Every Day's an Adventure (you just gotta find it)

Progress

2013-10-08T02:17:00.003-07:00

Do you, like me, ever sit around thinking about things you'd like to be able to do or do better, but then never get around to putting those wistful thoughts to work?

I want to be able to more gymnastic maneuvers; my cousin was a cheerleader when we were kids and she would teach me tricks when she came over. I never took gymnastics, I was never in dance, or anything like that, but because of my cousin I learned to do cartwheels, certain feats of flexibility, basket tosses, back bends etc. (I "learned" to do the splits by doing a cartwheel in the mud one day to impress my grandma, I slipped, and I have been able to do the splits in that direction -without stretching- every day since).

But I've always wanted to be able to do back-walk-overs, a simple hand stand, maybe even a back handspring or a back flip... yet aside from practicing handstands against my bedroom wall, I've never done anything to progress toward accomplishing those things.

I mentally set out to accomplish things, but rarely think of those things during my free time. I studied Mandarin all four years of my undergrad, but I'm not yet fluent and I am quickly forgetting much of what I learned. I plan to review all my old texts systematically and study with the Chinese computer learning program my dad bought me, but I haven't gotten around to either of those things.

I want to get back in shape, but other than jogging up and down my stairs a few times a day, I've done little to that end.

I want to finally learn how to slide on my long board so that I can check my speed on fast hills, I LIVE at the top of a decent enough hill, and I still haven't learned after two and a half years of skating.

I keep going through the motions of preparing myself to get a job, but do I have a new job yet? No. And the number of applications I've actually put in is pitiful.

I still haven't sent thank you cards to all the generous people who thought of me during my graduation back in June, which is plain negligent and makes me seem ungrateful.

I want to start reading the Bible from the beginning, to study it more in depth and iron out/solidify my beliefs.

I LOVE dancing. I dance every day without fail whether it be a few silly moves as I bee bop around my house or a performance I've worked on for awhile. I want that to be something real and significant in my life. I want to take some real classes, find a dance crew/troupe/company to become a part of and I want to perform regularly in various styles of dance.

I constantly imagine clothing ideas and designs I'd like to wear. I own fabric scissors, scrap fabric, and sewing materials, and I have a grandmother who owns her own quilting business and is skilled in making clothing. Why am I afraid to experiment? Why don't I at least TRY to create one of the ideas in my head?

(I know part of the answer to that already. I am a perfectionist who grew up poor, and am both too afraid of messing up and too afraid of wasting materials to start something I'm not certain I can accomplish satisfactorily)

I want to take my art to the next level. Want to explore my painting abilities and new mediums as up till now I have been to afraid to venture out, and limit my art to doodles on a notebook page for the most part. I want to be able to produce pieces that someone would desire to own and display. Not because I want the money, but because I want to know my art means something to someone other than just me.

In the same line, I want to become a better writer. I can wax eloquent or intellectual when needed, I always got outstanding marks in school, and when I take the time and put in the effort I can occasionally even accomplish a borderline poetic profundity. But the vast majority of the time I just spit out words as I think them, with little thought to diction other than "Don't use that "good" word more than once, or at least not more than twice!" I could produce a higher quality if I took the time, but more often I wait so long in between writings that I just want to get some thoughts out and fast; the result is an onslaught of half-executed thoughts in type face.

I could go on ad nauseum, but I think I'll stop there. The fact is, I am very ambitious in my thoughts, but there is a consistent disconnect between those thoughts and the actions necessary to accomplish them. It's not that I don't know how to get where I want, it's that I don't do the work necessary for whatever reason.

Time to find that reason and start living the life I want to live as the person I want to be!

No excuses. No more fear of failure.

Time to start living and learning purposefully.

Awake Again

2013-08-27T04:05:00.000-07:00

Awake again.

I stare searching for something; stagnating in silence

Refusing sleep even as it overtakes me

.Like any obstinate child.

.Insomnia's an excuse; just a deflection from reality

.Ever-wishing to be and to get...

.Somewhere

In the dark, sleep is the enemy

No progress is made in slumber; resist,

.Make the eyes stay open, keep the dreams at bay

.Every night spent awake is a morning put off.

Why shut out the dreams, why stave off the morning?

How have 'new beginnings' lost their allure?

Yearning only for an accomplished reality, no longer the journey there.

Too aware of past let downs, realities that steal possibilities, mistakes that are inescapable. A future that promises hope and wonder, but my mind sees an oasis projected onto perception by a mere mirage. The future is foggy and illusive and I've known so many sure things to give way. Shocks and pains that stay. They last day after whiled away day. Attempting to hide in my subconscious. Myriad unprocessed experiences coalesce into one imposing entity. Making a home for itself down deep in the synapses and locked away clutter. Pushing out "insomnia," "boredom," "I'm just a night owl, always have been" as its cover. It burrows ever deeper. Deflection. I am evading myself, and convincing others I believe my own 'simple explanations for all this.'

Don't look at it! Who knows how big it's grown, how deep it's gone, how much is yet unknown! If you unleash it, you'll have to battle it on your own, and you don't have time for that.
You're striving, searching, seeking a better tomorrow, the secret pathway, the back door, the password. Trying to just GET THERE, and THEN there will be time to... no, STOP!
It's a lie. There will never be time. Life doesn't throw barrels at you while you run up a series of slopes and ladders trying to just overcome and get there! When you get to the top of that slope, you don't win, you don't save the day, and you defintiely don't kick your feet up and suddenly live in leisure and luxury.
No, life rushes you on to the next level. ALWAYS. Life is perpetual, we keep going no matter where we are.
The entity in my head, so desperate to disappear, becomes more convincing. Burrowing into my psyche, I believe I can put things off, push them out, put them in the storage shed until I get to "THAT PLACE" with more time, and better circumstances. I believe I can put off the morning if I can just keep typing. I can be "Fine" if I just ignore it hard enough, if I look away...
I'm sure plenty of people are worse off anyway...

Summer

2013-07-08T00:36:00.002-07:00

Summer time

It's pretty awesome, but a lot less productive than I'd like. I graduated. I no longer have a job as I worked at my college. I am an adult, but I live with my parents. I turned down my grad school offer for a bevy of reasons, and I have to wait to start my credential program till January. I have several goals I'd like to meet by the end of summer.

I want to (big goals):

Get a job in San Marcos

Find a place to live in San Marcos

Move to San Marcos

Start saving money and paying down my student loans

I want to (smaller goals):

Spend time with friends I've neglected

Get rid of all the crap I don't use/wear/need/like anymore

Streamline and simplify my life

Find a dance class

Improve on my skating

Live more healthily

Cut people who don't value me out of my life

Stop trying so hard to keep people in my life who don't want to be there

Buy a better phone (after the job goal is accomplished)

Spend more time doing what I legitimately enjoy instead of whiling away hours on Facebook

There, now it's all written down. Can't get around it now right? Well that's the theory anyway. Okay, so now that that's out of the way. Let's talk about what I've done so far with my summer.

TONS of laundry for one thing lol. 1 maybe 2 loads left to go until it's ALL washed. I have a TON of clothes I've realized. Which is interesting considering I only consistently wear one load's worth of laundry. All the other clothes I own are completely ignored unless I'm out of alternatives. Why is this the case? Because every time I try to get rid of clothes I feel like I'm gonna want this for some niche thing at some point and that I'm going to be upset when that one situation comes up and don't have that article of clothing anymore. This has happened on rare occasions, but is really a non-issue. I have so far set aside 2 or 3 loads of laundry worth of clothes to sell or give away and will add to that amount as I continue to go through my clothes. The idea is to get rid of all the things I don't LOVE so that I can then buy things I actually like and/or need and have room to put them away. Plus who needs 40 t-shirts?

I have never ending amounts of generic t-shirts from teams, clubs, and events, and yet I only have 3 pairs of jeans.... two of those pairs have holes in them and the third pair is too short, so I can only wear them with high tops or boots... my wardrobe lacks purpose haha. Going to fix that.

Aside from laundry, I have cleaned and organized my room for the most part. I am 90% finished. For those of you who saw it the weekend of my party and are wondering what the remaining 10% could possibly refer to since my room was immaculate... I may have cheated for that weekend. That last 10% of chaos was hidden in my closet and in the storage units under my bed lol. Addressing that last 10% this week. I've also done chores for my mom. Washed windows, swept sidewalks, cleaned bathrooms, done dishes, etc.

Okay I'm being boring. I've also gone to my first major league baseball game! Angels v. Mariners. It was a boring game (1-0), but it was fun hanging out with my best friend and having that experience. I've also seen at least 30 movies (only one of those in a movie theater lest you think I'm blowing endless amounts of money on overpriced tickets haha). Saw Despicable Me 2 which was SUPER cute and funny. Went wine tasting. Ate at Pat & Oscars for the first time. Had a lovely dinner at CPK. Went swing dancing. Went to an awesome BBQ/pool party for a friend's graduation. Played with fireworks for the first time. Learned to make single-serving brownies in under 10 minutes! Ate tons of delicious food, prepared by tons of loving relatives. Met new people. Went swimming quite a few times. Went to the mall with my best friend (marking my... MAYBE 10th time at the mall ever haha). Played tons of board games. And I'm definitely going to spend several of the next few days at the beach with friends! ^_^

Summer is pretty great, even with looming worries, responsibilities, and sorrows. Pushing to find that balance between work and play. Gotta cut back on the internet and tv hours, stay active and live a life I can be proud of!

Sorry for being HORRIBLY inconsistent in posting here (as usual), and for writing a boring first post back, but maybe now that I have some more free time, I'll post more often and be more entertaining lol.

Hope you're all enjoying your summers! Thanks for reading :)

Wake-up Call

2013-02-18T14:33:00.002-08:00

Wake-up calls,

I'm gettin em, but I'm ignorin em. I wanna roll over and press snooze on life. I wanna delay and put off and enjoy what there is to enjoy and be productive, moral, healthy, __fill in the blank__ LATER!
Sleeping: every morning I hit snooze at least twice, I want to SLEEP even just minutes more, any little bit more I can get in my bed. I want more! More dreams, more snuggles under my covers, more time with warm fuzzy pillows against my face and cushiony mattress under me. But do I invest my time the night before going to bed earlier to get that extra time? Or do I try to steal it from the next day's events... the latter. I'm stealing from my days every morning when I hit snooze and I'm stealing from my days when I'm staying up late the night before.
Homework: Am I putting in the consistent effort day by day, or am I cramming when a test approaches? YIKES!!! That reminds me I have a quiz on Friday and I OF COURSE haven't done the reading -__- ugh. Case and point.
Eating: Am I packing snacks and eating healthful meals and snacks every couple hours, or am I starving myself till my late lunch and eating extra to compensate for the first half of the day and hold me over through the second half until I can get home at midnight or thereabouts and raid the fridge for whatever my family may have cooked and left in there for me.
Cleaning: Do I pick up my couple of things at the end each day and tidy up so that my room, my car, my bathroom, etc stay clean? Or do I toss things aside and lay my stuff here and there saying I'll get to it later until I'm forced to sit down one day and spend HOURS cleaning properly so that all my possessions look as they should?
Praying: I'm realizing I haven't prayed in X amount of days and doing marathon prayers for every little thing I can think of, instead of taking time out each day to devote to the various topics that I should be praying about. For example! My best friend is currently in South Africa, she'll be there for the next few months, and I should definitely be praying for her and the work they're doing there. There are hundreds of things I want to pray for, but I'm losing focus on who I'm praying to! God's not an ATM, He's a loving father looking out for my best...

I'm sure there are more examples, but the point is:

I need to fix my perspectives and my behavior and break out of this cycle of barely making it by and always being behind. I don't want to play catch up on life anymore.

Audience Art & 9 followers!

2013-01-03T04:12:00.002-08:00

Okay, so my friend Ely brought it to my attention that I had not yet posted the submissions from the art challengey thingy. Where I asked you guys to use your art (any style, medium, etc) to create a representation of me or how you see me. I'm not sure if I found them all.... Facebook makes going back in time to look for specific things very difficult these days. In any case, here are all the submissions I could find. If I get more submissions I'll make a post, so if this sounds like something you'd like to participate in (winner gets a prize), then go ahead and send me yours!!! Draw, paint, sing, dance, whatever it is you do, and create ME so I can see me through you!
Thanks much readers!

This first one was done by my dear friend Ely. She says about the piece:

"I'm so excited to show this to you! This is you

dancing with God.He said He'd tell you what it

means, though,beyond that. :) I tried to give you a

nice butt since I hear you have one, but since I

haven't been ogling yours (swear) and have no idea

what constitutes a nice butt, I had to guess. Haha."

