Life update...

Where has the time gone? Life seems like it just passes me by and before I know it more than half of the year is gone.

School has been going great; I cannot believe I am almost finished with it all. I have been working at Two Rivers High School (WSD’s alternative high school) this semester for my English practicum. It has been a different experience than I have had in the past, which is a good thing. I have learned more than I ever imagined.

I haven’t been doing much of anything, besides school. It seems like that is all I have energy for. I should know by Thanksgiving where I will be placed for student teaching. I also have been working on an application for a job that I would start when I graduate. I don’t want to say too much about it and get my hopes up, but I am pretty excited about the life changing opportunities that it would bring.

Well, this is all I have time for. I will try to keep updating this blog with what is happening in my life. Also, I will hopefully be posting about my next story soon. I have been working on it for a while now, and I am just trying to find the time to finish it up.

What do they have, that I don't?

There are people within my life that I have come to look at differently the past few years. As I have developed the love for genealogy, I have come to discover who my family is and where I fit in with them. I have also come to realize what type of people some of my family members are, unfortunately.

Lately, I have been trying really hard not to complain or talk badly about people, but a person can only take so much before something needs to be said.

So, here it goes…I grew up with two sets of grandparents, whom were very different from each other. My father’s parents were not part of my life for the most part. My grandfather died when I was about seven years old; therefore my memories of him are minimal. The few memories I do have of him are ones that I wish I didn’t have; he scared me to be completely honest.

When I was younger, grandpa and grandma Burton spent their time in Arizona, because of the cold weather. So, it limited my time with them. When they were here in Utah we didn’t spend much time with them either. I don’t know exactly what happened between my dad and his parents, but in a sense it feels as if they disowned him. I remember wanting to spend time with them, but I was often denied this opportunity. There were several times when I would call and ask to sleep over or do something with them, but they had other plans or were having my cousins sleep over. This lead to me losing connection with them and eventually losing a desire to be a part of their lives. It also caused me to develop ill feelings towards my cousins. To this day I struggle with the time my cousins had with my grandparents, and the relationships I lost out on.

When my grandma Burton died, I was about fifteen years old. When she passed I was angry: angry at her, angry at my grandpa, and angry at the rest of my family who got to know her. I felt like I had been cheated in life. I often questioned what I did to my grandma for her not to love me or want to be with me. What did my cousins offer her that I couldn’t? My aunt tries to compensate by telling me that my grandma talked about me all of the time and always wanted a relationship. The tough part with this is my aunt doesn’t realize that statements like that don’t help, they make it worse. It tells me that my grandma did love me, but wasn’t willing to put in the effort. I believe that if you truly do love a person, then you put forth as much effort to be a part of their life (something my grandma never did).

Like I said earlier, these feelings of anger towards my grandma is something I have been dealing with since her passing. As I have worked on genealogy, I have learned a lot about my grandparents, but mostly I have learned that what I thought I knew about them wasn’t true. Working on genealogy has also been great to help me deal with these emotions that I have been harboring. I actually felt like I had been making progress, until a few weeks ago when my cousin posted a picture on Facebook. You see, the picture was of three of my cousins and my grandfather at a grandparent’s day lunch at school. While looking at the picture, the man they were saying was my grandfather didn’t look like him. My dad even questioned my cousin about the picture. My cousin’s response was, “for reals?”—yes for real! I have thought a lot about this picture since it has been posted and also the conversation my dad and cousin had. It made me realize that the reason it didn’t look like him, is because I didn’t know him. I didn’t recognize him, because he would never have been seen at my school supporting me, so why would I believe he would do the same for my cousins. This became just another reminder of what I missed out on, and how different my aunt’s family and my dad’s family were treated.

I hate that I am envious of my cousins and that I still have these feelings about my grandparents. I know that my cousins couldn’t help that my grandparents treated our two families differently. I guess I just wish that my aunt and cousins would stop being so blind to the fact that it happened. I know it must be difficult to view people you loved in a different light, and accept that they didn’t treat everyone like they treated you. Maybe one day I will be able to forgive my grandparents, but until then, I will keep working on it.

I'm not that girl...

I have the need to vent and luckily not too many people read this blog, so I feel comfortable doing it here.

I value the person I am. I feel like in the last two years I have grown as an individual. I have more confidence in myself than I have had in the past. I believe in my abilities and feel like I have the skills to do anything that may come my way.

