Stuff to anticipate.

I'm going to try to make this short, because I should be doing homework. I am SWAMPED with homework.

Right now, there are a few things in my life that I am anticipating.

1. Animals. Lately, I am just dying for a little pet. I miss my little doggies at my parent's house so much! I can't wait to see them in a couple days. Also, I found a little dog on facebook named Boo. Boo is probably one of the cutest things I have ever seen pictures and videos of, ever. He makes sunshine explode out of my heart and vocal chords whenever I look at his page. I think he is a Pomeranian with a haircut. So now I love Pomeranian.

And on top of that, Craig and I went to Petsmart just for fun on Saturday because we both love animals so much that even looking at them at a pet store makes us giddy. Heck, we even like looking at the toys and treats. Well, Saturdays at petsmart are adoption days, meaning they bring in animals for the local shelter for people to interact with and adopt. Guess what was there? A Pomeranian. She was so adorable, that I almost cried. The whole rest of the afternoon I imagined me and this little cute dog being best friends and all the fun times we would have together.

So after that experience I decided that I want to volunteer at the animal shelter, and that is what I am anticipating. I hope it works out.

2. Harry Potter. We are such crazy fanatics that we are dressing up, partying, and going to the midnight showing. I don't really even care too much about how the movie measures up to the book, I just love the experience of it all!!

3. Holidays. I am so excited for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I told my mom that we are Black Friday shopping thanksgiving night at the mall this year. So excited. Mostly, I am just excited to spend time with my family. Mine and Craig's niece is walking now, and she is sooo cute. And my sister, Laura, is coming home for a while and I have hardly seen her since I got married. I just miss everyone so much and can't wait to see them!!

This weekend.

My husband went on his family's annual hunting/camping trip this weekend, and sadly I could not go because of my job. I didn't mind this too much, except I was so afraid I was going to be super lonely without Craig!

However, I decided to take advantage of this opportunity to have a fun weekend with lots of "girl time" So I invited one of my best friends, Kim, to come over for the weekend.

Friday: Kim arrived around 6 and we ate pasta and yummy leftover sauce I had in the fridge.

My friend/former roomate Heather and her friend Jordan came over for a little bit, for the purpose of me doing thier makeup for a costume party that night. Heather was wearing a lime green 60's bob wig with a purple shirt, so I gave her bright purple eyelids with a huge cat-eye, and green underneath the eyes. It was pretty gorgeous. :)
Her friend Jordan, was going to be a certain basketball player (I can't remember who) and needed a fake scruffy goatee look. Makeup beards are so easyand fun, so that was a paice of cake, and it did look surprisingly like the goatee the player has.

After Heather and Jordan left, Kim and I proceeded to get ready for the homecoming dance. We didn't know if there was a theme, but we fingured since it was free it would probably be a casual dance, so we more t-shirts tucked into pleated skirts and sneakers (with amazing makeup of course) The dance was so fun. There was a Ballroom dance room for those who preffered the formal date setting, and a hip-hop room for everyone else. We went straight to the hip-hop room and danced our faces off. We ran into a bunch of my friends and joined thier little cluster right by the stage, and danced our faces off even more. See, at dances, we don't talk much; we don't really touch each other. We Just dance independently with each other, being as fun and creative as we can, until it's painful, and then keep dancing until the pain doesn't matter anymore and we go into dancing nirvana. It's amazing. We don't dance to meet new people, we don't dance to find romance or physical affection, we just dance for the sake of dancing.
One friend of Kim's that we ran into was especially great at this. He is in a pro breakdancing troupe, and was pretty amazing-not just at break dancing, but dancing in general.

It was so refreshing just go and dance. I definitely needed that.

