Some of my favorite picutres

Photography by Ella Johnson

An experimental poem:

One day I was having fun looking for a poem to work with my speech when
BAM!!!!!
I found a poem that kind of worked.
So I coppied and pasted it into my document when
BAM!!!!!
I realized it didn't really work. At all. So I rewrote it.

Imagine: by Rev. Stan Howse (original poem) Imagine what it would be like To accept and believe That all the good our Father has Can never be achieved Through all the striving that we do. To make ourselves "worthwhile".

Imagine we could hear Her Voice say,
"All mine is yours, my child.
I love you, not for what you do,
Or say, or try to be...
I love you just because you are you
While imagining you are me."

Imagine, if you can this day
God's in you all the while,
Imagining Himself as clay
As Father, Mother, Child.

My version of this poem (It isn’t very similar)

Imagine what it would be like

To accept and believe

That all the glories from life

Are already achieved.

Imagine we could hear a voice say,

"You've made it to the end of trials,

You've passed the final test,

No more running fast paced miles,

I know you've done your best.”

Though this can be imagined,

It will never come to pass,

Unless we put in the effort,

And mold each link in our casque.

For armor doesn't come just because we are brave enough to fight,

Nor does a typewriter appear because we want to write.

We must put in the effort,

To change into something new.

The sky must be filled with blackness, before it turns bright blue.

P.S you know you want to look up the word casque.

P.P.S. my version of the peom doesn't work in my speech either but hey free poem.

A Halloween poem (I know it's late)

None of us know everything.

So, then there is many things we do not know,

Mystery, secrecy, investigation.

Fear.

Not knowing, means not believing.

No understanding.

No love.

A void.

And we are afraid of it.

We are afraid of voids, afraid of the unknown.

We are afraid of not understanding or being understood.

We fear the absence of love.

We fear not being able to believe in something.

We fear the unknown.

Mystery, secrecy, investigation.

Thrills, Dauntlessness, Haunted.

Darkness, Chills, and Fear.

How selfish we are. 

When I stepped out my door....

...pictures happened

Photography by Ella Johnson

Cold = love hate relationship (and nice pictures)

I <3 shoe pictures

Photography by Ella Johnson

Books, books, books.

Photography by Ella Johnson.

Light and Dark

Hopefully you can catch the symbolism in this poem:

Every morning
growing with light
Every night,
is filled with dark
Neither of them
are at all pretend.
Light and dark
will never end.

-Ella Johnson


AND I took two pictures for you: (that may or may not work with this poem, you decide :)

Photography by Ella Johnson

Little boy

Freckles sprinkled across his face,
Fiery indignance fills his pace,
Mischief is spread wherever he goes,
Many try, but he is difficult to enclose.
This one little boy,
these two crooked eyes,
look back at his mother,
a lion in disguise.

Photography found on Pinterest :)

Two kinds of beauty

Habitats collide to harmonize for only one being.
The mute could finally whisper, hearing the waves.
Fresh moss, salty wind, and wildlife.
-Ella Johnson

Photography found on google :)

Gods Nature

Everything is at peace when God sends his friendship
through the trees.
How perfect is the way you can shake hands with nature,
it's hand you warmly take in greeting
and you let it kiss you on the cheek

Who could ever hate such a beautiful thing?

-Ella Johnson

A tree (poem #2)

Wrinkled with history,
Splintered from strength.
Gifted with green stars,
That contrast the blue fishless tank.
It started out just a sapling,
And seemed to grow quite quick.
Yet years have gone into progression,
Years to become thoroughly thick.

Trees are planted with purpose,
As God has made trees to be.
Purpose in cracked burly branches,
Supporting children so they can climb their favorite tree.
And if you tip your head so slightly,
It's beauty is worth marveling at.

Purpose in blocking us from the striking sun,
And a wonderful playground for fun.
Not only do trees rough branches,
Give us all of this,
But sprouted from water and sunlight,
Are walnuts aching to be picked.
The biggest purpose perhaps of a tree,
is the ability it gives us to breath.

Purpose breaths out of all of it's wrinkled splintered burly skin.
And if we breath in a tree, those breaths will be absorbed within.
And then,
Perhaps we,
Will be breath just like a tree.