However, the past week I have been questioning myself and allowing others to get me down. I don't know why I have allowed them to bother me so much, but everyday I leave my class feeling even more discouraged then I did when I walked in. There are a few people in particular in my class that have a way I making me feel stupid. Everything I say they have a rebuttal. The issue is I know that I am not stupid, I know that I am meant to be a teacher, and I know that I am much stronger than I am appearing. So, why is it bothering me so much? Why am I feeling so insecure and wanting to throw in the towel? Why am I feeling like I'm back in high school--not feelin good enough?

I don't know if all of this is a lesson I need to learn in life, but I am feeling pretty insecure right now. I am hoping to find the courage somewhere inside of me to fight through this semester. I know I will get plenty of opportunities to work on this since one of the people who makes me feel this way is my partner during my teaching.

Well, that's it for my rant. Besides learning how to teach English, I guess I will be learning a lot about myself too!

The Beginning...

I have started another semester at Weber State University! My classes are grouped together in a block and we treat them as one class rather than four different classes. It is an English block, we are learning about how to teach writing, reading, poetry, and grammar. I have been learning so much and it is only week three. Each activity/assignment we do is something that we can apply to our own classrooms in the future. Also, during this semester I will be teaching again. We call them practicums (next semester will be my student teaching). It will be for five weeks and I will be in a teaching team. My group consists of me and two guys and we will be teaching English at Two Rivers High School. The cooperating teacher sounds amazing (far better than the one I worked with last semester)! I am sure I will learn so much more, I will be sure to blog how things are going.

In my classes we have been discussing ways to get students to write. One of the options is to present prompts, but we also need to allow students to have ownership of their writing. This means that there are days that they will have free-write. It was asked, "What do you do with the student who says they have nothing to write about?" My professor, Dr. Butler, talked about a literary autobiography timeline. It is a timeline that shows what you have read, what you have written, and important moments that involve reading/writing throughout your life. She said you have students create one of these in the beginning of the year. Then, when a student says they have nothing to write, refer them to choose something off of their timeline.

Of course, we do every idea that is thrown out in class. So, we created our own timeline. Then, we discussed them in small groups. Our group decided what they wanted to know more about and we had to write a short little thing. I wanted to share mine, since it is about how I began writing (it is only a rough draft, so there might be errors).

The Beginning

Everything in life has a beginning—chickens begin as eggs, flowers as seeds, and stories as thoughts. My love and passion for writing was no different, it too had a beginning.

The year was 1994 and I was in the 3rd grade at Roy Elementary School. My teacher, Ms. Higgs, began class by telling us about a contest our school district was having, “a contest each and every one of you will be entering into.” she stated. Ms. Higgs proceeded to tell us that the contest was a reflections contest. That we would need to write a story that went with the theme: What if…. The story was to be worked on in class and at home and right before we submitted it we would read them in front of the class.

I remember feeling so little and not knowing how to write a story. I also felt obligated to write, I was the type of student who did as they were told. I was too afraid of getting a failing grade. So, I did as my teacher asked and began to write words down (even if I didn’t know how they were supposed to go together). As I wrote the story, I would ask my parents or sisters how to spell certain words or what words meant in order to get my point across.

Eventually, I created a story. For not knowing what I was doing I was proud of myself; I knew that I created something unique. The day came that we were to read them in class, before students started to read their stories Ms. Higgs asked us if the process was difficult. I remember kids talking about the struggles they had—they didn’t know how to create characters, how to create ideas, or even how to create the words they needed. While I struggled with the words, everything else seemed easy to me. The ideas flowed like electricity through my body.

As I stood in front of my class, I read the title: What if… We Ate Dinner in the Bathtub? My story was about a boy whose world was turned upside down. His family ate dinner in the bathtub, bathed on the stairs, and slept in the backyard. I don’t recall exactly how I came up with the idea, but it seemed to flow right out of me.

Ms. Higgs submitted the stories on our behalf, weeks later we got the results of who had won the contest. You’ll never guess who won 1st place---ME!!!

Writing for this contest did something to me. I was hooked! I began writing every chance I could. It started out mostly as journaling, but as the years have passed it has developed into something much more. It is more than an assignment, now it is my way of life. It is how I express myself, how I escape the trials in my life, and how I encourage others. Everything has a beginning, mine just happened when I was nine years old.

Tired of hearing it...

Do you ever get tired of hearing, "what's for dinner?" or "what sounds good for dinner?" I know that I do!

