. I always used to laugh at women that said that because I thought "oh please...who would ever enjoy exercise." I started running in high school and just did it to get the exercise. Then I ran at BYU and it started to become more of a stress relief for me. Now I love to run because it is the best kind (and usually the only kind) of Me Time that I get.
I have to run before Rusty leaves for work in the morning, which is actually ideal because nothing beats running in the morning. I have always been the type to run alone. When I moved to BYU and my roommates offered to run with me I always found excuses to run alone. It is my perfect time to reflect and think...which people think is odd because I also cannot run without my music. It seems like music blasting in your ears would be one of the best ways to avoid reflecting and thinking, but I think for me music is one of the things that helps me reflect the most. I started thinking more about it today and I've realized that there is basically a big soundtrack for my life and I'll give some examples:

"Never had a dream" will always remind me of my first boyfriend
"Jump" by VanHalen takes me back to cliff jumping on the boat when I was a kid
Anything by Ace of Base or Amy Grant will forever give me images of the music videos I made with Emily
"Landed" by Ben Folds puts me at a used car dealership in Orem, UT
"Luckiest" takes me to a park in Kansas City, Missouri
"You and I" by Michael Buble reminds me of dancing with Rusty in my dark living room to hide from my roommates because it was after midnight and he wasn't supposed to be there
"Down" will always remind me of dancing with Sisser at Foxwood because we didn't feel like working out...and we ended up with way more sweat than working out would have produced
"Spin me right round" takes me back to dancing baby Mya
"Nine in the Afternoon" reminds me of playing rockband with my fam and then walking up to campus when I was big and pregnant with Avey
Anything by Dashboard Confessional puts me laying on the floor of my first married apartment with Rusty in Baltimore
"Soul Sister" by Train makes me tired from all the nights we listened to the radio while working on our house here in Redmond...

And the list goes on. The power of music in my life is amazing and I haven't even begun to list songs that are tied to spiritual moments for me. I have a great appreciation for music and I hope that in the eternities when we're all watching the big movie that is our lives I'll be able to purchase my life soundtrack after the show...