Amanda's Wedding and California!

First of all, let me say that California is AMAZING!!!

Like, why didn't anyone tell me that I NEEDED to live there every day for the rest of my life?!?!  Because seriously it was everything I had hoped for and more.  The weather was perfect.  The view from EVERYWHERE was amazing.  I never found a spot in CA that I didn't look out and think, "WOW."

Let me prove my point here, because I feel like you might not be convinced.

Can I also just say that every one of these pics is unedited, un-photoshopped, and unfiltered.

So now that you get it (I trust that I made my point to you), I can move on and tell you about Amanda's wedding.  It was in the Redlands, CA Temple.

Are you kidding me with this sky?!  Again those pics are unfiltered.  The sky really looked that good.

It was my first time to see a sealing (wedding) in the temple.  There were so many of us.  I counted something like 30 chairs and about 65 people (not including the bride and groom).  It was crowded, but also lovely.  The person preforming the wedding said he hadn't ever seen a "party"this big outside of Polynesian weddings.  Hahaha.

After the wedding and some pics of the couple, Lindsey, Lisa, and I went out to lunch, ran some errands and then made our way to the reception.  We were a few hours early still, so we walked around the California Citrus State Historic Park where her reception was to take place.

Then there was the reception.  It was so much fun!  Usually I don't have a ton of fun at receptions.  They get boring really quick, for me.  But this one was not only beautiful, but a lot of fun. 

My lovely ladies!!

They also had THE BEST cupcakes I've ever had in my life there!  And a In-n-Out food truck.  Yeah, you read that right, a food truck (with a very attractive worker who I wanted to bring home to Texas with me)!

This was a s'more cupcake and this picture does it NO justice.  So delish!

Also, I got new glasses.

We also stayed in this really amazing hotel.  Bonus!!

Oh California.  You won me over.

My Initiation

The family whose son I watch during the week call me their nanny.  I haven't ever called myself that with any other family I have worked for, but I suppose it's true.  I have a schedule 4 days a week with them.  They don't have to call me and tell me when to come over and I don't knock on the door or ring the door bell when I come in.  I just come in.  That's mostly because they aren't usually there when I get there.  I also do light house work for them and I wash their son's bedding and clothes weekly.  I know what foods he will eat and not eat.  I know how to put him to bed and know when he is ready for bed by the look on his face.  I could even tell you his evening poop schedule.  Don't worry, I'll spare you the details.

So I guess that makes me a nanny.  I'll take it.

Today Jacob, their son, decided to initiate me in to the nannying world by throwing up all over me.  And when I say all over me...I literally mean all over me.  It was on him too, and the floor, and the area rug, and the couch, my clothes, his clothes, his hair, everywhere.  One minute everything was fine.  We were discussing some very deep philosophical principles of Sponge Bob Square Pants, and the next minute I was covered in vomit.  We were covered.

His dad walked in about 60 seconds later.  He was already stripped down at that point and I was running his bath water.  He was hysterical, shaking, and drooling.  I was trying to be calm and soothing as I rushed but he just screamed.  He screamed in the bath too (which only lasted about 60 seconds total) and as I put him in his pajamas.  When we came out to the living room again his dad was cleaning up the vomit that I had left there when it all went down.  I rocked Jacob as best I could, trying not to get any of the vomit still on me, on his clean pajamas.  I gave him to his dad when he was done and I changed.  It just so happened I had brought my workout clothes with me, which I was going to change into anyways.  Thankfully not sooner.

Parents will tell you it's a smart idea to bring a change of clothes for your toddler when you are out and about.  They are the best at soiling their clothes, whether it be with bodily fluids or with mud or whatever.  They are little tiny professional at this task.  I would like to add that I discovered first hand that it is also smart to bring along a change of clothes for everyone involved.  Cause you just never know.

Thanks Jacob for the lesson.  The sounds, smells, and sights of it all have been tattooed on my memory.

Good thing you're so cute.  :)

Retail Therepy

I have been wanting to buy new makeup for some time now.  My current makeup is old and almost gone and I just wanted to switch up some of my colors.  I decided to go to Target to buy new stuff. I knew it wasn't going to be cheap to buy all new makeup, but I felt like Target would give me some good stuff without vastly overcharging me.

I was having sort of a sucky day when I had planned to replace my makeup.  I should just tell you that being in a bad mood and going to target are not good combinations for your wallet.

So I went to target and picked out some new makeup.  I expected to spend about $60 total.  But then I got caught in the dollar isle.  Then I decided to try on some clothes.  That made me more depressed.  Before I left, I found myself in the shoe isle.  That was my downfall.