Saturday: I had to do a quick task for work early in the morning (to help get the staduim ready for the homecoming game) and Kim kindly drove me there. It was freezing. But things got done faster than usual, which made me really glad. When I got home, Kim and I decided to make some herbal tea (she had mint/lavender and I had peach) which was lovely. Kim made the best oatmeal I have ever had for breakfast; really it was amazing! She is a very talented cook! In fact, she is soon going to open an Indian food cart. Look up Curryosity on facebook. I have tried her indian food and it is amazing.
After breakfast we talked and played on youtube for a little while. Once of my favorite things to do with friends is just sit there and talk. We had fun laughing at all sorts of things, from stuff we did when we first became friends 6 years ago, to a hilarious blog, (A hyperbole and a half) to the spelling we used in elementary school (ex: The Mostders pot out and it searred me.)

After a while, we decided it was time to go shopping. We walked around the mall for a couple hours talking fashion (basically talking fashion is the BEST) and getting ideas for crafts. We didn't see anything we felt was quite worth spending money on, and so we ate at Carl's Jr. (Kim and I always go to Carl's Jr when we hang out-it's like an unofficial tradition!) and went to D.I (trift store) where we imediately found tons of amazing clothing and accessories! I bought 3 belts and a hoodie (which i plan on altering) and Kim found this amazing fur coat.

I love hanging out with Kim because she is so proactive and creative. She always helps me get lots of ideas going in my head! She is also very down-to-earth and I feel totally comfortable around her. We can talk about anything, and I can trust her to be a true friend. I am so grateful to have her.

When it was time for us to part ways, we both agreed that this was a much needed weekend. It was so incredibly refreshing to hang out with her and I feel totally motivated in so many areas of my life now! Thanks so much Kim, for the great weekend! You amaze me!

And now, I can't wait for my wonderful husband to come home. Let's hope he brings good news of a catch!

Fall fall fall

Work: This week is the one not-busy week for work. Luckily, it happens to be the busiest week of school for me so far this semester. I say luckily because I can skimp on work in the name of homework this week more than I could any other week. Really, I shouldn't be writing this blog right now, I should be studying for a rather hefty exam tomorrow....but I digress. I just want to say, I am enjoying the benefits of having a job that requires some physical labor, because my arms are nice and toned and I am dropping weight!
My manager is really nice and very easy to talk to. My coworkers and I get along quite well, and there's kind of this thing where we try to do tricks. You know those tricks that people do with their hands in elementary school? We love stuff like that.

Home:Due to the busy schedules Craig and I have, our apartment looks like a disaster. When it's clean, it looks great, I promise. But today, it is not clean. Also, we've both had major problems staying asleep lately, and for a while we couldn't figure out what it was. Today, Craig realized that it's probably due to the fact that we have a semi-studio apartment, meaning there are only walls, not doors, between rooms. All my life I've never enjoyed sleeping in a room with an open door. So, we are going to get a nice curtain to hang in the doorway between the front room and our room. Hopefully that will help us sleep better!

School: psshhhhh...it's stressful. What else is there to discuss? I am going to go to the career counseling center soon to decide what direction to go in my major and look at other major/minor options. I just don't feel very excited about what I am learning in my major.

Fun: We are helping out with selling crafts at the family booth at Sleepy Millcreek Hollow this year. Sleepy Millcreek Hollow (sleepymillcreekhollow.com) is a little Halloween festival (including a haunted trail) put on by the same people that coordinate the ever-popular Renaissance Fair held every May. I absolutely love being involved in this. I love sitting out in the fall woods sharing a love for costumes and handmade goodies with other people.

This is my gypsy costume from last week. Of course, everything in this "costume" is clothing I already own and wear.

This is our booth. Simple and natural.

Other than that, I think grocery shopping can be pretty fun. Between school and work, opportunities for socializing are scarce right now, so we just try to make our everyday activities as fun as possible.

Me: Other than all of that, I am just trying to keep up. I play with makeup whenever the opportunity arises, and make crafts when I can. I am in a wonderful institute class where Craig and I have grown so much spiritually. I am looking to join a couple of clubs on campus, and I try to resist impulse buying :) Mostly, I just try to keep it real.

Lessons I found in video games

The Monkeyball Games:

Sometimes it's all about thinking it through and figuring it out in your head, and other times it's all about just going for the goal without looking around or hesitating. Either way can be very rewarding.