Problem: Trying to lose weight, save money, and still cook delicious meals. In my household there are four adults, a father, a mother, and two college students. Among all of us we are trying to cut back on eating out in order to save money and lose some weight. We also get tired of trying to figure out whose responsibility it is to cook.

Solution: Create a menu/grocery board. This solution seemed simple after discussing it over time. After seeing several posted on Pinterest, my dad and I set out to make one. We picked up a cheap white board at Wal-Mart, used art tape we had on hand, printed out what we eat on a regular basis on cardstock (and added some new recipes to try), and bought some decorative lettering.

Our board is designed to put up a week’s menu, with space on the side to include side-dishes. It also includes a calendar with who is assigned to cook, along with this is a binder that has the recipes for each card we made. There is also a place to develop a shopping list. We hope that this will help cut down on the confusion of the “who” and “what” of dinner.

New Blog...

I just wanted to post on this blog access to my new blog. In addition to this blog, I will be using www.scburton.blogspot.com. The new blog is intended for promoting my published work.

Why I Write...

One of the things I needed to submit with my contracts is a blog post for the Owl Wise Publishing Blog on what inspired me to write. I thought that I would share it here on my own blog as well.

Hello Everyone,

My name is S.C. Burton and I am excited to finally be having some of my work shared with others. It has been a dream of mine to be able to connect with someone through my words.

I began writing at a very young age. My school was holding a reflections contest and the theme was “Wouldn’t it be great if…” My teacher required that the entire class submit something to this contest. So, being the studious child that I was, I was determined to write the best piece and get a good grade. What seemed to be a struggle for other students was coming with ease for me. The words flowed onto the paper and soon I had a story titled, “Wouldn’t it be great if we ate dinner in the bathtub”. Needless to say, I won first place and have been writing ever since.

My writing style has slowly developed and changed as I have grown older. The words have taken on a new meaning by becoming my way of escaping to a different world; leaving behind any struggles. I enjoy taking the experiences I have in my life and twisting them to be something new. Often within my writing you will see a speck of who I am as a person--through the eyes of one of the characters, the setting, or what they saying.

While I began writing to get good marks in school; I continue to write in the hopes of sharing my passion for words. To show the world that words can be whatever you want them to be. Whether they are used as a place to escape from your daily pains, a way to connect with someone else, or simply a way to express how you are feeling; words are powerful.

As a side-note: I am truly blessed to be given this opportunity. As someone who wrote for my own benefits; I am excited for the possibility of encouraging someone else. My first short story should be released to Amazon in a few weeks and I will be going by the pseudonym S.C. Burton

Dreams Do Come True....

I took a leap of faith and believed in my work--I sent two of my short stories to a publishing company. Today, my childhood dream of becoming a published author is coming true.

My friend Stephanie Campbell, who I met while working at Weber's Alumni Call Center, is an amazing author who has several books published. While working with her we would often discuss our ambitions of being published authors. She started working for Owl Wise Publishing and thought of me. Through Facebook, Stephanie, asked me to send her my work. Within a short three days, I am signing a contract and in a few weeks my short stories will be available on Amazon.

This is all too surreal right now, but I am extremely excited for the new possibilities.

Life's Little Adventures....

Several months ago I posted about my weight. Discussing how I have struggled with my weight my entire life. Anyways, I made a goal in that previous post to lose 30 pounds by December 31, 2011. I mentioned in a later post that I didn't meet my goal fully as I had hoped for, but I came extremely close to it. I started in February 2011 and on January 4, 2012 I had lost a total of 26.2 pounds.I wanted to keep up with my updates; it seems to be the only thing motivating me really. I guess the idea of being accountable to whoever reads my blogs is a good start! I haven't been working as hard as I should be on the weight loss endeavor. However, as of June 13, 2012 I have lost an additional 9.2 pounds. Which brings me to a total of 35.4 pounds!!!

I know it doesn't seem like a whole lot and I am struggling to see where I have lost the weight--I do notice a little in my face, but I am happy with the numbers I am seeing! It is a difficult process. I am trying to find the motivation, but it is hard to stay focused. I keep reminding myself to take baby steps and I will see the progress.

I wanted to publicly post my new goal. I want to lose an additional 40 pounds by my graduation which is April 2013.

Here is to hoping to lose some more weight!

A Much Needed Vacation....