-Ella Johnson

If Only.....an original poem

If only we
could compare ourselves
to a tree.

-Ella Johnson

Daydream Technique

This is a writing technique that I found very useful and it helped me better understand the scene when I had thought about it for a good ten minutes.

Gertrude walked past houses, looking exactly like one another, and blending in with the fall colors. Black, brown, grey, cream, and dead (which is all of them combined of course.) The dark road was the only black thing in sight, yet there seemed to be a blackness in the air. One could see the darkness of it by watching the way it tickled the trees, and then ferociously slammed into them, knocking off what little leaves they had left. For Gertrude, this wind could only arouse goose-bumps, and push her forward, as the wind always did in the fall, reminding her of the real darkness that she had yet to defeat. She saw the color of cream in the sky, being a very pale day, the blue friendly heavens were hidden by clouds that couldn't decide if they wanted to be gloomy or not. Nor could they decide if it was going to rain.

Gertrude observed all of this in her usual rhythmic pattern of marching, listening to the leaves crunch under her boot. Perhaps she was listening a little too keenly though, because it wasn't until something got extremely close, before she recognized the sound of more leaves being crunched directly behind her.

"What a felicitous day for me to find you here Gertrude."

New Beginnings

And old ones....
This is for the short story I am in the process of writing.

Beginning #1 (aka old one...... be prepared, it's terrible):
Gertrude was an extremely unordinary girl. In her perfect neighborhood, going to her perfect school with a perfect principle and the principles perfect daughter,, she was almost an outcast. people didn't judge her, (they were perfect after all) they only thought ill of her. Gertrude didn't mind. She took it as a compliment. Even her looks stood out from the others. She had wonderfully blond hair, that twisted and kinked until it rose above her shoulders. She still had most of her baby fat hanging off her cheeks and wrists. Her height was far below average, resting at about 4ft. She wasn't particularly smart, unless you count having very large opinions and being mature for your age as smart.

Beginning #2:

Nothing was quite perfect.

Lawns were mowed, houses cleaned, school learned, and life lived. But... Something wasn't quite perfect.

Parking lots were painted as often as the borderlines of a soccer field. Traffic was hethenistic and therefore it never transpired. Curling irons were used everyday to coil hair in the most optimal shape. Life was perfect.

But it wasn't.

There was just the right amount of people in this specifically ideal neighborhood. With many imperfections, it was perfect. It looked perfect therefore it was. The people looked perfect therefore they were. In this absolute neighborhood there was a girl. And she was different.

Let me restate, she was immensely peculiar and unordinary. She was this way, only because she chose to be. Her name was Gertrude.

Blind date writings

"Hi! You must be Ivy."Steve stated excitedly to a black haired beauty. He swore he'd seen her before.

Untying his apron, he stopped trying to remember where he'd seen that face, and asked Ivy to wait while he requested a table from Charlotte.

Yes, he worked at Applebees the blind date location.

Yes, this would mean he only had to pay half. (woot woot)

Charlotte requested he follow her and Steve grabbed Ivy on the way.

They sat down at a corner table and ordered their food.

"VOILET! That's where I recognize you. You didn't happen to be the model for a character in that cute animated show called the Incredibles that can do force-fields and invisibility???"

"Ummm no."

Yeah maybe her looks were throwing him off, she hadn't gone through the whole transformation to being shy to not being shy wearing headband asking her school crush out on a whim phase like Violet did at the end. Man.... what a great show.

"Oh ok, don't take offence from that, personally I think violet is one of the cutest animated characters."

Ivy's face obviously told him that was the wrong thing to say. But she must have been playing hard to get, come on, what girl doesn't like a compliment like that?

This was going way too great. :D

"hi you must be ivy." A brown haired skinny waiter stated to Ivy as she walked into a Applebees.

Let me restate. He was a waiter. The apron and everything.

Ivy wanted to sprint out of this building and delete all her social media accounts since some random waiter knew her name.

"I'm gonna get us a table. Wait here." He stated again.

Oh. JK. This was only Steve, her blind date. Overacting. But she wanted to sprint out of the building all the same. She would keep her social media accounts though, she liked those a little too much.