This one was drawn by my 10 year old sister, Katelynn (I WISH I was that cute! lol I tried to replicate the face in the drawing):

Drawn by my amigo Lawton ^_^:

Done by my friend Nastazha; good words to remember:

Done by my Uncle Don. He took this photo at the zoo and then edited to look like he drew it lol:

OHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! & I has a new follower/subscriber!!! WOO WOO!!!! Everyone welcome demonstratively committed reader #9!!!! 9 is 3 squared. That's two threes, three times three, but it can also be three threes: three + three + three. WHOAH!!! Just drifted off to sleep, woke up to myself trying to overpower my laptop, in my dream I was wrestling someone lol. Anyway, three is a magic number, and when you square it, it makes nine which is a handy little number. Has tricks for all it's multiples and is so narcissistic that it forces all it's multiples' digits to add up to 9 again. 18... 1+9, 27... 2+7, 36... 3+6, etc! So you can multiply a nine by anything and you will still get a nine!!!! Magic-y!!! Now I will share this awesomeness with you: Three is a Magic Number

And here is a list of all the songs on my favorite SchoolHouseRock Rocks CD as a kid (my favorite song was Electricity):

1. Schoolhouse Rocky (Original Theme Music) - Bob Dorough And Friends

2. I'm Just A Bill - Deluxx Folk Implosion

3. Three Is A Magic Number - Blind Melon

4. Conjunction Junction - Better Than Ezra

5. Electricity, Electricity - Goodness

6. No More Kings - Pavement

7. The Shot Heard Round The World - Ween

8. My Hero, Zero - Lemonheads

9. The Energy Blues - Biz Markie

10. Little Twelvetones - Chavez

11. Verb: That's Whats Happening - Moby

12. Interplanet Janet - Man Or Astro-Man

13. Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here - Buffalo Tom

14. Unpack Your Adjectives - Daniel Johnston

The album cover ^^

Thank you bennysjewelry for becoming my newest subscriber/follower!!! And the first subscriber that I don't know outside of the internet! Woo woo!!! Family and friends following me is awesome too, but a stranger following me? Well THAT'S COOL in my book ^_^ hehehe. Wins. Thank you for your support and I hope you enjoy my blog.

Alright, time to knock out people! TTYL (TYPE To You Later! hehe XD)

Silence, Commotion and Effortless Motion

2012-09-11T01:25:00.004-07:00

So, Coffee Bean in downtown Riverside had a deal today on $1 drinks ...

So I decide to drive there (without the foggiest on its location). I pass the ARTS WALK!!! Forgot that was going on tonight. Drive in circles for 40 minutes then ask a woman who looks like she drinks coffee if she knows where it is. Of course she does. Women in yoga pants ALWAYS know how to find coffee! She points the way says it's in a plaza and goes back to walking. I almost tried to flip a U-ey on a one way street and later did turn down a oneway street the wrong way, but luckily I noticed about halfway through the turn and just turned right back around before disaster had a chance to find me.. but anyway! Eventually I found it and parked in the big parking garage just south of the Fox Theater. I walked to Coffee Bean and through/under/around tons of people, caution tape, and chairs... what in the world is going on... I see a kiosk "Fashion's Night Out," A fashion show!! (SHAME!!! I can't be seen like this in front of people who devote shows to fashion! Look down and walk fast... scratch that! I have no reason to feel shame, I'm a working girl in her uniform, SO?! Hold head high, but not snobbish, walk purposefully, you belong here and no one can catch you off balance)

Fast-forward- I'm in Coffee Bean!!! I order a Pumpkin Spice Ice Blended and hand over a single dollar bill! WIN >_<!! Second win, it takes less than 5 minutes from the time I walk through the door to the time I take the first sip. Alright, so I got my drink... there's a fashion show, and the arts walk.... but I'm in my work uniform.... BACK TO THE CAR, and like Clark Kent in his telephone booth I am transformed! Okay so not my MOST fashionable day.... I have cute overall shorts and a thin breezy off the shoulder top with a loud vertical stripey pattern and Chuck Taylors...but that'll just have to do! Light-years better than my uniform in any case. So I walk back to the Plaza and ask a gentleman, with a shirt that matches the kiosk I saw, what is going down for the night. Fashion show starts at six and there are other activities till 9 put on by the sponsors. Cool! K... so I see little tables and stalls set up with bangles, shineys, and fluffies... TREASURES so I browse those chat with the ladies, tell them about the special going on at Coffee Bean, one of them gets up and goes straight there before I'm even finished with the details! I call several people to see if they want to meet up with me on my impromptu adventure. EVERYONE is out of town and one of the only two people who aren't had plans with her bf to celebrate his birthday! So tonight's mission was a solo adventure! I went back to browsing stalls and then went into an AMAZING building... don't know what it's called but it's cool. It's four stories of kiosk style sections displaying different vendors' collections. It's like a permanent swapmeet or something or like hundreds of miniature thrift stores all in one place! Tons of trinkets and antiques. I got lost a time or two and just wandered the maze of dazzling intricacies, smooth fabrics gliding over unusual mannequins, glassware, old china tea sets, gleaming enticing golden pocket watches, hats, gloves, shoes, a bar and a cafe! A library, a furniture store, and much MUCH more! I think I was in there for almost an hour! I was in Narnia. When I finally pushed myself out of there I just continued browsing down the row of shops until the fashion show.

I'm not gonna going to try to word-ify the show, because it was way way way too much input ya know? But it was brilliant and beautiful. The models were more diverse than I've ever seen. Ages 4-74 and spots in between; skinny, thin and heavy; anorexic, muscular and pudgy; boys, girls, and a couple people somewhere in between. There was dancing, beatboxing, singing, and strutting, and of course runway walkin! It was really cool and I liked most of the fashions, some were too bulky, plain, or shapeless, but there was a lot of really cute stuff and stunning models. Stayed for that, and then when it ended, with thoughts full of fashion and dynamic walks (I would LOVE to be a runway model and get to dress up and parade as someone else), I headed over to the ARTSWALK! It's always the 1st Thursday of every month and yet I forget every time! This was my first time. There was so much to look at, too much to take in, bought a couple little things, talked to a ton of artists, found out about what it takes to be a vendor ($5 bucks, your name, & a phone number turns out). I might do that one day if I get brave enough... might motivate me to actually produce art more often lol. But anyway it was SO COOL!!

Things to see EVERYWHERE! DJ's on street corners, old guys singing Elvis, saxophone players with their hats on the ground, guitarists everywhere, art here and there, laughing, talking, shouting and calling (yes those are all things you can see, not just hear). I made a wrong turn down a narrow street and heard music for the Shim Sham (Here's a video with the steps, although not even close to the same music! We usually dance it to a MUCH faster song!), looked across the street to see about 10 people dancing it under the light from a store front. RAN across the street danced the rest of the individual portion, slung my stuff down on the sidewalk and turned back around to see that there was one boy left over who still needed a follow for the partner dance portion, PERFECTION. I run up to him ask if he knows how, he says "kinda," I grab his left hand, put my left on his shoulder and jump into it, he doesn't have a clue! Haha, but he's cute. Fresh young face, bright purple v-neck, cool kicks, and gorgeous dreads. We stumble through the rest of the song, I do my best to teach him the steps, and the whole time we're both just grinning and dancing, wild with freedom. The song ends he shakes my hand and takes off with his friends... I don't even know it we exchanged names... we didn't need to in any case. It was a momentary mutual movement and it was perfect. Afterward I hung around a bit listening to the music and watching the various people pass by along the street. The spiffy-looking guy who brought the music offers me his hand and we start to dance.

Performing with a stranger by the light of a storefront window on the side of the street in the lively dark night.

People stop to watch, as we move flawlessly (he was an AMAZING lead), the dance ends with a low dip and a myriad of applauding hands. I thank him and head off down the street.

Didn't get his name either! Just a wandering kinda night, no names necessary, I did acquire one, a woman named Jean. Talked quite a bit about her art and her daughter and gave me the valuable information about becoming an Artswalk vendor. I continued down the block and eventually found the proper street and parking garage and my car as well. People were just arriving to skate the smooth cement inside, I considered joining them, but they were all short boarders, and our styles don't quite mesh. Long boards are built to cruise downhill, and short boards are meant for tricks. Hung out and enjoyed the sounds for awhile and then got in my car, rolled down my windows and drove home with the wind in my hair and the music blaring. Sang along at the top of my lungs whenever I was really feeling a song and walked through my front door 40 minutes later skipping on cloud-tops with stars in my eyes. Haha. All sounds too crazy I suppose, but it was truly a magical evening.

Beautifully silent solitude surrounded by crowded harmonious cacophony. I felt like tying flowers in my hair and dancing with my eyes closed.
It was delightful.

I write all this and yet I know I have failed to capture the evening. I've failed to tell you what it was like within me. I told you the things, the input, the noise, but I'm not sure how to express to you the inner joy. To find the silence amongst the crowds, to be alone with your own thoughts yet conscious of so many outside.

The serenity of dancing through life without a single familiar face to find, and yet to see such sincerity in so many strangers. All eager to experience, and striving to connect. So much amiable ambling, without any planning or stress. That's my kind of living, what I know I prefer.

Wandering with wonder where the wind wishes,

and finding life's adventures...

I find God in those meandering days. Days that start out empty and end up the most full. When you find the quiet between the chaos you can see slowly enough to drink in His art. Such stunning masterpieces all around. The skies, the trees, the people. I challenge you to find your silence one of these days and look at least one stranger as if they were the work of art that they truly are. I'm not talking about lust, and I'm not talking about studying their angles and dimensions, take those things in, but focus on the light within. Find it. Find what moves them, discover your own curiosity in their secluded and unknown mind. Looking into someone's eyes when they are engaging in something/someone else is something inspiring. God made them and all the things that make them tick. Don't you want to find out more about who He is?

Anyway, it's getting much too late and I must sleep. If you haven't written me off as insane and stopped reading yet, I hope you've enjoyed this snippet of a glorious night.

Love you! Thanks for reading.

Every Day's an Adventure, (you just gotta find it)

Beauty

2012-08-23T13:37:00.001-07:00

So I haven't done much today, but there is already a motif:

Beauty. It's everywhere people.

It's in people, it's in art, it's in God's creation.

It's in nuances, and it's in conversations.

It's just everywhere...

Can you find some today? Find some, enjoy it, maybe record it? Pictures, words, video, there are so many ways... or perhaps just simply savor it in solitude. Find the quiet in the spaces between the world. People are running to half a million things, appointments, engagements, predicaments, and meetings, find away to avoid seeing what they're seeing. Just look for the quiet within all those places. You don't have to go to some silent meadow (though that could be nice), but just in the midst of all these intersecting crazy lives, find your quiet. See what gets missed! Look at the sky and the trees and the clouds, look at the people and how they interact and change each other. Watch some laughter without hearing it, look for the pure sincerity, and find who is causing it! Look for a child wandering in wonderment, skipping in bliss, or acting a bit mischievous. Beauty is everywhere, but we rarely see it. We're too caught up. TOO in the moment. Don't get me wrong I love living life in the moment, LOVE running from one thing to the next without planning; I thrive on chaos and I'm known to get wrapped up in my work, BUT just take some time when you can spare it and live life slowly. Remove yourself from the bustling, pulsing world we live in, and move slowly, see more than you tend to see. Observe as much as you can and just live life quietly. Let the beauty speak to you and find whatever artistic side you have (art is human, even people who aren't creative -or don't think they are in any case- have the appreciation. Even if you generally stifle it) and run with it. Then share. Help inspire others to see the beauty too, you don't have to, but you should. Don't hog it to yourself, try your best to inspire! With that said, I am off. I am going to wander today. Wander and meander and stop by some thrift stores to sort through their assorted beauties and find myself a treasure. Enjoy your day however you choose to spend it, and even if you're busy, just find one thing you consider beautiful.

God bless.

P.S.

If you're feeling artistic today (or bored lol) please help out with my challenge:

http://everydays-adventure.blogspot.com/2012/08/art-please.html

ART PLEASE!!!

2012-08-12T16:53:00.002-07:00

Okay so I was bored, and scrolling down my wall to see if there was anything worth looking at, and found this! Posted by my aunt,

"Calling all creative ones!! My self perception is

skewed and so I'm asking that you

draw/paint/macaroni art a picture of me. Scan it in,

and tag it as me. I wanna see myself through your

eyes. GO!!"

Great idea right!?!?! So I asked her permission to steal the idea and upon receiving it, I put it up on MY profile. Also, I would like to clarify that ALL types of art are welcome (drawing, painting, or even poetry or dance or something if you'd like). Any medium, any style, just please do it!Two people have responded so far. An old high school friend and my 10 year old sister. I would like as many people to participate as possible!!! It doesn't matter how limited your artistic ability is. The first submission was just a stick figure, but it was awesome lol. So don't worry about your abilities, just please participate. Draw a picture that shows how YOU see ME and post it on my profile. Or, if you're shy, send it to me in a message. After a certain amount of time that I have yet to define, I will write another post with ALL the submissions you guys send me! If you send it to me via Facebook message or email, I will keep it anonymous.

There's no reason not to participate, and though I cannot force you to submit an entry, I would REALLY love it if you would!!! It doesn't have to be a masterpiece. I would just like to see what you see :)

Thanks to Lawton and Katelynn for responding with your drawings so quickly, and thanks in advance to all of you out there who are going to submit a drawing in the future!!

As of right now I'm thinking that the wait period before I post up the submissions will probably be about 2-3 weeks, to give plenty of time. Please please please pass this to anyone who knows me and ask them to join in! Thanks and God bless.