New makeup, several dollar items, and 4 pairs of shoes later.  I was checking out with 200 less dollars in my pocket.  Yeah.  200!

I have been thinking of returning the two pairs on the right.  I have worn the two on the left already and I love them.  We will see.

Also, you see that lipstick in the top picture?  Yeah.  That was my bold purchase.  I got my inspiration from my good friend Amy who rocks bright red lipstick on occasion.  I thought why not?

Red lipstick rocks!

So there you have it.  Stay away from Target on bad days.  ha!

It's All Relative

The past few months have found me busy with lots of things to do.  Too much to do probably.  I have discovered amongst the craziness of it all, that I get done as much as I want to get done.  I prioritize things and I get done as much as I decide to do that day.  That may seem obvious to you, but when life is busy you feel like you "don't have time" for anything.  That's not really true.  You have time for what you make time for.

The past few months I have been "making time" for work, nannying, babysitting (for other families), a painting certification course, dieting (it takes time, trust!), working out, sleep (I guess), speaking in church, teaching RS (sunday school), institute class, family history class, a second (church) calling, making food (for said institute class), hanging out with friends...etc.

I thought I was busy.  There were moments when I thought, I just don't want to do this much anymore. I'm tired.  There were times when I thought, I can't do this.  Life is funny when you make statements like I can't.  It tests your limits sometimes.  It makes you see that you are much more capable than what you had previously thought.  I discovered this most recently when I got a text from a friend asking if I would watch her dog for the next week while she was out of town.  She seemed desperate and I don't really say no to people unless I genuinely cannot do what they are asking of me.  I clarified that this dog could go 8 hours without being let out to go to the bathroom.  Arrangements were made and 30 minutes later a white fluffy dog was at my apartment sniffing all the nooks and crannies.

A few months back I was sitting around talking with someone about jobs and finances when he said to me, "I am just now getting comfortable with what I make..."  I remembering thinking, if I only made what you make, I would be living the high life.  Before I could even make a face at him, he finished his thought, saying, "...for the life I have built.  It's all relative."  I have thought about that phrase several times since then.  He is comfortable with what he makes.  I would feel rich making that much.  And someone else who struggles to make much more than minimum wage would kill for my current salary.

I am just beginning to discover that we have the lives we build for ourselves.  Sure life can help you out with great experiences or opportunities.  You could be blessed with some amazing talent or ability.  Or life could be constantly handing you a crappy hand that has surely been stacked against you for some time now.  But in the end we all get to choose the life we make for ourselves.  We pick up the cards we have and we play the best we can with what we've got.  We create our own attitudes towards our situations.  We react how we choose to react.  We smile as much as we choose to smile.  We remember our blessings as often as we choose to remember them.

So I had this dog that I was now caring for who was making my life busier.  I was having to make multiple trips home a day in between my jobs and working out.  I was really beginning to resent living on the 3rd floor and just how tiring it is to walk up and down 36 steps a dozen times a day.  I was (for the first time since living here) annoyed with some distant neighbor who was letting their dog (faintly) bark at 1 am which was making "my" dog bark at 1 am and causing very little sleep to happen among anyone.  I didn't want to have to pick up poop from my floor or run up the 3 flights of stairs only to throw my stuff down, strap a lease to a dog and run back down the stairs and then pick up more poop from the grass.

I remember multiple times telling a friend that all I wanted was my busy life back sans dog.  Funny how the "busy" before was all I wished for after I got busier.

The dog did go home eventually and I felt relief for being back to my 14 hour work days and nothing else.

Painting Instructor

Guys I did it!  I am certified painting instructor!  What WHAT!!

Here is the certificate to prove it.

These are the paintings I did during the course:

There was one more I did but its not done yet.  Close, but not quite done.  

So what's next?

Well I am pretty busy with work and babysitting at the moment but babysitting will slow down in mid April.  In the mean time I plan to attend some painting classes to just watch and maybe help people so I can get a better feel of the teaching part of it.  I also plan to try and teach some free classes to some friends so that I can learn how to do it.  If you want to take a free painting class sometime soon, hit me up!

 

Happy Mediums

Sometime in my younger years I decided that life was about happy mediums or what I sometimes call maintenance.

I have known for quite some time that I am not good with this concept.  I don't know why it is so hard for me to maintain. I sometimes wish I could live in a world were things like that were easier for me or came more naturally to me.  