Being whisked off to a table, she hoped she wouldn't have to do any of the talking. Curse her roommate for setting her up!

"VOILET! That's where I recognize you. You didn't happen to be the model for a character in that cute animated show called the Incredibles that can d-"

"ummmmmm no."

"Oh ok, don't take offence from that, personally I think violet is one of the cutest animated characters."

Ok never mind. She wouldn't mind doing ALL of the talking.

Girls don't like awkwardness, and even if this calling her cute was a nice, it made things awkward. Awkwardness on the first date should be avoided at all costs!!!!! Who remembers compliments on your looks anyway? Weren't dates meant to become attracted to the inner beauty?!?!?!
She had been set up with a confident ignorant arrogant boy. Or as she liked to call them the CIA's.

He needed to order eight chickens instead of that salad. Of course she was just being judgmental but gosh, he had given her the license for it.

My opinion of books

Books can be incredibly beautiful.
If you are reading a great classic, (even though it's hard to get through chapters sometimes,) in the end it's %100 worth it.
When people say reading a book is an adventure they aren't kidding. It's literally your own little personal adventure to read them.
And no. Not because your reading an adventure.

Before I explain myself let me grace you with my very long definition of adventure.

{ad·ven·ture}

Adventure, is something that is hard sometimes, that's exciting, and hard. Really, really, hard. And boring. And not pleasant most of the time. And sad sometimes. But through it all, after the sadness and trouble and heartache, at the end, it's all wrapped up in the most overwhelmingly meaningful package of fulfillment and satisfaction. Trials make you stronger, we say, (at least I think we say that) but when I say it I believe it. (Not saying that other people don't believe it when they say it.) Adventure does have it's bits of excitement and joy. But, when it ends you must always reflect on what you've witnessed and went through and you must always realize your love for ALL the heartache and unpleasantness because otherwise, your adventure wouldn't be an adventure at all. And it would be anything but beautiful. This. IS adventure.

That was probably the longest definition you've ever read. You did something new today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *happy dance and or laugh of excitement*

What does that definition have to do with actually reading books you say? (Or you think in this case)
Well, when your reading a book most chapters are hard to get through. Most pages are full of bore. There might be glimpses of a glorious ending, but glimpses are all you get, and they are very short indeed. You don't have desire to check the end for assurances that the torment does in fact end, because you have every intention of persevering until you finish. Because you must, for you know if you don't, it will not be nearly as beautiful. Nor will it be glorious.
(This statement is hardly true, (unless you are someone with integrity born inside of you) but I'm only comparing the actual reading of books to actual adventure.)
So, you wait in torment.
And you plow through, learning to relish more. And. When you actually and finally make it to the end, after you've read paragraph after paragraph,

you read the last sentence. You witness the books last breaths, it's dying words. And you just have to let the tears stream freely, in perfect contentedness.
Oh didn't it live a good life that book!
And you fought with it ever moment so that you can feel the power, the meaning, the fulfillment, and the satisfaction of those last words that make everything so utterly beautiful.

This is my opinion of a true book. These are what make readers everywhere understand that books are truly an adventure.

Real books are incredibly beautiful.

And I will give you my opinion of fake books later. :)

We must conquer the fear of failure

This, Is the very first speech I wrote.

I have recently read a book called Do Hard Things, in it, it explains an inspiring story about a girl named Clara. It reads; “Clara was born in Oxford, Massachusetts, on Christmas Day 1821. She was the baby of the family, with ten years separating her and the next youngest. Clara was so terrified of strangers that she was hardly able to speak to them. But then something happened that would change her life forever. When she was eleven years old, her older brother David fell from the roof of a barn and was seriously injured. Young Clara was frantic and begged to help care for him, and once in the sickroom, she surprised everyone by demonstrating all the qualities of an experienced nurse. Little by little, the doctor allowed her to take over all of his care, with his complete recovery lasting two years. A year later, at the age of fourteen, Clara became the nurse for her father’s hired man, who had come down with the small pox, and then she went on to more patients as the epidemic spread through the Massachusetts village where she lived. Still shy and timid, Clara’s willingness to serve drove her to overcome her fears.