Thrift-store Treasures

2012-07-29T00:20:00.001-07:00

Thrift stores are awesome! So are garage sales. Most people I run into don't enjoy either, and I can understand that (to an extent); I mean yeah you're never guaranteed to find anything and sometimes you search all day and come up empty, and sometimes you find things you really like, but it's not available in your size. I understand that you'd like to go to a department store and shop where they're guaranteed to have your size and your preferred color. BUT! Don't you ever get tired of just wearing what everyone else wears? If you go to that department store and get your size, don't you see all the other copies of that same item? People buy those copies, so for about as many copies you see there is going to be someone else out there wearing that same thing. Yeah they might not wear it the same way, and they might not look as good in it or something, but still. Tons of people are going to wear that same thing. Some people don't mind that... but I do. And I'm not saying I don't occasionally shop at department stores, and it's not like I entirely boycott malls, but I would like to be original sometimes at least. I don't have a ton of money and I can't buy everything I'd like to, but if I'm going spend my money on clothing, I'd like it to be something unique, I'd like it to be a treasure, I'd like it to be something I can be thoroughly proud of purchasing. My absolute favorite pair of jeans as a kid were 10 cents at a swap meet! I wasn't even the one doing the shopping, a family friend saw them and thought of me and I loved them to tatters (I love and miss you Cindy, RIP). Ten cents! I didn't have to go to some fancy boutique to find pants I like and have them tailored to fit. A friend just saw them handed the shop keeper a dime and later delivered me my most adored piece of clothing I think I've ever owned. And I will get back to my point about why thrift stores are awesome and why I love being able to not only get unique cute clothes, but get them cheap! I am so much more proud of my clothing when I get them for pennies on the dollar.... anyway, like I said I'll get back to that! I'm going to segue into why those jeans in particular were so valuable to me despite their price.

Growing up I was small and my family was poor. I was only 4' 11" until 8th grade and I was always HYPER SKINNY as a kid. People thought I was anorexic until about 11th grade (I never was). The vast majority of my wardrobe consisted of hand-me-downs. TONS and TONS of hand-me-downs. I had a cousin a year older than me and a friend about my age who were both larger than I was (because EVERYONE was larger than I was lol), and every time they outgrew something it was sent to me in a big garbage bag filled with similar too-small items. I LOVED hand-me-downs just btw. Because it was like a treasure hunt every time and they were FREE clothes!!! I would tear into these garbage bags and root through them looking for things that struck my fancy and, more difficult, looking for things that would fit. It was exciting to get all those new free clothes though, even if they didn't fit properly or I didn't like them all, because everything I pulled out was a surprise and there was a chance I could find something really great inside.

That being said however; most of the time growing up because I was SO skinny, and because my legs were disproportionately long compared to how skinny I was, my clothes, and my pants especially, RARELY fit. I didn't have brand new Mudd jeans and cute, little, just-right red white and blue tank tops like my best friend in elementary. So I got made fun of... often. And not just for my clothes, but that was one thing. And when I looked in the mirror I didn't feel cute, or pretty or whatever like the other girls.... so fast forward to middle school and we still don't have much money, and I am still too skinny, and my legs are still too long, and clothes still don't fit me, and I am still being teased about that, being teased for my intelligence, being teased for my quirks, etc. and go figure, I still have a low self esteem. So the day my mom's friend Cindy brought me home those wild stripey denim-spandex blend jeans that she got for 10 cents was like heaven on Earth. She had come over after going to the swap meet to show us the things she had bought, and she pulled a stack of a few things out one bag and handed them to me! Said she had thought of me and picked up a few things. I was skeptical, grateful, but skeptical that they would fit or that I'd like them if they did. I took the couple things into my mom's bathroom to try them on quickly. I don't remember if any of the other things fit me in that little stack, but the jeans DID!!!

Those were the first pair of jeans that ever fit me well. That weren't too loose around my non-existent hips, or too short, or too baggy. They fit me and they made me feel attractive... pretty much for the first time ever. I wore those jeans to EVERY school dance I ever went to in middle school, and I wore them any day I just wanted to feel good. I wore them roller skating down the street, I wore them climbing trees (which is what ultimately led to their demise), I wore them ALL THE TIME! Minimum of once a week I had those jeans on. Those jeans were made for me. I loved them more than any piece of clothing I'd ever gotten and they were a dime... TEN CENTS for my most prized treasure in middle school! And I loved them even more because they were only ten cents. I wore them with my head held high every time and told everyone who commented on them to guess how much they cost and then shocked them with the answer. Those jeans gave me the only shred of self confidence I had in middle school. My mom's friend didn't go to a store and sort through dozens of the same thing looking for my size and my favorite color. She was rummaging through a swap meet and happened across my favorite item. And that's why I love thrift stores, swap meets, flea markets, etc. Yes you have to wade through endless seas of worthless junk, but if you have enough patience you find buried treasure! That's the same reason I love garage sales. My grandma (Love and miss you every day. RIP) used to take me to garage sales when I was a kid, she didn't have any more money than my parents, but we found the treasure anyway. We'd look at all the pretty things and wander around enjoying each other's company and she'd tell me stories while we searched through the things people didn't want anymore. I got several beautiful necklaces from garage sales my grandma took me to; each no more than a quarter. I still own those necklaces, and a stuffed dog she gave me for a penny the day she had her moving sale before moving out of state. I value those things for sentimentality, for the cheap prices we paid, for the beauty, for the stories they remind me of, and for the uniqueness. Those items aren't a dime a dozen and neither were those jeans. They are special, they each have a story and they were all items I never would have received had we been charged retail prices. So that's why I love all the different places that sell second hand items.

Today my mom took me thrift store shopping, and it wasn't a jackpot day, but I did get a REALLY cute dress for $7 and a sleek purse for nights out for only $4 and they were unique finds; not something mass produced in a factory. But more than that. I got time to play dress up with my oldest younger sister. Time to bond with the shop keepers and share stories, time to pet kitties, and old wobbly dogs and watch a momma kitty nurse 7 kittens who were only a week old. Thrifting is always a success even when the haul isn't huge. I love my life and I love that poverty in my youth taught me the value of a dollar, an appreciation for experiences over possessions, and the determination and patience necessary to sort through these underrated treasure troves.
Big thanks to my mom for taking me to do one of the things I love most and thank you to Cindy and my grandma for all that you gave me before you passed. I truly value the impact you made, and though you were only in my life for a short while, your imprint will never be washed away.

Spastic Summer

2012-07-27T20:20:00.004-07:00

Summer is crazy! I was desperately clinging to the idea of summer as my only hope for some sleep, some relaxing, and some personal catch up all year.... But summer is here now, in fact it's halfway over, and I haven't experienced any of that yet! Life is never what you expect. It's been a pretty good summer so far, but I am still waiting for that break I was imagining. I still need to clean my room!!!! That was like number one on my agenda for summer, but life has gotten in the way. I still need to go through my clothes and get rid of all the stuff I don't wear and all the stuff doesn't fit me anymore. I still need to do a lot of stuff, and I'm really hoping I can get to most of it in the next day or two because that is the only time I have before embarking on another adventure!

So what have I been doing all summer you may be wondering (Well clearly not blogging, oops haha)? Well let's see... We have been working more days than not at our old house getting it ready to be rented (our new tenants moved in today, so we are finally done over there, thank the Lord!). Well how much work could that possibly be? Cleaning, hauling, moving, building, fixing, replacing, improving, etc. all accumulates into a HUGE undertaking. My mom and I laid carpet (no, neither of us knew how before we did it), we helped friends of ours remove our Jacuzzi and load it onto their truck, EIGHT of us were required to accomplish that task, we manhandled a boat on a trailer with flat wheels to get it into a position where we could hook it up to a truck, we hauled dozens of truckloads of stuff out of our garage and sheds to our new house loading and unloading everything. Lifted countless objects much heavier than myself, rearranged our new house to try and make room for the new stuff, built storage units for our new house, lifted our washer and dryer onto pedestals we had made so that they'd be at a better height, we've swept, scrubbed, mopped, polished, sanitized, wiped, and cleaned more than you can even imagine. We had crews come in (thank goodness) and paint and landscape and clean the carpets, but aside from that my family has done ALL of the work that went into that house on our own. We flew by the seats of our pants and accomplished amazing feats, and finally we are finished! But until this day, today, we've been working our patooties off over there.

_____________

Okay, so it's been quite a few days now... life just stays busy... don't really wanna continue that post. Long story short, this summer has been a whirlwind and I still haven't cleaned my room which was my primary goal... I need to clean that darn thing when I finally get home.

_____________

Okay... it's another day now.... and things have changed significantly yet again... today we went to Yosemite and it was AWESOME!!! I'm up north visiting my grandparents till Monday and I really don't think I'm gonna wanna go home when Monday rolls around. There are few places as majestic as this. I'm going to go play Taboo with my sibs now though, so I'm gonna wrap this up and post it and perhaps write a more entertaining one later on. My posts have been boring lately. OH! And I still have to talk about VBS and Utah and the beach and things. So much has happened this summer; I can't keep up with it.

Matters of the Heart

2012-07-01T15:55:00.000-07:00

Well, I want to write, because I feel like I need to get some stuff out of my head... but I just don't know how to start or what to say. There's so much, too much. It's overwhelming. Max. I love him. But what can I do? He doesn't want to be an "us" anymore and it takes two people to agree to be a "we" ... so he's a "he" and I'm a "me" and I miss him terribly. There are good days and bad days, up days and down days and some that are in between.... I feel like I'm writing a Dr. Seuss book right now... lol. This summer so far I've had lots of fun and done lots of work and tend to stay distracted... Max and I still talk almost daily, a text here of there or a goodnight call, but nothing's like before. He says it's not even a struggle for him anymore... he's just accepted it. But how can you just accept that a love so wonderful is just over with after more than a year? I met him in January of 2010 and we started dating in April. Every day together was a wild adventure and of course there were bad times but we always got through them, every one of them, together. We skated, took shortcuts, climbed trees, jumped fences, clambered over walls, climbed onto roofs, explored, wondered, ran, laughed, we also studied, cried, stressed, worried and a host of negatives, but the good always far outweighed the bad, even when school and work started gaining the upper hand. I can't just "accept it" and I can't understand how he could. How he could kill our love and then get over it so fast... sure he did cuz he thinks it's what's best for us both in the scheme of things.... but how could it be so easy for him? So simple to throw us away. He meant everything to me for such a very long time, and now I'm supposed to suck it up, be independent, and move on? How? I haven't cried in awhile, several days at least, so that's something good, but is it because I'm healing or simply ignoring? I feel like my brain has been divided and certain things are now off limits. I can't think to hard about us or him or how much love and longing there is. My body realized how much it was hurting me and walled off the dangerous emotions. I feel handicapped. I can't bring myself to look at pictures of us, or to think of and relive old memories of us, I can't think to long about all the things I'm going to miss, can't devote any energy to the hope of restored bliss. For the first time since before I met him I woke up and didn't think of him first the other day. That happened two days in a row in fact, and yeah I had something specific to wake up for and focus on (our garage sale), but still, to wake up and not have my mind instantly go to him was foreign and alien when I realized it. There still has never been an entire day where I haven't thought about him. He is a part of me and I don't know how to "accept" the fact that that part has been taken away and that my best friend and boyfriend Maxwell Jasper Flanders now exists only as a distant friend in a far away place... when we talk on the phone it's nice, but something's not right and something's not real. We laugh and tease and go over our days, but with hands tied behind our backs; we can't call each other sweet nicknames, and I can't detail the ways I love him, I can't tell him that his laugh is adorable and his thoughts are endearing, I can't explain how much I want him back and that he's the only man I want, can't even entirely grasp the fact that this is actually over... that's why I can't move on. My head and my heart still have hope, hope that we'll get back together. After all he's done this before... twice before now he's dumped me and said it was over, said it was for the best, and that we'd be better off apart, and twice before he changed his mind, and came back. So is it any wonder that I just keep living in this fantasy that this separation cannot be? That by the end of summer you'll see, he'll be coming back to me? But somehow I don't believe that either. I don't believe we're broken up and I don't believe he'll be mine again either... what do I believe? What do I think? I cannot process it all at once. I desperately want him back, but then, it has been somewhat freeing... I don't worry about him near as much, though I care just the same, I don't stress when he doesn't text back, but merely enjoy when he does, I don't have to worry about giving him my best, I can live my life for me and I get more rest. I am not giving him time that I need to devote elsewhere anymore, and I'm not constantly stressed that I may have upset him or I need to plan something sweet for him next. I'm not worried about that party and whether he'll be hung over, I don't have to try and take care of him or worry about keeping him happy. I can do what I want, how I want, without his opinions and without having to accommodate his desires and schedules! I can flirt meaninglessly with random guys if I want to, I can go out dancing any style I choose and not worry that it might not be something he wants to do. I am independent and I have regained my freedom... but I'm not sure I want it. I LOVE him, and though with him I had less freedom, it was always worth it to me. It was always worth missing a night out dancing to see him smile and talk with him awhile. It was always worth it to support him and ease his stress rather than skate around outside or exchange pleasantries with friends. I loved his kisses, his smiles, his thoughts, and his kindness. I loved how eager he was, how excitable, and cute, and sweet and energetic; I loved that he always embraced my weirdness. Never once did he give me one of those judgmental stares that says "How old are you?" "Are you serious?" or "What are you thinking?" never once did he try to squash my quirks or my wild spirit. Instead he would go with it, he would try the weird ideas right along with me, and he would go with enthusiasm to explore the possibilities. No one in my entire life has ever been like that before. Not any of my exes and not my parents for sure. I've always been scolded, reprimanded, or stared at; teased and mocked, questioned and laughed at... Max was so different and so uplifting. He ALWAYS tried his best to make me feel better about myself, and my self esteem thanks him for that. I guess I'm just worried that I'll never find someone like him again... never find someone so dorky and brilliant and endearing and loving, so funny and cute and random and accepting... I'm worried because he is by far the best guy I have ever dated and what if he is the only one who can be so good to me? He treated me WAY better than I ever deserved, how can I expect to find another guy like him? But I guess I know better.... I know that God holds my future. I know that God has a life worked out for me and a husband already planned. God wouldn't take Maxwell from me and give me something worse. I have to simply trust that God knows what's best, even if it hurts, and that He will give me what I need. God will either give Max back to me at some later date, or He will bring someone better into my life. Though right now "someone better" seems like an impossibility, if Max and I are not meant to be, then God surely has a better match in store. And not just for me, but for Max as well. God will smooth things over and make it all okay again. I just have to be patient and trusting in the mean time. The answers will come and though I want to know now, I'll have to rest in the assurance that whatever is meant to be will be and that God will get me through whatever takes place in the meantime. I have to remember not to focus on the what ifs and the pain, but God's promises instead. Nothing is impossible with God after all. Max and I WILL get back together if it's part of God's plan for me, if it isn't, then I will have to wait patiently for God to bring me my Mr. Right. As much as I love Max, if God has someone better for me in store, then how much will I love him? Whoever that mystery man would be would absolutely blow my mind, because so far, Max is hands down the best boyfriend I have ever had, and is all a girl could ever ask for. Sure he has his faults, like everyone else, but he is just so wonderful.... Any girl would be lucky to have him and I got to enjoy over a year with him, so I count myself pretty darn lucky, even if I don't get to have him anymore.