Let me give you some examples.   It's easier to clean a few dishes every day then to not clean a single dish for 2 weeks and then have to hunker down and spend 2 hours washing dishes and trying to get rid of all of the grossness that had started to grow in your kitchen sink.  (Not that I have ever done that.  haha)  While it is nice to not have to do dishes for those 2 weeks, was it worth it to have a messy kitchen the whole time and have to do all that cleaning?

Or, it would be easier to maintain a healthy lifestyle of good eating and regular exercise than to realize you are 30 lbs overweight, can't fit into a dress you have to wear in a month, and have to go on some crash diet of 500 cal/day and 3 hour workouts/day until you are where you want to be again.

This past November I participated in the NaNoWriMo, like I did the year before.  This time I started on time.  I was feeling good.  I was a little ahead of schedule, and then...I did what I always seem to do.  I started to lose momentum and things started to fall apart.  I told myself that it was okay and that I could make it up.  That "I have time." Unfortunately that never really happened.  Eventually I quit the NaNo.  I was frustrated with my story and it's progress and I sold into the idea that I was just too busy and it was okay to quit.

I watched as my friends who were doing the NaNo progress along happily.  I was jealous.  I wanted to be happily moving at a maintainable pace.  I looked at my progress and realized that if was going to finish I would have a lot of ground to make up.

Apparently this is where I thrive in life.  I am a procrastinator at heart who usually starts off well, stalls in the middle, and then pulls things out in the last minute.  That usually also includes a large amount of time and stress, all which could have been avoided if I had just kept moving the whole time.

These are my stats from this past NaNo.  See there in the middle where I struggled?  This graph is sort of like a picture of my life (which is utterly depressing).  You could look at it two different ways.

One: That I waste a lot of time being a procrastinator and making up for lost time.  That procrastinating is stupid and unnecessary and well rounded individuals don't live their lives this way.

Or two:  I always finish.  Good, bad, exhausted, and/or stressed...it gets done, and there is something be said for finishing.

I live somewhere in the middle of these two ideas.

For example:
I wish that my apartment wasn't in a constant state of either chaos or "don't touch anything, it is finally clean."

I wish I could just learn how to eat decent and work out a few times a week as a lifestyle and not be on either extreme of a) not caring what I eat and not working out, or b)spending 10 hours a week working out and feeling like I could kill someone because being overly hungry makes me angry and hateful.

I wish that being bored didn't make me lazy and being busy didn't make me stressed.

Some of you are thinking, just suck it up.  Get over it being hard and figure it out.  Or the cliche I live by all too often, Fake it til you make it.  That is good advise.  I guess I just haven't mastered it yet.

Is there a point in life where we are suppose to have it all together?  Like an age where we will have arrived? Have I already passed that age yet?  Am I desperately behind?  I don't know.  Don't tell me if I am.

I don't really have a solution to this "problem" of mine.  Your thoughts and advice are welcome.

Oh and just so you know, I did finish the NaNo (as pictured above) just like I always do.  I am proud of myself for finishing but it does leave a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth when thinking about doing it again this year.

The Dark Knight: Part II

Dear Kit,
I thought we had worked things out.  I thought we were friends.  But you just couldn't let me have it, could you?  You just couldn't let me have one month where was I not making a "car payment?"

We discussed this.  When I paid you off last month I patted your hood and told you that you were officially mine.  And then I got your title from the bank and we celebrated in all of its official awesomeness.

And then you decide to lash out at me?!  You pick the coldest morning in the last month to decide not to start?!  What did I do to you that made you so angry?  Were you also factoring in all of my neighbors leaving earlier than me for work and/or being extra sick with the flu and not able to jump your battery, or was that just a "happy accident?"

I am sure you laughed at my misfortune when I realized that I had jump you every time I wanted to turn you back on, and I have no doubts you laughed even harder when the repair man made me feel like I was a crazy person for thinking that my broken CD player (which was running on a constant basis even with the car turned off, and therefore potentially running down the battery) could be causing the problem.  And then when he told me that the player worked "perfect" when they looked at it, only to have it malfunction 20 minutes after leaving the dealership.  Was it also amusing to you when he handed me the bill for hundreds of dollars and a list of "other suggestions" that I should replace/fix soon?

Let. Me. Be. Clear.  I stopped owning cars that broke down constantly and needed something fixed regularly when I started a career and purchased you.  I will not go back!  Let this serve as your second and final warning.  You will be traded in for an upgrade if you keep acting this way.  Temper tantrums are not a good color on you.

Seriously,
Your Broke Owner