One of the leaders in the LDS church, Dieter F. Uchtdorf, once said; “No one likes to fail… but we mortals do not become champions without making mistakes.”

It has been shown by the National Institute of Mental Health that 74% of Americans are afraid of public speaking. This comes as a one-second shock to you, because after that second you realize that maybe you are afraid of it. Or your friend is afraid of it. Or your sister is afraid of it. It is the most common phobia in the US. But, lets just think to ourselves for a minute, and say “why? Why are 74% of americans afraid of public speaking?” … Well, we can all guess the answer to this. We don’t want to be embarrassed, or, socially rejected, right? But to tie all the reasons into one, lets be honest and say; we are afraid of failing.

No one likes to fail. It’s completely understandable. Who likes to feel embarrassment, failure, and rejection? We avoid feeling these at all costs.

But, has anyone ever told you that failure is bad? We must understand that in this world we must do what is good for us; not what we desire to do.  Failure is good for us.

In fact; Failure enables us to learn ten times more than success ever would. Success is not reachable without failure. When you fail, it might put you down in the dumps a bit, but we learn so much from it! You might feel like everyone is laughing at your failed attempt, you might feel like you are being shunned, and even if you are, what a great time to prove everyone wrong! You could either quit your speech and debate class, because you don’t like embarrassment, or you could grow up to be one of the best public speakers in the world, who knows?

Thomas Edison failed 10,000 times before he created the light bulb… Just think about that, 10,000. Edison did not say on the first try: “Oh man. I thought it would work. This was a waste of time. I am never going to show my face in public again.” Though the average American might have said this, Edison obviously did not. He was not discouraged by the 1st or the 10,000th failure.

We do not understand this concept, yet the heroes from the past have mastered it.

Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper company for lack of ideas. He also went bankrupt seven times before he was able to build Disneyland.

Rodin (the sculptor of the thinker statue) was always being told by his father; “I have an idiot for a son” Rodin also failed three times to get into the school of art.

When Jon Huntsman was young, he lived in a cardboard box. He is now famous for his container company, and he is now also a billionaire.

In 1954, after one night of performance by Elvis Presley, Jimmy Denny, told Elvis, "You ain't goin' nowhere… son. You ought to go back to drivin' a truck." Elvis Presley then went on to become the most popular singers in America.

And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street, was Dr. Seuss’ first children's book, it was rejected by twenty-seven publishers. The twenty-eighth publisher, sold six million copies of the book.

These are people that have mastered the fear of failing. We must understand what they understand.

“The road to success is paved with failure.” This concept is repeated in history, in books, and in everyday life. We must learn from them, that’s the reason they are there. We must learn from people like the sculptor Rodin, Dr. Seuss, and  Walt Disney. You don’t have to be an amazing sculptor, or publish a book, but if you can mimic their embracement of failure, it will enable you to do something just as incredible as that.

”If you learn from defeat, you haven't really lost.”

-Zig Ziglar

A great poet once wrote:

“Sure, sometimes you will face struggle
And yes, sometimes you'll even fail
However, it's those that stumble and continue on
That will conquer and prevail
    Still, once you've reached the top
You're bound to fall and retreat
Yet, the key to obtaining success
is to get back on your feet
    So give it an extra effort
Don't hesitate or refrain
Because without some type of loss
There will never be any gain”

You might go away from this speech saying; “Why should I conquer the fear of failure?  Its hard and awkward, and sometimes I just want to live life as it comes, you know, go with the flow."

That is not what I want you to think.

Because if we don’t do things because we are afraid of failing, we will never ever grow. If we are let the fear of failure be in control we will lose opportunities to gain success. If we don’t do things because we are afraid, we will never live up to the potential that God has put us on this earth to live up to. If Clara did not care for her father’s hired man she might’ve never talked to a stranger in her life, and she most certainly wouldn’t have developed the talent that God had given her. If Edison didn’t conquer the fear of failure, we probably wouldn’t have light bulbs today, and Edison would live his life being laughed at for believing he could make light out of a piece of glass and horse hair.  If you don’t go say hi to someone new, you will never be able to say hi to the girl in the corner. And if you say hi to that girl in the corner, she might grow up to invent a new form of wifi that actually works..... who knows? If we let the fear of failure be in control, we will never do something as a first. We will just do what we have done all of our lives. The result? If we do the same things we have always been doing, we will be the same person we have always been. Not growing or getting better at all. If we do not conquer the fear of failure, we will go back to heaven being practically the same person that left. And if you never conquer the fear of failure you might live a comfortable life, but not a meaningful one.