I love you Max, but I'm going to do my best to wait on God instead of banging my head against that love hoping something will work out. The Beatles are liars, or else Max and I would have stayed together. There was plenty of love, but that's not all you need after-all. So here's to singleness and trusting in God. I can't keep pining over and striving after someone who no longer wants to be with me. How pitiful that is... it takes two people to make a relationship, and if my second person has given up, then I am going to have to figure out a way to accept that... (and perhaps still hope that eventually he will change his mind, but not wait around miserably while hoping for that to happen). I'm going to have to find a way to live my life without fixating on how much I want things to be different.

I'm not even sure if this blog post makes sense.... it probably doesn't, but I feel better having written it.
I love Maxwell Jasper Flanders with all my heart, but if our love is meant to end, then God will help me get over it.

Facts to Remember:
God will give him back, or give me someone better
God has gotten me through lost love before
God's plan is what is best for me
God never breaks His promises

Psalm 37:4

New International Version (NIV)

⁴Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Proverbs 3:5-6

New International Version (NIV)

⁵Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
⁶in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.^[a]

1 Peter 5:7

New International Version (NIV)

⁷Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you

Jeremiah 29:11

New International Version (NIV)

¹¹For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Romans 8:28

New International Version (NIV)

²⁸And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who^[a] have been called according to his purpose.

Philippians 4:13

New King James Version (NKJV)

¹³I can do all things through Christ^[a] who strengthens me.

Strokes are Scary!

2012-03-20T22:54:00.003-07:00

Sunday night ended up being a whole lot more than expected. I was doing a mix of procrastinating and studying Sunday evening, and didn't get serious about working on translating a passage until kinda late, so at about 2:30am I finally finished translating it, felt proud of myself for accomplishing something and for the fact that I was going to bed with enough time to get 7 hours of sleep! I turned off my light, packed up my school things, and went to sleep. Everyone else had already gone to bed....

Fast Forward:

I wake up to my mom in a frantic state, I think it must be morning and she must be late and maybe I left my car in front of hers again and she needs me to move it so she can get out, but no... I definitely moved it last night... hm, well what's she frantic about then....

Mom: "Something's wrong with Dad, the paramedics are coming, let them in when they get here!" And she runs back upstairs.... okay at this point I don't have a clue! I don't know if he just has a really bad stomach ache, if he's unconscious, if he's not breathing, or what! I'm scared, and already out of my bed fumbling for slippers, keys, phone, wallet, etc in case further action will have to be taken. I get all my things together eventually, in my haze it took me longer than usual. I look at a clock and see that it is only 3:30 am! I had only been asleep for barely an hour! I stand by the window, looking out at the street, trying to will the ambulance there faster! I still don't know how he is or what's going on, I don't know if whatever's wrong with him is time sensitive or not, so I just want that stupid ambulance to hurry up and get itself around the corner and up the hill as quickly as possible. Of course sitting there staring out a window isn't speeding up anything, and now I'm no longer being productive, so I start pacing a little bit, and then I hear my mom's, still frantic, now somewhat desperate and clearly terrified voice yelling at my dad/pleading with him to sit down, I move toward the foot of the stairs to try and get a glimpse at what could be going on and that's when I heard the most frightening sound of my life.

My dad yells back at my mom and not a single syllable remotely resembles any part of any human language I've ever heard. He's yelling in an inhuman, animalistic, gibberish. My eyes must have gotten as wide as saucers. I looked up and met my mother's eyes with a horrified and inquisitive look; my mom met my look with... well I'm not even sure what her face conveyed to me. Perhaps it was just a look of acknowledgement, and mine was to let her know that I now felt her fear as well. What happened next was somehow scarier than my dad's panicked and loud utterances, I now saw why my mom's voice had been getting louder, he was coming to the door, toward the top of the stairs! She was getting more panicked, I yelled up the stairs as loud as I could, it felt like, for her to pray; God would take care of him, just pray! And ran back to look out the window again, hoping more than anything that the paramedics, that help would be there, that someone could take over so that incapable me and my mom wouldn't have to be the sole warriors in this chaos.

My mom got in front of him and blocked the doorway, yelling and begging, practically crying with desperation trying to hold him back, but he pulled her out of the way and got past her, I started yelling from the bottom of the stairs "No! Dad don't!" with eyes that swallowed my face, I climbed a couple stairs braced myself with one foot on a higher step than the other and put my arms up like I would if I was underneath a kid climbing on a jungle gym trying to prevent his fall, but a whole lot more scared and a whole lot more desperate. My mom shrieked in pure terror as he started to run down the stairs, that's right RUN, he didn't even gingerly walk down the stairs which at the time would have been worrisome enough, but RAN down them as if he was fleeing something. I'm not sure what I hoped to accomplish by sticking my arms out and "bracing" myself... I mean I know I thought at the time that he might fall and I needed to do everything I could, but what would I have really accomplished?! Oh yeah Chelsea, just brace yourself and stick your arms out, don't mind the fact that this man barreling down the stairs is more than twice your size, don't think about the fact that if he did fall, he'd have the added force of momentum and gravity on his side, and forget about the fact that you have nothing to hold onto and the only possible outcome is that he would knock into you, and you would both go careening down the rest of the stairs and that you would undoubtedly land with him on top of you crushed on the tile, and that you might also hit your head on the secretary desk at the foot of the stairs.... don't think about ANY of those things, just brace yourself and stick your arms out! In a way I am glad that that is my first instinct, I am glad that my brain thinks to try and save my dad first instead of myself. Glad that I didn't stagger back from the stairs and close my eyes, glad I didn't just wait to see what would happen, glad I took action no matter how foolish the action was.

So my dad made it successfully down the stairs faster than he has ever gone down them in his life, and simply went around me when he got to where I was on the stairs, he hurries over to his desk and starts rummaging frantically (frantic and desperate are going to be repeated often, and you might get sick of it, but those are THE words to describe what was happening). My mom comes down the stairs, I run to check the window for the paramedics again, they're still not there! My sister is standing just outside her room looking down with fear and confusion, I tell her to just stay up there and not come down, she does, and just begins to watch from above. I run back to my dad's office as I hear more of his unintelligible yelling and he's scrambling trying to grasp at a pen and write on a paper he has in front of him, my mom is trying to find him a pen that works, and I am slightly relieved that he is trying to write, I think oh thank God! He may not be able to speak, but of course! He can write, and then we'll know what's going on and it'll be okay... so this pen doesn't work either, and he's getting angry, and it's scary, it's like the beast from beauty in the beast or the hulk during one of his episodes, his sounds are far more angry than frustrated when the pen doesn't work, and I find myself mentally cowering a bit. I run to get one of my own pens, the one I use every day so that I know it will work, to try to appease the monster my dad appears to be. I toss the pen on his desk in front of him, afraid that if I try to hand it to him, I might get hurt. My mom picks it up from where it is rolling and hands it to him, he then bends over the paper and starts writing, slowly and methodically it seems, my mom goes to check the window and I am anxiously crouched over his desk from the other side trying to see the words he writes as quickly as he writes them. The most horrifying thing happens now.

His hand moves far enough along so that I can see what he's written so far.... the handwriting is good, the size and spacing is good, the letters are English... but the phrase, sentence, what have you, is completely unintelligible! I still can't distinguish anything from it, I ... touf... seido... cygsy.... yuw you fou fyyu... soor... you... see... you seee... then he flips it over and very meticulously writes, "I liked you sook you like like..." ((((O_O))))!!! Now I am completely horrified, terrified, worried, etc! Not only is he unable to speak, but there is also something wrong inside his brain, he cannot make words, and for all I know might not even be able to think coherently.

--- At this point, he's still running around like a wild animal, I feel like my mother and I are trying to herd/pacify an unpredictable wild dog or something. He would look up at me when I yelled Dad, but he looked at me not with understanding, not with recognition, not with anticipation for what I would say next, but simply as a dog would look up if you called it's name; he looked at me, but with nothing but registry of the sound behind his eyes... it was unnerving, my mom agreed that it was as if you called a dog. No matter what you said to him, he would keep doing whatever it was he was trying to do at the time, your words had no effect. It was awful. ---

So after my dad finished writing, my mom and I told him with words and our shaking heads that we couldn't understand what it said; I felt bad for him, because I couldn't understand, but helpless at the same time, because there was nothing there TO understand, so what was I supposed to do? I was scared still. My mom was visibly shaking throughout this whole episode. I tried to rub, and pat her arm, hug her, anything to try and calm her down some, but to no avail. She was terrified, understandably so, but not a good thing to realize when you are scared yourself. Something is seriously wrong with my dad, my mom is quite visibly SHAKING with her own terror, my sister is a silent pair of eyes at the top of the stairs, everyone else is somehow asleep, and the paramedics won't be here for another... who knows how long! At this point I feel rather alone in the sense that, no one in the immediate vicinity can help, not that I can really help either of course, but the feeling that all of us are on our own with no solutions is daunting to say the least.

The paramedics and a firetruck finally show up outside our house, and as I'm looking out the window at them wishing they could get out faster, my dad runs back up the stairs!!!! My mom runs to the foot of the stairs yelling No! Ken no! Don't! and I blurt out something about oh no the door! It locks! I hope he doesn't.... and my mom yells back he is! She's halfway up the stairs, and I hear the click of the lock... my dad is now a scared animal locked in a room by himself with all of us outside... I worry that he will hurt himself in there and we won't be able to get to him in time, my mom knocks and yells desperately at the door asking him to open it! My sister later tells me that she heard my dad moaning and crying (her room and their bathroom share a wall).. I think he has locked himself in because he doesn't like going to the doctors, I open the door for the paramedics. They ask what's happened, and I try to tell them as quickly as I can so they will stop just standing there and jump into action! They tell me to calm down. I am the MOST calm in this scenario! I just want to get you the info quickly! They go up the stairs, and address my dad and tell him to come out, my dad yells some more gibberish, but finally with a small change; it sounds like an explanation, there is now tone in the gibberish, still no intelligible sounds, but at least a tone of intent is present, that immediately makes him a little bit more human to me. Then the paramedics ask my mom if there are any weapons in the bedroom, she tells them about the shotgun, which is empty, not loaded, has a child safety lock, and for which we have NO ammunition in the whole house, NOT EVEN IN THE GARAGE. They shout "Everybody downstairs!!!" My mom protests saying the kids are upstairs and the lead paramedic or perhaps the fireman again yells "Downstairs!" She goes, the paramedics keep talking to my dad through the door, my dad isn't saying anything anymore, my dad comes downstairs, brushes past (through) the paramedics and sits at his desk, they call his name and try to get him to smile and follow the flashlight with his eyes and other simple things, when I saw his smile it finally hit me as to what happened. It looked like one side of his mouth had been injected with Novocaine, his smile was wrong, only half of it worked.

A stroke.