The way you think about a problem or challenge can sometimes determine your success. And sometimes your success will change the way you think about things. Perspective is such an important key to learning.

The Sonic the Hedgehog games:

"Nothing starts until you take action. If you have time to worry, just run." Just start working on what is worrying you, or if you can't, forget about it for a while!

Helping people can be fun!

You can still be happy while doing difficult or scary things.

It's important to follow your heart, because everyone has an intuition about right and wrong. If you are doing what is right, never give up your fight.

When you are confident in yourself, not much can stop you. It's not always easy to as confident as the characters in Sonic, it's worth it to work towards confidence and independence.

Whatever you do with your life, you should enjoy it and be able to find ways to make it fun. That's what will take you far, is finding enough enjoyment in your work to make you work hard.

Legend of Zelda:

If you are humble, the good things you do will become great.

You don't become a legend by being selfish and lazy. You have to give service to others and work hard.

Music is a wonderful tool that can be used for good.

The end of summer

Here are some new things in my life:

New Job: Working on the events crew at school. This includes taking care of cleaning the various sports venues on campus, and being there for set up and take down of events in said sports venues. I also have to be there during events to clean anything as needed. I like my job, my co-workers and managers are all fun and humorous people. It's definitely different from any job I have had before, but I like that it keeps me moving and active, and time flies by where you are detail cleaning various parts of a basketball court. Plus I ran into the men's basketball coach on the elevator and even had a short conversation with him, which is awesome because he is practically worshiped by the student body. Nobody ever gets to talk to him, any many people are too scared to try. Luckily he greeted me first in this case.

New favorite movie: Fantastic Mr. Fox. Incredible animation and the dialogue is genius. It's definitely in the "hilarious and heartwarming" category, but the humor goes where many other movies don't, with many precious awkward moments. It's pretty quotable as well. Being from a Roald Dahl book, the storyline is, of course, very fun. The soundtrack is great. Definitely in the "buy ASAP" category for the DVD and soundtrack for me.

New major: I changed my major to Family, Consumer, and Human Development, and the new semester starts on Monday. It's very similar to my old major. I don't feel all that excited to learn yet, which is a shame because usually I am excited for at least one class just for the subject of it. I am having a hard time feeling committed to a major. As my sister and one of my old roommates has said before: "Can't I just major in crafts?"

New TV show of interest: My sisters have been watching a lot of Bones lately, and that is a pretty fascinating show. The characters are so quirky and fascinating, which is what really makes this show stand out. It makes me think about how interesting people are, after all, it's my interest in people that keeps me somewhat interested in my major.

I though a lot last week about whether I am an interesting person or not. Everybody is a lot less simple than they seem. Well, that's obvious.

Everyone is complicated, but I don't know if all those little complications and quirks people have matter so much as what they choose to do with what they have.

Word Barf, Married Life, and Confidence

Word Barf:
That's what I have found my blog to be. This blog probably makes me sound incredibly moody, unintelligent, and irresponsible. I hope it hasn't given too much of a bad impression. The thing is, I really am a great writer. I just don't care to write anything that good on here. I always get A's on my papers, and have ever since I can remember. If I had a career as a writer or journalist, I would be successful, and hate every second of it.
I guess I am just validating to myself that even though I don't have a pretty background, I am not good at posting cool photos, and my prose isn't gorgeous, the whole point of this blog from the beginning was to help me document my life, and let out the topics struggling to get out. I don't know why I write what I write, but I don't really care.