Failure is part of life and must become our friend. I am sure we have all gotten to know it somewhat. But we must embrace it. Invite it in past our welcome rugs. Maybe feed it some cake. Invite it to sit on the couch. Have a friendly conversation with it. Go out to get some Little Caesars with it. We know it will be hard. Failure wasn’t meant to be easy.

I am 100% sure that Clara, did not regret nursing that guy who had smallpox.

Because…. Clara went on to be the founder of the American Red Cross...Clara Barton. Her willingness to serve led her to care for her brother. Then the sick in her town. To the people in the Civil War. Then to thousands all over America. And finally millions all over the world. Clara conquered her fears and then some. It is up to us if we will be as brave as Clara was. We have to decide if we will do something as little as giving up on our speech and debate class. Or if we will go talk to someone we don’t know. If we will quit soccer because the team is four years ahead of us. If we decide to conquer our fear in something as simple as that, it can determine whether something as big as publishing a book, producing a movie, or even saving millions of lives, is possible. We can and will conquer the fear of failure, no matter what stands in our way. We are all at constant war with ourselves, and it is up to us to decide if fear is going to win, or if we are.

“So give it an extra effort, Don't hesitate or refrain, Because without some type of loss,
There will never be any gain.”

First post

Hi! Welcome to my blog of disorganized spouting's/rantings/opinions/writings. This is where I create stuff. It's super fun for me. Creating is one of those things that makes me smile, specifically in the form of;
Writing (instead of talking things out, I write them out. I have a harder time expressing myself vocally.)
Crafting. (One time I totally made myself a temple recommend holder out of pure packing tape... it was awesome.)
Designing. (Namely on Photoshop :)
annnnnnddddddd that's about it. I am going to spout off a few more facts about myself.
My favorite color is purple.
My favorite animal is a turtle.
There is a fast food place in Lehi-ish that is called the purple turtle and is now my favorite restaurant.
I can make my tongue look like a three leaf clover. (I would show you a picture but I feel like that would be socially unacceptable.)
My favorite symbol on a keyboard is the parenthesis. (If you cant tell)
I used to have a crooked tooth (it grew in with the back showing in the front and the front showing in the back... yeah, that crooked.) but the dentist put a little diamond brad thing on it and every night I had to hook on elastic on the brad and my retainer.... and now my tooth looks perfect!
The rain is my favorite.
I actually don't like words. (Can you believe it.) They overwhelm me most of the time.... and that's why the thesaurus is also my favorite.
Two favorite time periods:
Pioneer. (Laura Ingalls)
and Ancient Greece and Rome.
I love learning about history but this also overwhelms me.
Wait. Hold it.
I have a confession to make.
School/education in general overwhelms me. (Not just words and history.)
Why? Because every time I learn something it just depresses me because I will never know it all. Why try, you know? (Now you know my deepest darkest secret.....jk)
K. Now I have a story to tell.
One day driving home from seminary, I was talking to my father. Our conversation went like this.
MYSELF: It's kinda depressing that you can never know it all.
FATHER: I don't think so, I think it keeps things interesting, you can always be learning and always be discovering knew things even when you've already got your college degree.
Something like that.
And that was probably way too short to even call a conversation.. anyway moving on.
When my dad shared his wise opinion, I was thinking, Oh MY! What I just said proves I am a selfish perfectionist that can't even dance in the rain instead of waiting for the storm to pass. Obviously NOT the person I want to be. Who wants to be caught not even listening to the quotes on your own Pinterest board? So I wrote myself up a Education Manifesto so I could figure out for myself some stuff.
So now you know a lot more about me.
And Congrats! You've made it to the end of this very long disorganized post.
It's your lucky day. 


ps. I have a question, if you put a sentence in parenthesis
would you put a period after it, or not? It's really bugging me :)
Bye!