Then the phone rings, my mom nods at me and I run to answer it; it's the cops -___- the paramedics called them when they heard about the shotgun. So the lady says to me, "I received a call that there's an armed man, barricaded in your house with a shotgun?"!!!!!!!!! "NO!!!!" I say, my dad had locked himself upstairs, but he's back down now, and he didn't touch any weapons. She asks more questions, I tell her my dad's not on anything, and that according to the paramedics he probably had a stroke, I hang up with her as soon as I feel the message is clear that there's no need for cops.

I run back to my dad's office and the paramedics are trying to herd him over to the stretcher, but he keeps putting his hands together, open with the palms touching and making begging motions, no words, just pleading gestures, I again think he doesn't want to go to the hospital because of his fear. I tell him over the commotion that he has to get on the stretcher and that he has to go with them! He then jukes a paramedic and brushes my hands off his arms and grabs his shoes. OH his shoes! I yell at the paramedics that he just wants his shoes, because I've seen COPS and sometimes those guys get violent, my dad's not complying and I fear that they will soon get forceful and I know that would only result in my dad freaking out. Again, I yell that he just wants his shoes! They back up some; he sits at his desk and puts his shoes on, doesn't tie them I don't think, but puts them on, then he picks up his laptop and walks toward the stretcher, the paramedics take his laptop saying my mom will bring it to the hospital (I'm running to get my mom's purse like she asked), according to my sister (the silent watcher) my mom looks at him like he's a moron and says, "yeah, just what he needs, his work." and the paramedic looked sheepish as my mom set it on the ground. Finally they got my dad strapped to the stretcher and got him out the door, my mom said I couldn't come and that I had to stay to watch over my siblings. She left. I sat down on the stairs next to my sister who had come most of the way down after they took my dad out. Her face looked like it was barely holding together, I put my arms around her and we both quietly cried a bit in the alien silence, suddenly alone in a vacuum. We stopped soon though, even tears being too much effort after all that had just taken place. My ten year old sister staggered out of her room; I told her to go back to sleep, and she did without question. No one else woke up.

Fast Forward:

I go upstairs to my parents room to look around. My dad's lampshade is totally crumpled and bashed in, his papers that were on his nightstand are scattered on the floor, his water is spilled on the top of the night stand, and his pajama shorts are in a heap on the floor. His pajama shorts! When he locked himself in! My poor dad just didn't want to have to go to the hospital in his pjs! He wasn't trying to avoid going he just wanted to get dressed and he locked the door so the paramedics wouldn't walk in on him! I now feel immense pity for my poor dad, a cornered rat in his own body. Trapped inside and scared just wanting some fresh clothes while strangers pound on the door outside. No words, spoken or written, no answers, no understanding, just fear, panic, and a preoccupation with being presentable before leaving the house. My poor poor daddy. I push the lamp shade back into shape with a pop.

Fast Forward:

I drive to the hospital to switch cars with my mom, as hers is the only one with a car-seat; I go into the hospital, and my dad puts his arms out for a hug, I give him one, his back is cold, the night gown doesn't go all the way around. My mom and I talk in hushed voices. The vitals are good, the EKG is normal, everything looks fine, more tests coming. I leave. I unlock the gates at our old house for the gardener, the sun is finally rising, and the eerie quiet of dawn is broken only by the roosters a few blocks away. I drive home, shaking slightly now that I'm alone. My sister took care of getting the younger girls ready for their day and I tell the ten year old what happened, we talk about hospitals and strokes and she says she still wants to go to school for her perfect attendance. She's a strong little girl and no stranger to chaos. My sister and I take them to the day care lady, the ten year old will get picked up for school from there. My sister and I go to switch the cars back.

Fast Forward:

I knew approximately what time my dad went to sleep, which allowed the doctors to give my dad a really good medicine for stroke patients, a strong blood thinner, that can only be given within 6 hours of a stroke. I was the only one who knew when he went to bed since I was up studying. Praise God for my propensity for procrastination.

Fast Forward:

Blood thinners made my dad's arm bleed a lot where they had put an IV in earlier. Watching his blood spill out was not something I could deal with. I told the nurse and he took care of it. He put a pressure bandage on top.

Fast Forward:

My sister and I have been in the hospital now for at least an hour, she cries intermittently just seeing my dad like he is. He has his shorts on, the ones he changed into, his shoes are off now, he has wires and tubes and EKG stickies all over him. His monitors look normal, he's quiet and serious looking. We tell him his boss said for him not to worry about the huge project he's been stressing over for the past two weeks (which probably caused his stroke, and for which he wanted to bring his laptop to the HOSPITAL to keep working on) and that he has a team of people and it's their job to help out, so he needed to rest and get better and not worry about it. At that point my dad started to cry.

He doesn't fail at anything, he never leaves anything unfinished; he works harder and sleeps less than anybody I have ever met. Seeing that this was something he couldn't finish, I think, is what set him over the edge. My mom and my sister started to cry with him. I tried to console my dad, rubbed his arm, told him it would be okay, his boss loves him, everybody loves him, and everyone understands; no one could fault him for this. He quieted a teeny bit. My mom kept holding his hand and hugging him. I went over to hold my sister. The poor thing doesn't know how to see my dad in anyway other than normal. She can't handle it. She didn't even want to come in and see him at first, but I think not wanting to be left alone in the lobby trumped that. Eventually everyone calmed down and stopped crying.

We all hold hands and my mom prays . I keep rubbing my dad's back and telling him it will be okay.

Fast Forward:

My dad is being wheeled through the hall on the way to ICU, I'm holding his hand and repeating to him that we'll be going with him down the hall, but that they won't let us go into the ICU with him for about a half hour. He acknowledges what I said. Something changes (the nurse isn't there yet), so the doctor has to take my dad back to where he was before, I look down at him and start to grin, his face very faintly starts to match it, and I say. "Wheeeeeeeee," he and I both start to laugh. The first smile I've seen from him since the night before! It was so relieving to see him smile again! And to hear him laugh; even with all the craziness going on, he still had the capacity for joy. I said that dad's got his own personal roller-coaster and we all continued with our much needed chuckle.

Fast Forward:

The neurologist comes in, and seems optimistic. Tests dad's strength, he nearly pulls her off her feet! lol, she kinda chuckles and says he's VERY strong, and that that's an unusual and good sign. She does more tests and then wants him to talk in order to evaluate his speech loss..... She asks him to tell her who else is in the room with him....

He looks at my mom and makes a sound, but then can't do it; the neurologist guesses he said Solange and asks my mom her name.... Kim, he then makes pointing and possessive gestures to show that she (my mom) is his, and we supply the word wife, he nods. He moves on to my sister and says something like delish-remun, her name is Mallory. He looks at me, and already looks somewhat defeated, she asks and he says something like tchJoresh- namoo (I think we all know my name is Chelsea). This was one of the hardest things... even after hours in the hospital and everyone sounding so optimistic... he couldn't even say the word wife, let alone our names. The neurologist said we wouldn't know his chances for speech recovery till after a few days and the doctor said, that after a month whatever he didn't regain, he would permanently lose... that was frightening.

I left pretty soon after that, he was asleep and they were going to take him to get his MRI done soon. My sister and I went home and got ready for the day. I took my sister with me to work, she didn't want to be at the hospital and didn't want to go to school on so little sleep after such a traumatic event. I brought her with me and she read a book all day while I put on a happy face and served customers and made coffees. My boss was kinda frustrated that I came in instead of calling off, but during finals week, work hours are mandatory for rehire, so I felt i needed to be there.

This ends the story of the terrifying chaos that went down late Sunday night/early Monday morning. I'll do a short version of the good part, because you can read that on facebook anyway. Or wait, you know what, I'm just gonna copy and paste the post from facebook onto here:

My dad went from completely inhuman and unnerving sounds today, to normal sounding speech for someone who is tired! God is so good, and miracles do happen!

THANK YOU THANK YOU for all your prayers! Last night as most of you now know, my dad suffered a stroke and well without going into details, the episode before the paramedics took him to the hospital was a bit traumatic for everyone involved to say the least. We were all left shaking and it's only due to God's grace that my dad made it to the ambulance uninjured for the most part.

He could not say any words AT ALL, he could not entirely understand us, and he couldn't write anything intelligible though his handwriting was still good.

Preliminary tests went well, but he seemed to be failing

attempts at speech miserably when I had to leave for

work.

Later I found out that he was eating on his own, speaking

not just words but sentences, and if you talk to him now

he just sounds a little tired. He is in a fairly cheerful

mood and is talkative (no doubt overjoyed that the

ability to speak has returned and so quickly)

GOD IS GOOD!! Thank you to all of you for praying for him

and the rest of us, thank you for all the support from

everyone. He will be in the hospital for the next few

days, but praise the Lord he is now expected to make a

full recovery which they couldn't say this morning.

I've been awake for 16 hours on 1 hour of sleep and still

have two ridiculously hard midterms tomorrow, so I will

now be going to sleep. Thank you, thank you, thank you

again to all of you who sent your love and I will be on

again later to give another update when I have one.

And then this one:

Thank you ALL so so much for your support and your kind

thoughts, prayers, and words. It was a hugely frightening

ordeal that left all of us who were awake to witness it

shaking, but God is good, and I am so so so relieved and
hankful, and just... well it goes beyond words, but I am

so glad my dad is going to be okay. I think that must have

been the scariest thing I have gone through in life, if I

think about it. Sheila Bruner, when you fell off Cherokee

was right up there though, the only difference was that I

didn't have to witness it, so it was a little more distant.

But you falling/getting bucked off Cherokee and now my

dad's stroke are two things that were truly terrifying in

life that I don't ever want to go through again.

Praise the Lord that he brought such completehealing
to you back then grandma, and now my dad too. God is good.

Thank you again to everyone.

I talked to my dad on the phone today and he seems

fine! I hear he is really forgetful and won't be allowed to

drive for awhile, but all things considered his recovery so

far is nothing short of miraculous! Strokes often cause

PERMANENT damage, and yet he's made so much

progress! He will be released from the hospital tomorrow

if all goes as planned. God is so good! Thank Him for His

grace!

I love you Daddy, and I can't wait to see you again.

Consistent?

2012-03-18T16:25:00.001-07:00

Okay so I was just (procrastinating) looking at my viewership stats for my blog and noticed something.... I am horribly inconsistent lmao! I never write consistently. I do better some months than others; usually because I feel guilty for writing so little for so long and then decide to fix it and be the best blogger ever and write all the time! But then it always tapers back off until it goes so long that I feel guilty again and then the cycle repeats. So my graph of viewer stats over time is nothing but peaks and valleys, it will spike up and then plummet over and over and over... I think I should fix this... but not just another peak this time. I want to be more consistent... not just in blogging, but with everything in life.

With studying.
My performance in class seems to be riddled with just as many peaks and valleys as my blogging. Last week I had a massive peak... studied A TON made up at least ten missing assignments for various classes, took several quizzes I had missed and took my, I think 8, doctor's notes around on tours of my professors. My doctor's notes found my professors all to be very kind and accommodating as did I. After all of that work I now I have an A in my Spanish class for the first time since... I think my freshman year of college. I struggle with Spanish... especially since it's not Spanish language anymore, well I mean technically it is, but it's the study of the MORPHOLOGY of the Spanish language.... in Spanish. This class would be hard enough in English -___-. After the final I'm sure it probably won't be quite an A anymore.... but there's still some hope I guess since there are still a few more days to cram some knowledge into this brain of mine. I'm not sure how much my head will hold before it starts dumping stuff back out again, but hopefully I can coax it into retaining just enough to get me through each of my four finals this week. Tuesday promises to be my worst day, because I have two finals in the same day. My final for my film class in the morning and then my Chinese final in the afternoon :/ Chinese is incredibly hard and my film class requires us to know the name of the director, the nationality of the director and various other seemingly unimportant details about ALL the films we've seen all or part of over the course of this class,and in addition to that, my professor has said that questions on her final can be from any aspect of the entire course, readings, films, clips, random thoughts of hers that she mentioned in class... anything. (Oh! AND the authors of ALL the articles we've read in class -___- we have about three readings per week and all of them have a different author) Bleh. I don't like classes that put so much focus on the details and the obscure. Why not concepts, ideas, ability to analyze, and applications? Why names, diction, and random phrases? What good does that do? Anyway, I have ENDLESS problems with that professor.... I detailed a fair number of them in her ieval and ranted about them to pretty much anyone and everyone I've had a conversation with this quarter. After she's done quizzing us on the minutiae and trivia of the course, then we get to write two essays in an hour, woo woo! -___-. But even with all of that, my Chinese final will be at least ten times harder even without any professor-generated idiocy. I am not looking forward to the Chinese final... never do in fact. I have NEVER finished a Chinese midterm or final.... EVER!!! Most of us American students don't :/ it's just too much for us to read, translate, answer, translate, and figure out how to write in the amount of time given.