I have been dreaming of returning to Arkansas for many years now. The last time I was there I was about 10 years old and in the 5th grade. Well, after much planning and financial figuring, I was able to go back to Cave City, Arkansas this past week. It was a vacation that I have needed for a very long time. I thought I would share my experiences and photographs from the trip.

Mutt's house is located in Cave City, Arkansas; which is a small city in the northern part of the state (population is a little over 1,000 people). The house is secluded in its own little woods area. There is wildlife that is often sighted, every morning I would watch birds, squirrels, and rabbits while eating breakfast. It truly is a peaceful oasis to relax at.

Mutt has beautiful gardens surrounding her house

Mutt's front yard

The side of the house

The porch

The backyard

Another part of the beautiful gardens

Day 1

I arrived in Arkansas on May 9, 2012. I left Salt Lake City fairly early and I had a layover in Atlanta, GA. When I finally arrived in Little Rock, AR I was greeted by Mutt and Don at the airport. From there we toured Little Rock a little before heading to her house. We went downtown to a little area called River Market. Here we ate the best catfish I have ever had, at a restaurant called the "Flying Fish". Inside the restaurant the walls are lined with those singing fish plaques. It was a small place, but the food was delicious.

Day 2

Today, we began our exploring of Arkansas. While driving to Mammoth Spring, Don thought it would be fun to take me to a state I have never been. So, we took a small detour and headed across state line into Missouri. We weren't there very long, but it is cool to add another state to my list. After our small detour, we headed to Mammoth Spring, Arkansas. Mammoth Spring is Arkansas's largest spring and the second largest spring in the Ozark Mountains. A National Natural Landmark, the spring flows nine million gallons of water hourly. Forming a scenic 10-acre lake, it then flows south as the Spring River, a popular Ozark trout and float stream.

Where the spring starts

Following Mammoth Spring, we went to a tiny town called Hardy, Arkansas. This town is exactly what one would think of when you think of a country town. The street was lined with small shops, people were sitting on benches outside the shops, and whenever you walked pass them they would say hello/howdy.

Day 3
On Friday we (Don, Mutt, Connie, and I) woke up early and headed to Memphis, TN. I think today was my favorite day of my entire trip. We started out by visiting Graceland; we went on the tour of Elvis' house, airplanes, cars, and some of his awards/fame. It was very interesting, I only wished they played more of his music throughout the tour.

Connie and Mutt at the beginning of the tour

The graves of Elvis, his parents, his grandmother, and his brother

Outside Elvis' house

Outside Elvis's Car Museum

After Graceland, we headed to Beale Street. This is such a neat little area of Memphis. There are shops, restaurants, bars, etc.... People walk up and down the street; there are street performers, and lots of music. When we first got there we went to get something to eat. We ended up eating at BB King's BBQ, then we roamed Beale Street and did a little shopping.

Before going back to Arkansas, Don drove into Mississippi to add another state to my list!

Day 4

Today, we woke up and drove to Norfolk, Arkansas. This trip was a bit somber for me, we were able to go and visit the graves of my great-grandpa and grandma Helm, my great-uncle Dick, and my great-great-grandma Helm. I have never met any of these people, but feel as if I have a strange connection to them. I am constantly trying to learn something new about them and their way of life. It was nice to hear stories from Mutt and Connie--it made me feel closer to them. I yearn for the day I can meet them!

My Great-Great-Grandma, Susie Hightower Helm

My Great-Grandpa, Robert Floyd Helm and my Great-Grandma, Myrl Estes Johnson Helm

My Great-Uncle, Richard "Dick" Helm (died at the age of 9)

We also went to a festival in Horseshoe Bend, Arkansas. It was a nice place to walk around--it was like a county fair.

Day 5

Today, was Mother's Day so we decided to spend it at Mutt's house and take it easy. It was a very relaxing day, Doug and Connie came over and we had a BBQ. Mutt made a ton of food, Don grilled some hamburgers, and we ended the evening playing dominos.

Connie, Mutt, Doug

Day 6--Last Day>

My flight was so late in the evening that we were able to explore Little Rock, Arkansas some more before I left. We went to the Clinton Library, walked along River Market some more, to a museum called Heifer, and then to lunch at Doe's. It was a nice way to end the trip. I really enjoyed the Clinton Library; it had interesting facts, neat displays, and an incredible view of an old bridge--plus it was cool, because Don helped build the library.

President Clinton's limo--Don got to drive the limo into the building

Can't leave the airport without displaying my true Razorback spirit

I had an incredible time in Arkansas and cannot wait to go back there!