Married Life:
I got married on June 1st, 2010. It was amazing. Since getting married, my character and personality are already evolving in totally new ways. Sharing life with Craig is great because everything is so much more rich with humor, fascinating, and fun. We really ignite each others' creativity. What I've found is that what makes Craig and I fit together so well is that we are both dreamers. We daydream about all these fantastic things, and we yearn for life to be extraordinary.
Anyway. We've got our apartment looking pretty cute now, and have made a couple friends in the ward. Life isn't easy, but it is so much better. Maybe I will post about the cruise we went on for our honeymoon, but honestly the most exciting part for me was buying stuff to wear. I was so tired the whole time, because the ship made me super dizzy.
But there was a craft fair at Freeport, and that just made me so happy. I bought the cutest seashell earrings, and we got christmas ornaments.
I also bought a t-shirt, to cut and tie, a pin made from fish scales, and a dress. woo!

Confidence:
Something I lack lately. Reasons?
1. I've been gaining weight. After going a month before the wedding too stressed and busy for healthy food or an exercise regimen, it's become difficult to get back on track. I hate how it makes me feel. and I hate how tired I am. Seriously, all the *insert bad word here* that happened with the wedding practically destroyed my body. Why is everyone so mean to brides?
2. Job hunting. I've been going at it for way too long. It makes me feel sooo...dumb. I have learned all the tricks for writing good resumes, how to dress and talk like the perfect job candidate, but I just can't get a job. It's so frustrating to me, and I feel like an invalid, spending so much time at home. I know it's mostly because there are very few jobs available and many, many seekers, but I need to work. I need it to be sane. Everyone does. Plus with this constant applying for jobs, I feel this huge pressure to be absolutely perfect, and I am not.

I don't know what to do about it. I feel like even bringing these thing up now is a bad idea, like it'll just make everything worse. Somehow I just keep trying to get a job. That's one thing about me that would make me a valuable employee, is that no matter how bad it is, I just keep trying anyway with a smile on my face. I have gotten really good at pretending to be perfect, that's for sure. I should be a secret agent, seriously.

All in all, life is still better being married. Craig is so encouraging and we have so much fun together.

Stuff that is going on in my life

\
My life is moving at a million MPH right now.
I don't move that fast, unfortunately, because I have a killer head cold that makes me desperate to sleep for hours on end. I am starting to get better though, and hope that I am done being sick for a while, since I have been sick most of the past semester.

Anyway, here is what has happened this month:

Finals Week:In all honesty, finals week is the most fun week of the semester. Study for a couple hours each day, as needed, and then you are free to play the rest of the day! And play I did. Lots of coolies and cheesy movies were involved. We watched The Hobbit and Willow-I'm almost always up for old-school fantasy movies. Hot Rod and many a Spongebob episode were thrown in too.
The Wednesday of finals week, I finished all my tests, and Corey, Jacob, Craig S., Ben, and two new-ish girls in the group went and jumped off a bridge, right into a very, very, very cold river. It was frightening and exhilarating. When I jumped in, the water froze up my muscles and lungs, and knocked the wind out of me. I could barely move enough to swim, and almost got swept under the bridge. But I made it, and proved to myself yet again that I am strong and can handle difficult things.That night, Corey, Claire, Jacob, and Liz and I had a bonfire in an alcove in the side of the mountain. It was awesome. We made crazy tribal noises. And roasted hot dogs and marshmallows.I love adventures; I love nature.
The next day I packed up and moved out of my apartment. It took FOREVER to clean the hard water deposits off the shower. (That was one of my assigned jobs.) It's nice I won't be going back.

Being Home:
Craig and I went on the first real date we've had in a while, and it was nice, but my tolerance for restaurant food is ever-decreasing. But we saw Iron Man 2, which is one of my new favorites.

Last Monday, I got to go see Fun., Relient K, and Paramore perform at the E-center, with Craig, RJ, and Miche. So chawsome. They all were such great performers-totally rocking out.

Of course, we went to Denny's afterward, nice and hyper.

The Friday after that, Craig and I started moving stuff into our apartment. Woo hoo! We really like our little place. I am going to make it look super cute!!

Saturday I went through the temple for the first time, and is was simply wonderful. It pretty much erased most of my stressed out feelings. I want to go as often as possible.

Other than that, I am working on little wedding details 24/7. I am always tired, and can hardly keep my thoughts in order, but it's all coming together, and there is so much good to anticipate.