Ugh and that's just one day out of my week next week. Here's the outline of my week this coming week, assume all gaps are filled with studying eating or sleeping:

Monday: work

Tuesday: Film class final, Chinese class final

Wednesday: Spanish Morphology final

Thursday: Linguistics final, work

Friday: work, then hopefully nice evening with the bf spent trying to recoup from the week of torment and remember what it's like to relax. The stress of the last couple weeks has definitely put tension on the relationship that's for sure. Luckily our love is stronger than the stress and the few fights. Love you Maxwell ^_^

Oh and p.s. our ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY is in two weeks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So excited, and so lucky to have such a wonderful boyfriend. For those of you who don't know him (you should meet him), he is smart, funny, quirky, cute, sweet, adorably cheesy, supportive, respectful, goofy, active, endearing, fun-loving, caring and loves me for who I am (even with all the crazy that implies). I love him so much and feel lucky to call him mine. I appreciate all he does for me every day and all the smiles he brings. Pretty sure he will be too busy to read this, this week so I get to be as mushy as I want! Haha (he doesn't exactly love mushy-ness in front of other people).

Oh and next time I blog if I remember, I'll blog about our date day last week, because it was amazing! We have so much spontaneous fun together when we aren't hopelessly shackled to our classes and jobs.

Okay, so that's enough procrastinating for now, time to get down and dirty and start making progress studying for Chinese!

For all of you reading this who have your own finals and personal stresses, I wish you luck and pray that this week goes more smoothly than expected and that you all remember to trust your instincts and do your best on these finals! That's all anyone can ever ask of you.

If you do your best and still do not succeed, that is nothing to be ashamed of.

Just keep pushing for a better best. The "best you can do" is never stagnate or permanent, as long as you keep working, it keeps progressing.

Anyway, I got sidetracked again (story of my life).

GOOD LUCK ON FINALS!!!

I love you all, and remember after this week, you get to relax!

I need YOUR help!

2012-03-11T23:29:00.003-07:00

Okay, so I need your help! I know usually you get to just read passively and close out of the window when you finish without a second thought as to the feedback I might like to receive lmao. This is generally a one way relationship, I give and give and GIVE of myself, and you just take it amiably. No reciprocation and no gratitude! Lmao sorry, just kidding, and rambling.

[If you don't want to do too much reading and only want to do the bare minimum to help me (which is perfectly okay and understandable), please scroll down to the next highlighted section!]

Okay, but seriously, this post is going to require participation. I am doing a creative project for my "Food in Film" class (CPLT 027/MCS 036), and I want to use some of your input for part of my assignment.

My project will look at food in connection with people, simple enough, but what I want to know from you, for your part, is:

What about food strikes the biggest response in you?
How important are aesthetics?

Does that ever trump taste?

(I asked to taste a particular flavor of ice cream today just because it was prettier than the rest, so I'd say appearance of course plays a role).

How bout the smell? Can you enjoy something that smells bad?

(Many people and indeed many cultures can, I'm not sure about myself lol. My nose usually knows what it wants).

Do you take pictures of your food?

What is your motive behind that?

Is it that you want people to be jealous, or something else?

Do you prefer food from your own culture? Or someone else's?
Also, how many movies can you think of off the top of your head that have a focus on food?

Can you think of any movies that don't have ANY food shown at all?

You don't have to answer all of the questions above, but if a question sticks out as one you have a good response for, please make sure to share. That said, even if you don't want to answer ANY of those questions PLEASE PLEASE answer these next two for me; they're the most important:

Think about your favorite food...

What is it?

What history do you have with it?

(is it something your grandma always made on special visits? Is it your favorite for taste? Nostalgia? Tradition? etc.)
Pictures are also welcome.
Oh AND!!! If scientists created a pill that eliminated your need to ever eat again (it took care of nourishing you and kept you from being hungry), but it also meant you could never eat again, would you take it?
If you send me a picture of a food, please include its name and perhaps write a little something about it.

All responses will contribute to the presentation I am preparing and would be greatly appreciated!

And who doesn't love food? It's not like this is a difficult topic, so please respond with some of your own experience, stories, favorite dishes, recipes, etc.

You can leave responses in the comments section, on facebook, or at this email address: cshot001@ucr.edu

Thanks so much!

Now back to working on my project.

Refresh Perspective

2012-03-10T17:56:00.000-08:00

Two things to try to keep in mind at all times:

It's never worth it to be right if it costs you a relationship. The people you love are worth your forgiveness, even if you don't think they're worthy of it. And this second one is something I truly need to make my mantra:

I spend too much time in life worrying, God doesn't like it, my parents don't like it, my boyfriend (shout-out to Max ^_^ love you sweets) doesn't like it, and it's not benefiting me at all either. It is a futile exercise and we should all do less of it.

Hope you're all enjoying your weekend, and now I must get back to productivity. Not enough time in the day.

Thank you for reading, and hopefully I'll post something longer soon.
TTYL <3

FREAKING OUT!!

2012-03-04T19:26:00.003-08:00

Okay so I was just gearing up to start homework (checking email, checking class announcements, getting my stuff together, going about it all rather lazily seeing as how the night was as yet far from over) when I happened to think about my film class essay that's due on Wednesday. So I figured I should look up the guidelines for the paper again so that I can have the topics in the back of my head over the next couple days to start thinking about which films I'd like to use and what arguments I'm going to make about the topics... so I click the link and download the file. Starting at the top of the page I begin to skim through and what do I notice first.... right near the top of course is the due date... only funny thing: THE DUE DATE IS NOT WEDNESDAY! IT IS TOMORROW MORNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AH!!! Okay so you might be thinking, eh an essay for film class no big, but it has a minimum of 1400 words and possibly the worse part, a strict maximum of 1500 words! (I went well over the maximum on my last paper because you simply cannot go over the films in the depth that the professor requires in so few words, (the last one had a 750 word maximum... after several revisions where I deleted entire paragraphs, my final copy was right around 1,000... and that essay was only about a single scene in a movie!) this essay requires in depth analysis of two separate films with a shot by shot focus, in relation to her entirely incompetent prompt. -___-!

I cannot stand my professor.... but that aside the task before me is still daunting. Now you might be wondering why on Earth I'm writing this to you instead of delving into my essay.... well two reasons:

1. I am a chronic procrastinator... always have been... in all honestly probably always will be... but also:

2. I am using this post as a warm up to get my thoughts flowing and my typing going, so that I can write my essay more fluidly when I begin.

(I'm also going to copy this into a word document to see how many words it is lol, because while this is clearly not an academic piece of writing, it will still give me a rough goal for how much I should be getting typed per hour or so, this post has taken me about ten to fifteen minutes, so if I'm lucky on my paper I'd like to keep up at least half this pace)

Alright, that's all for now. Gotta get to it! Hopefully I'll be able to write another post when I finish my essay and hopefully that time will be well before my class starts tomorrow at 1pm. TTYL faithful readers! Hope you all had great weekends :)

1,000 Views!!!!

2012-02-21T23:26:00.000-08:00

OMG OMG OMG!!!! 1,000 all time pageviews!!!! Woo woo!!! Do you know what that means? That means that since I started writing this blog two and a half years ago almost, you guys and other anonymous people have visited my blog 1,000 times!!!! to read my 41 posts about various things. 1,000 times! That's pretty darn exciting if you ask me! That means an average of 25 individual views per post not including instances where people read more than one post per visit. So that's pretty cool to me. Thank you guys so so much for your continued support <-- and even though that phrase makes me sound like a broken record, I really do mean it and I really do appreciate the fact that you take the time out of your days to read my largely insignificant thoughts.

So since I don't have time right now to make a cool video telling you guys how much I love you and dancing like a fool in order to show you how I celebrate haha, I will instead give you this link of other people having a good time to hopefully inspire some happiness and energy in your life today! Woo Woo!!! 1,000 pageviews!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This reminds me of the 100th day in kindergarten! On the 100th day of kindergarten we had a 100 party! We had cakes baked in the shape of 100 and 100 jelly beans, and 100 pennies in a jar, and 100 pieces of cereal glued on a paper in a rainbow shape or something, and we just did all kinds of crafts and iterations of 100!!! It was great, those were the days, back when 100 seemed like the biggest number in the whole world, how could we have possibly been in kindergarten for 100 whole days! It was mind blowing back then lol. I've just had an epiphany, parents must be really patient and SUPER good fakers, cuz I had no clue that 100 days wasn't very impressive back then lol. Good job Mom and Dad! You successfully allowed me to marvel at the mundane due to my naivete!!!!! Thank you for not demystifying the world for me. I enjoy the fact that I can still find joy and wonder in things that other people take for granted even now, because you guys didn't trample over things I found cool. You're not quite as good at the faking game anymore... I see your looks! And I can hear your sarcasm at times.... but it's okay, because you faked it long enough that now I am set in my ways and you can't damage my sense of awe anymore haha. But, rest up and be prepared, because you can't be so rusty now that you have Katelynn and Janey to fake the excitement for/with haha. I know you'll do fine though, and don't worry us older kids can step in and do our own share of pretending now and again. Love you guys, love my viewers and love that I got to 1,000 pageviews!!!!!!!!! OH!!! And here's that video I was telling you about: it's time to CELEBRATE oh and I think I'll give you one more video while I'm at it, that guy with the ponytail is sure enjoying himself lol! Go Mr. Ponytail!

Okay, and now I must go to sleep because I have work super early in the morning tomorrow! Goodnight folks :) thanks again for contributing to my 1,000 pageviews as well as to my nostalgia! Haha. Have a great Wednesday!

EIGHT FOLLOWERS!!!!!!!!!!

2012-02-16T00:59:00.000-08:00

OMG!!! Woo woo!! So excited, I got an eight follower when I wasn't looking! Thank you, thank you, thank you for your support! I would be nothing but a monologue-ing crazy person without my audience... I might still qualify.... but at least I feel better about it with an audience! Haha. I started this blog a couple years ago in response to some trauma in my life that I could not entirely process at the time. My mother has always touted journaling for cathartic release and working through things in life; it's a good way to keep a record of things both happy and sad, and it's a great way to figure out what you really think on a topic. When in doubt, write it out! For me, I just start randomly typing about something with the first phrase that comes to mind and I honestly just follow the train of thoughts that comes after that. I find that the less thought I put into it ahead of time, the more honest the perspectives and opinions seem to be. I could spend an hour or so and think up a really eloquent well thought out argument and type it up on here making sure I didn't challenge the status quo and making sure I made myself look good, but that's not real. It would be a crafted facade; even in my essays for class I find that typing my first idea on the topic and just writing continuously is the best way to get at what I want to say; yes there are some rough patches at first and it might take me a few restatements before I find the just-right wording to accurately convey my points, but progress of thought is being made at all times. If I were to sit and think about how to say a phrase perfectly the first time, which is what I used to do all the time and what I still find myself doing on occasion, it would shunt all thoughts away from the arguments of my paper and it's progress to the simple ... (ay... I'm doing it right now.... -___- pausing trying to think of the words to say lmao) ... to the mundane task of sifting through my mental vocabulary solely for the sake of picking out more choice diction. There's a lot of junk in the middle of that sentence destroying the fluidity so I'm going to high light for you the key sentence amongst the madness.... Okay, now back to what I was saying, your WHOLE paper or post or what have you FREEZES whenever you stop to rework a sentence. So I would say, of course do your best to write well the first time through so you don't have to spend a lot of time editing, but also, if you hit a bit of a road block, don't stop! Click the "enter" button and keep flowing; after you've finished with the thought you were working on, go back to the point where you pressed "enter" and see if you can't come up with a decent sentence using the ideas from the rest of what you've written as guidelines.

.... But anyway, I have gotten SO off track! I have a new follower, and this post is about that follower! Thank you again for supporting my blog and I appreciate your viewership/readership. It means a lot that my thoughts and musings matter to you guys... or entertain you lol. I'm getting more and more exhausted with each word, and I'm losing my ability to type as well as my ability to follow what I myself am saying lmao. So now I bid you adieu and I hope that you all sleep well!

EIGHT FOLLOWERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU EIGHT FOLLOWER! YOU ROCK MY WORLD WITH YOUR SUPPORT HAHA. Have a great day and hope you enjoyed this post despite the fact that I veered off on tangents. TTYL

Also, here: A picture for you ^_^ and one more..: HOORAY!!!

Violated

2012-02-05T23:46:00.000-08:00

Yikes! I feel violated... it's not his fault... I told him he could... but I didn't know it would feel like this...

My art! Years of art! All the doodles and sketches, the portraits and studies... they were once kept neatly in their respective sketch books, in their order, next to each other, preserved as they had been when first drawn... but no longer.... well I was gonna write a whole bunch about the details of things that make it the hardest, like paired drawings being separated and the torn edges being so sloppy looking due to the spiral bound nature of my sketch books, but I will refrain since I have since poured all of that detail out into my bf and now can spare you since the necessity to get it out has been fulfilled already. I will just have to accept it for what it is and clean up the edges of all the drawings and by a big binder with sheet protectors to put each of the drawings in and within that binder I can reorder the drawings as they should be and annotate each of those particular drawings to record the fact that they were removed from their original sketch books in order to be displayed in a film a friend of mine made. They had to suffer for their fame, but I think they'll manage once I get them settled into their new home.

Again, to be clear, I'm not upset with him in the least as I had given him full permission to tear them out. I just didn't expect to feel so off-put by the results. It is comforting to know that they were of use to my friend though and I am excited to see the movie that they were in. I will link the film in a post when he finishes it.

Wow just noticed that yesterday while editing some old posts, I made some kind of mistake and an entire post got replaced with a copy of another post.... I feel kind of an emptiness about it that I can't fix. I just want to get it back and can't fully accept that I can't... that my mistake has caused that post to disappear forever... I guess that just kind of goes with the theme of this post now doesn't it?

Things changing in a way I would like not to have happened, but now cannot fix. Although this problem with the post has put the issue with my art in perspective. At least all of my art is still intact and in my possession, unlike the post which I can never recover.

Kk it is now.... 10/15/12 and here is the link to the video my art was in!

Here's a still from the video that I've edited to highlight my work. Anything with a yellow rectangle around it is something I drew!:

Almost 1000!

2012-02-04T22:06:00.001-08:00

OH OH OH!!! (Santa's ho ho ho backwards is ME sounding very excited!) I was just looking at the blogs for my stats and realized I HAD to write another post!!! OMG! I am at 955 pageviews! That means only 5 more till I reach 1000!!!!! I am so excited! Okay, don't cheat for me and just click stuff over and over, but if you just happen to want to read some of these blogs DO IT!!!! I will write another blog tomorrow or sometime to celebrate reaching 1000 :)

Super excited! XD

Oh my -_______- I am lame. Super fail. Only five more till I reach 960... which I did by the way, thanks guys!... still forty left till 1000
lmao, I can't believe I failed so hard lolz

SEVEN!

2012-02-04T20:04:00.000-08:00

You guys must be lucky! You're getting two new posts in a row!!!! Well I decided to write another blog post today because..... can you guess? I bet you can't... I'll give you some time to think of possibilities though ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Okay that's enough, I'm just going to tell you because you're never gonna guess:

I HAVE A NEW FOLLOWER/SUBSCRIBER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Woo woo!!! Thank you for showing your support "Punker!" Is that supposed to be a secret identity by the way? Or can I announce who you are in real life? Lol. Because I know who you are by the photo. But anyway, perhaps that will be for another time. The point is that I now have SEVEN people subscribed to my blog and I am super excited. As per usual this post is dedicated to my new follower and it is the post in which I thank my new supporter for his support and for demonstrating this support in non-anonymous way. I know there are many of you out there that read my posts at least fairly regularly but I can't really thank you, not in a personal way anyway, because you remain secret and appear only as statistics in my data overview lol with the occasional surprise entry into real life when a friend of mine I'm talking to in person mentions reading my blog! Woo woo. I get really excited when I realize I'm not just talking to the wind! Or perhaps I am just talking to the wind, but it's carrying my voice across the skies to other people....? Hm... well anyway, I am super happy to have an audience and appreciate everyone who takes the time to read even just one of my posts! It's nice to know that I'm not completely unbearable, and that something somewhere within my blog is appealing to some of you at least sometimes haha. I'll try to be more dutiful to you faithful few who follow my convoluted mental spew from day to day.... I only used spew right there because it rhymed with few.... although it does characterize the way I "talk/write/type" on here fairly well.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, to my new follower as well as to my six-strong pyramid of previous followers and to all of you out there who read Every Day's an Adventure.

Speaking of the title of this blog, today I was in a MOVIE!!!!!!!! Okay so it's not as cool as that sounds... it's a movie that some of my mom's friends/coworkers are making in honor of the 100th anniversary of Elsinore Middle School as a school site (although it was a high school when it was founded). So it's a period piece and it's going to be in Sepia, so my face and outfit is gonna be in BLACK AND WHITE! Can't wait to see slash am dreading seeing this movie... I don't like seeing myself in pictures, so how much worse will it be in movie form? Oh well, they needed more people to be extras and I wanted to be in a movie lol so I'll get over it. The premier is in May, so you should all come see it if you feel like watching it. I'm definitely gonna go see it, since everyone who acted in it is from the community and it's about our history kinda.. it's fictional, but still cool from what I've heard about it. I didn't really talk in the film, but it was fun to dress up and help out.

Anyway, going to get offline for a bit now, on the phone with my boyfriend Max whom I haven't talked to ALL day or most of yesterday, and I am not so good at multitasking to be able to continue typing coherent thoughts while staying attentive to and maintaining conversation with him. Love to all my readers and friends, and thanks once again for subscribing "Punker."

Have a great night out there in your various corners of this world we all share. Feel free to leave comments on this or any post just below all this writing of mine. Thanks and adios.

BORING

2012-02-03T12:48:00.000-08:00

Oh boy, I don't know if I'll ever get any better a bout blogging more often -__-. I always intend to, but then life just gets so busy and stress levels sky rocket and fun, cathartic, relaxing, etc. things just get tossed out the window. I get caught up in the mountains of Chinese homework the constant stream of Spanish work and the interspersed assignments from other classes. This week in particular has been extremely hectic. With three quizzes, two essays, three other long and extremely difficult homework assignments, 16 and a half hours of work, 50 pages of reading for various classes, a 40 minute commute twice each day, and a court trial, this week has been a tad overwhelming to say the least. Now before you look at that list and think I'm some kind of super hero for pulling it all off (with less than 20 hours sleep total the whole week), I didn't. One short essay, one quiz, and two extremely long difficult assignments got skipped over. They were skipped largely due to lack of time and the hindrance of sleep deprivation, but in addition I got sick; again. I had been fighting getting sick with a fair amount of success for a week prior to this one, but when you're trying to fight sickness sleep is a necessity. I already told you that for the week so far I have gotten less than 20 hours of sleep total, so it's no surprise that yesterday morning I woke up to find that the looming sickness had finally caught up with and bested my immune system (which if you ask me is not hard to do, my immune system needs to man-up). So being in the state that I was -- now sick and still suffering from sleep deprivation to the point where just being awake, without doing ANYTHING in addition to being conscious, hurt; my eyes hurt, my head throbbed and my whole body rebelled in effort to send me back to sleep -- I decided that all that I simply wasn't capable of fighting against all that or finishing all the assignments I mentioned above, let alone driving safely to and from Riverside, so I chose to stay home. I emailed all my teachers and then went to the doctor. I'm now on yet another round of antibiotics for yet another sinus infection. I get one every few months at least, and often they just don't go away, even with the medications. You can see why earlier I said my immune system needs to man up. I'm not sure why I get these infections so often. I'm sure it relates to my countless allergies, but even still you'd think at some point my body would figure out a way to STOP getting the same illness over and over and over. But anyway, when I went to the doctor I got the medication for my sinus infection and while there asked my doctor about a separate question of health. In response to my question she said that we'd need to do a lab -___- to determine what the cause behind the symptom is. I might have anemia or a thyroid condition and the only way to find out is by jabbing a giant needle into my arm and stealing several vials of my blood just like the time they thought I had Leukemia (it turned out to be simple growing pains -__-). I am terrified of needles, it's an irrational fear, I know that shots shouldn't be any big deal. "It's just a little pinch" they always say, and I know that it's not worth freaking out about, but I can't help it. I still cry most of the time, and the last time I had to get my blood drawn I literally RAN; they caught me. It makes me so mad and also pretty embarrassed that I'm afraid of needles and all that comes with that; I used to play water polo, I took beatings every day back then, and I can still take a punch without flinching and I even box (no gloves) with some of my guy friends. I longboard and have fallen a couple times, I have gotten and get bruises, cuts, scratches, abrasions, and all other manners of injury without an issue, without crying, and when necessary can grit my teeth and willingly cause the self-inflicted pain required to fix whatever the problem happened to be at the time. I have a high threshold for pain and generally consider myself to be pretty darn tough, but when it comes to needles I cower like a child. I can't stand it. So when the time comes to get this blood work done, I am just going to do my best to think about it in terms or a temporary and necessary pain and grit my teeth and try to bear the way I would anything else, but as previously mentioned, this fear is irrational, so no guarantees as to how well this will work. In any case I will still definitely bring my mom with me (like a child) for comfort and for an hand to crush while I freak out. Hopefully this time I don't freak out quite as much though, and I know it will already be somewhat better because I won't let myself run away this time. Well wish me luck on that front please folks.

Also, I forgot to mention how my court trial went today. About 40 people's cases were dismissed due to their officer not showing up or other reasons, and there were only about 60 cases to start with that morning, so at least two thirds of the cases were dismissed before the trials began... I was not one of those lucky people however. I stood at the defendant's microphone and "cross-examined" my police officer/prosecutor, and then was found guilty. Sad face. I would be at peace with the decision except for one thing. I got flustered on the stand (my police officer was really intimidating, even in court he had an attitude) and forgot to do the one MAIN thing the attorney I consulted with told me was my only chance. I did ask the officer questions about his training and the service of his Lidar gunn (similar to a radar gun) just like I was supposed to, but then when he answered all my questions I forgot to ask him if he had the documents to prove his statements like I was supposed to. I had it written in my notes at least a half dozen times to ask to see the written documentation for all matters regarding the evidence, but I got so flustered I forgot and didn't even look down at my notes in front of me. I didn't even realize that I forgot that key step until I after I was already back out in the parking lot. I'm really frustrated with myself especially after writing that in my notes so many times. I guess it doesn't matter that much since what's done is done, but it still bugs me some, at least if he DID have all that paper work and had shown it to me I would know for sure that I had no chance of winning. Well anyway, if I'm ever in court again I hope to do a better job. I'm now on campus waiting for my class to start, in less than a half hour, and then I have work until 6:30 this evening which I'm not looking forward to.

In other more positive news, my boyfriend Max and I just celebrated our ten month anniversary this week. It wasn't much of a celebration due to all the homework and stress that we were each dealing with, but he did make delicious hot fudge sauce from scratch which we had over tasty ice cream before continuing with our studies for that day. His grandma's an amazing cook! (and artist) She and Max have this deal where she sends Max one recipe every week and he has to make it (he likes to cook and always wants to try new recipes which is AWESOME cuz I love to eat ^_^). So far all the recipes Max's grandma has sent him have been super tasty and I'm really excited for next week's installment.

Okay, now I should go. I need to return the laptop (my school loans out laptops to students for two hours at a time- free) and start walking to class, and I'd like to enjoy the day on the way as opposed to rushing at the last minute. I left my longboard today because it was really windy when I got here which makes boarding a drag, and also so that I wouldn't have to deal with how cumbersome it can be especially since I'll probably be getting a campus safety escort back to my car tonight (Max is outta town) and they are always on foot, so I'd have to carry it all the way back to my car after work anyway. Okay, well I will try to write something again soon, but no promises, because next week is midterms so I am still VERY busy and stressed despite my temporary respite.

Adios amigos!

Chelsea

Every Day is an Adventure

2011-10-14T18:00:00.000-07:00

Oy! Today was a doozy of a week... oops today wasn't a week long it only seemed that way haha. But in all seriousness this past week has been ridiculous. So much homework(my Chinese teacher is going to kill me!), lot's of hours at work and even on days when it wasn't very many hours like maybe one or two, they were crammed in between classes which makes the day feel so rushed with little to no time to catch my breath. I didn't get to go swing dancing, to the Katipunan meeting, to the APSP kick off fair, or the Freshman/transfer night social, and I'm probably not going to get to Midnight Madness tonight. That's FIVE events! One for each day of the week that I wanted to go to and couldn't because of work or homework or both.

& if this past week wasn't stressful enough I still have to do a super time consuming Chinese worksheet, write an essay for my Chinese literature class, AND study for my big Spanish Linguistics midterm on Monday. OH and I also need to do chores for my family, and spiff up my room. No big deal right? Well we'll see. This quarter has been so hectic already and it's only coming up on the fourth week!

In other news I wrote and submitted my very first resume today... I HATE resumes, cover letters, and interviews; I've been taught my whole life NOT to be conceited or cocky, not to brag about my accomplishments, and not to tell people "how great I am," but now all of a sudden things are different; those rules are supposed to be broken, and I have to convince people that I'm better than the next guy? But I guess I'll just have to learn how to suck it up and be that confident braggart they want me to be long enough to secure the necessary pay raise and perhaps that second job.

Oh and this is something I posted as a status update on facebook earlier this week and I wanted to put it here too:

"If you're ever bored and want to stalk me, here's my blog where you can read all about some of the events in my life lol. The title is Every Day's an Adventure (you just gotta find it) and I really believe that to be true. If you stop and appreciate life for what it is instead of focusing on all the deadlines, bills, and drama, you'll be able to see the adventure too!
If you still can't see it, try looking back at your life so far and think about how different elements combined to bring you to where you are today. What different things fell into place to cause you to choose the college you're at? What experiences have helped shape the way you think now? All these things are part of the great adventure called life and it's truly amazing to think about how interconnected and exciting life is. It's more than a tireless cycle of daily objectives and stress. It's an adventure, and if you manage to view it as such, I think it becomes much more enjoyable and interesting. What great adventure will you begin today? And what mini adventures will you go through before the sun sets tonight? Will you get stuck behind an annoyingly slow van and have to slow down abruptly and as you're angrily complaining about this circumstance pass a cop around the next bend? If not for the slow poke you would likely have gotten a ticket? That's happened to me on many an occasion, and whenever it does, I thank God, but whether you believe in God or not, situations like that should cause you to marvel at the world in general and how connected it all is. We are not individuals in the sense that we are isolated human beings, we all affect each other and interact to create life and experiences. In what ways are you affecting those around you today? We can influence the lives of others for the better, so what's stopping us?
I got a little distracted there... but anyway, here's my blog!"

Wedding!!!!

2011-10-02T01:25:00.000-07:00

The wedding was AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!! It was the first "real" (traditional) wedding I've ever been to. First time I've ever had wedding cake, yadda yadda. The other two weddings I've been to were really small affairs with no real reception/ really casual house parties as the reception.

So today we went to the wedding of my cousin Scott and his new bride, Christina Ritchie. I didn't quite know what to expect, I knew I'd see a lot of family that I haven't seen in awhile, I knew that I had never met the bride and hadn't seen my cousin (second cousin) the groom in YEARS and essentially that the wedding would be chock-full of people both unrelated and related who I don't know very well, with only about 5 people total that I feel really close and comfortable with (my mom, my sister, my Aunt Brandy, her boyfriend... I guess four people...). So I was a little apprehensive on the way, thinking about the pressure of kibitzing with strangers and family that might as well be strangers when it comes to knowing what to talk about with each other (though don't get me wrong, I love them dearly). Add to that the fact that I am walking around awkwardly in heels and a dress and I was definitely uncomfortable.

When we first arrived there weren't many other guests there, my mom, my sister and I kinda mozied around between patches of shade in the hot afternoon waiting for more people to arrive for small talk. More people did arrive and all with smiles and hugs and the expected comments such as "look how big you've gotten," "you get any taller and you'll... (fill in the blank)," "the last time I saw you, you were only this big (accompanied by a gesture indicating just how big lol)," etcetera.
The standard phrases, which is not said to cast a negative light on those relatives, because I say all of those same lines given the proper circumstances haha.
But anyway, let's skip ahead past the awkwardness of the beginning, eventually we all sat down for the ceremony, and what a beautiful venue, ceremony, and especially couple!!! It was a wonderful ceremony with many smiles, tears and hugs (and of course the big kiss), with warm feelings being shared by all present. The bride's gown was phenomenal, her jewelry shimmering and sparkling beautifully in the afternoon light, and her smile glowing brighter than anything else. My cousin Scott of course could not have looked happier. The ceremony having ended the staff transformed the venue into party mode while we had drinks, ate hors d'oeurves, and took pictures in the free photo booth with funky accessories provided for us guests. Later the wedding party was introduced, the toast given, and we were all served dinner.

The bride and groom then made their way around the tables to talk to all the guests and I finally got to meet the bride for the first time, we talked briefly about swing dancing, our shared love for it, and The Atomic Ballroom where I first got hooked on it. She was energetic, friendly, and even pointed out the other swing dancers and told me to snatch one of the boys for swing dancing later. I might not have taken her up on her offering of friends, had my mother not intervened haha (Thank you Mom lol :p). The DJ/announcer had said something to the effect of "I've heard some of you out there are swing dancers, so come on up and let's see what you've got." My mom told me to go ask one of the boys at the other table, but not knowing them or if they already had partners I didn't want to approach them, so my mother promptly called their attention and announced my love for swing dancing. A few minutes later (after taking my sister's spandex so I could dance, thanks Mallory ^_^) one of them asked me to dance and I accepted and gave him my hand as my heart began to race and my nerves amped up.

This guy was a total stranger, I didn't know what style of swing he would do, how much better of a dancer he might be, and was worried I might not be a suitable dance partner for him. On top of that there were only about 4 or 5 couples total who went up to dance in front of the ENTIRE wedding party! All my family, all those strangers, EVERYBODY was watching the 8-10 of us from their seats (and as most of the other dancers were friends of the bride and therefore strangers to my extended family, there was plenty of attention put on me... it was really embarrassing but also flattering and exciting later to hear all their surprised and approving remarks about my ability to dance. One of the strangers sitting at my table who we had been chatting with through dinner even said nice things, asked me how long I had been dancing and said she wanted to learn. She was amazed that my partner and I knew what to do even though we were strangers haha).

So I kinda ruined the ending of this story of nerves. I was super nervous and the anxiety was starting to swell up, but as soon as my dance partner (whose name I never learned lol oopsie) led me through my first turn, all the nerves melted away! He was a great dancer, his style meshed with mine perfectly, I didn't step on his feet, slip out of his reach, or miss a single step the entire time! It was awesome! & then as the first song ended he flawlessly led me into a dip, and I even remembered to tuck my foot in gracefully and keep my upper leg bent instead of just throwing my leg out there like I usually do haha. I thanked my partner for the dance and he went off to ask my sister to dance (not knowing that she doesn't know how to yet or that I had her spandex). I was about to inch off the stage and back to my seat when another man asked me to dance the next song. He was much less perfect of a match, but still a fun partner and he was very good. The shortcomings were indeed mine as I was clueless as to how to compliment his footwork and fancy style, but we still managed to dance smoothly together and no one was the wiser outside of us swing dancers. After the two swing dances we were applauded and then went back to our seats. The positive feedback was overwhelming, and very reassuring, (I have always wondered if perhaps I look awkward or gawky while swing dancing, because I never have a mirror to know and have never taken any lessons).

Later there was other dancing (I shuffled with my little cousin Justice), cutting of the cake, a money dance, throwing of the bouquet and the garter, oh and I forgot earlier in the evening was the Bride and groom's first dance which was super cute and sweet and then all of the sudden broke out into THRILLER!!! Big points for the bride in my book for that one, and then following that they had the dance where the bride dances with her father and then the groom later joins with his mother. So she and her dad come out to the dance floor and the DJ says that this song means a lot to them both and they wouldn't dream of dancing to anything else, and then as you get ready for something sweet and touching they both start dancing to "I Whip My Hair Back and Forth!!!!!!!!!" I almost died! I was screaming and cheering so loud. The best part was how into it her dad got too, and then after sufficient hair whipping and dancing the expected sweet and touching song came on and they did a traditional dance. So yeah, the bride, Christina continued to become more and more amazing in my book by the minute and yes I keep a running mental book with a points system for new people to determine if I approve of them or not and to what degree hahaha. Okay don't worry it's nothing that official or systematic. I just like saying "in my book," but regardless she was raking in the points. Oh and on top of all her other awesomeness she's also a Christian!!! This woman seriously rocks.

OH!! & when the bouquet toss was going on they played Beyonce's "Single Ladies!!!" Totally epic.

Then later when the open dj-ed dancing began, the bride had requested the cupid shuffle, so we all ran up and did the cupid shuffle together! It was so much fun. We were dancing like crazy and they even had a soul train going at one point! Even my mom went through it ^_^ yay Mom!!! Omg it was such a great day!

Oh and also, they had candy at the wedding! After the meal they put jars of candy out on a table, there was taffy, and cinnamon gummy bears, and those like sour gummy strip things, and Hershey's kisses, and other gummy things, and other chocolates that had nuts in them so I didn't pay very much attention to the brands :p but I believe there were also reese's and stuff. & not only did they serve candy, but they put out a bunch of bags that you could fill with the candy to take home ^_^!!! Needless to say I have some loot stashed in my room now hehehe.

________
Okay and my mother has said that I didn't talk about the photo booths, when in fact I did.... but perhaps I should go into a bit more detail haha, because it was pretty awesome. Okay so at the venue they had a PHOTO BOOTH!!! Woo woo!! & it was pretty darn awesome, it was totally free and they provided funky accessories like feathered boas, tiaras, and sparkling hats to assure that you would be looking your best haha. So my mom, my sister, and I all got dolled up and took pictures together! It was so much fun. My mom had a tiara and a pink feathered boa at the urging of my sister and I as well as some funky sunglasses I believe and my sister and I were not without similar accouterments. We took goofy photos, cute photos, and just had fun doing crazy things in crazy costumes together. It was really super fun! ^_^
Later my sister and I went back and took even more photos together, some without the accessories and some in black and white, oh and some complete with wardrobe malfunctions... oopsies. VERY glad that particular set of prints was not the one for the scrapbook! The photo booth was an unexpected, quirky cool addition the wedding and I'm fairly certain there wasn't a single person who didn't have fun with it.
____________

My cousin's bride, Christina Ritchie... excuse me Heffern! is my new favorite person and according to her, I'm her new best friend ^_^. The wedding was a blast and the dancing (in all it's forms) was great!

Congratulations on a beautiful, successful, and fun-filled wedding,
Scott and Christina Heffern;

I can't wait until the next time I get to spend time with you guys. I love you and I wish you all the happiness in the world in your new life together!

(I'd wish you luck, but I don't think you need it <3)

GOT TO REMEMBER TO BLOG!

2011-10-01T12:37:00.000-07:00

Okay so it has become apparent that I FAIL at blogging; I get all distracted with my life and forget to blog, or just keep putting it off for other things until what I wanted to blog about is irrelevant or too distant in my head. So I'm writing now to say OOPS and also, I'm sorry to those of you who actually enjoy reading the random thoughts that come out of my head lol. So now I have a lot to catch up on since the last time I blogged.

Okay so, last time I talked about my invention: The White Trash Roller Coaster, credit for the name goes to my brother, and if you missed that post just click on the link above at your leisure for a good laugh.

So anyway, since then I've.... lived life. One of the highlights of the past several weeks was my trip to Six Flags. I went to Six Flags with two girls from my church group, one of our leaders, her sister, and her friend. So in total there were 6 of us, 3 of us 19-20 year olds and 3 older adult peoples. We got discounted tickets which was awesome and spent a wild and fun-filled day at the park.

We rode the new Green Lantern ride, it is SO INTENSE omg! Lol, I don't generally scream on roller coasters... I couldn't stop screaming on this ride! It doesn't look imposing or impressive AT ALL from down below, but when you get up there... the fear starts to set in. The ride whips right through the queue line and the screams of the riders and the sound of the roller coaster whizzing by echo so loudly that your whole body can't help but flinch and recoil.

----------------------------------------------------------

Okay so ironically after starting to write this post about how I need to remember to blog consistently... I forgot and now it is even months later... also unfortunately, now at this point in time I don't feel like finishing the tale of Six Flags :/ sorry. It was gonna be a good one too. Stories about intense roller coasters constricting my body, almost falling out of another one because the safety check guy DIDN'T check my safety stuffs and I didn't know how to work them properly apparently (my shoulder harness which obviously is supposed to be down over your shoulders, was up above my head, I didn't know you had to push the thing down, because usually they're on a hinge and just swing down over you, but these ones slide vertically down and I didn't know that, I thought it was just a different kind of harness that goes up where it was...) I have never been so afraid of dying on a roller coaster than I was on that ride.
(It was X2)

Oh and we hugged flash, took pictures with a fawn, high fived guys on stilts, and ran around riding tons of rides and having fun ALL DAY and it was epically awesome apart from the death scares. Also I helped a crazy little mom from Fresno get through her ride on Goliath, and kept her kids calm while she had a total panic attack haha.

But... anyway yeah. Sorry for being such a fail blogger sometimes :/

Hopefully I'll manage to start writing at least once a week. If I'm not too busy.

I want to write about my horrible marathon day on Thursday that eventually ended with me sleeping through Friday.... but I have to get offline and get ready for my cousin Scott's wedding which we have to leave for in about an hour and then once I'm ready I have to watch my baby sister until we leave. So... yeah. I'll hopefully write about my Tremendously Tiring Thursday, Failed Friday, and maybe a even little about the Weekend Wedding in the next couple of days or possibly even tonight.

But for now I bid you adieu, zai jian, ingat, arrivederci, ciao, adios, goodbye, aloha, sayonara... and I'm too tired to think of any other languages I know goodbye in... I know there are others... anyway ttyl readership!

Every Day's an Adventure (you just gotta find it)

Progress

Awake Again

Summer

Wake-up Call

Audience Art & 9 followers!

Silence, Commotion and Effortless Motion

Beauty

ART PLEASE!!!

Thrift-store Treasures

Spastic Summer

Matters of the Heart

Psalm 37:4

Proverbs 3:5-6

1 Peter 5:7

Jeremiah 29:11 New International Version (NIV) 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Jeremiah 29:11

Romans 8:28

Philippians 4:13 New King James Version (NKJV) 13 I can do all things through Christ[a] who strengthens me.

Philippians 4:13 New King James Version (NKJV) 13 I can do all things through Christ[a] who strengthens me.

Philippians 4:13

Strokes are Scary!

Consistent?

I need YOUR help!

Refresh Perspective

FREAKING OUT!!

1,000 Views!!!!

EIGHT FOLLOWERS!!!!!!!!!!

Violated

Almost 1000!

SEVEN!

BORING

Every Day is an Adventure

Wedding!!!!

GOT TO REMEMBER TO BLOG!

Jeremiah 29:11

New International Version (NIV)

¹¹For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Philippians 4:13

New King James Version (NKJV)

¹³I can do all things through Christ^[a] who strengthens me.

Philippians 4:13

New King James Version (NKJV)

¹³I can do all things through Christ^[a] who strengthens me.