Liebster Award

I haven’t blogged in awhile, but I have a good friend that keeps giving me reasons to be motivated to do so.  I was nominated by my good friend Foxy for a Liebster Award! This is the first time I have heard of it, so I am going to try it.

The Fun Rules:

• The nominee must link back to the blogger who nominated them.
• The nominee must state 11 facts about themselves, and then answer the 11 questions provided for them by the person who nominated them.
• The nominee must then nominate bloggers with less than 200 followers, who they think deserve the recognition, and pose 11 new questions for them to answer.

Random facts about me:

1. I broke my pinkie toe back in Junior High, and it has never healed.  I now have a double jointed toe.
2. I will be graduating from the University of Utah in spring of 2014 with my bachelors in Human Development and Family Studies with a minor in Disability Studies.
3. I know a good amount of Pop Culture, because of the improv team I’m on, but know the most about things that interest children.
4. When I was four I broke my arm, leg, and got four sets of stitches in the same year.  The next year I got glasses.
5.  I am a part of three "groups" that I found outside of high school. (Utah Streetpass, Rocky Mountain Muggles, Jesters Royale)
6. I hate clowns because of the movie Dumbo... Pink Elephants on parade creeped me out and gave me nightmares)
7. I LOVE cheese. No joking. Ask Scooter, whenever I'm hungry, I tend to want Macaroni and Cheese.  I'm glad that Scooter likes it as much as I do.
8. I find awesome jeans at the DI.  I'm not cheep, I'm thrifty.
9. I enjoy making things.  My favorite mediums are paper and clay.
10. I spent almost 24 hours volunteering as an extra for the movie "Last Man(s) on Earth", it just went to Sundance this year, and is going to be on Netflix real soon. It's the first movie I was in where I have my name in legit movie credits.
11. I like to people watch.  It's fun to try and figure out what people are thinking or why someone is doing what they are doing.  It also helps me create more stock characters for improv.

Answers to Foxy's questions:

1. If money/success were no hindrance to you what would you be doing for a living? Why?

Without a doubt I would be pursing something to do with theater.  It is fun, and I love the feeling of being on stage.  It is something that gets my mind moving, and creativity flowing.
2. Is there a character from a movie/book you most relate to? Who is it?

             Luna Lovegood… (Refer to this blog post for moreinformation)
3. If you turned your Ipod (or other music playing device) on right now what would be playing?

 This one is kind of funny, but it would probably be either something from a musical.  My top two that I tend to listen to the most are Beauty and the Beast (Either Home, Belle Reprise, or If I Can’t Love Her), or something from Through The Looking Glass.

4. What is your guiltiest pleasure?

Guilty Pleasure? Ha, probably watching all of those silly “reality” TV shows.  My favorites to watch are Survivor and The Bachelor.
5. What would you today tell the you of ten years ago?

Probably, “Don’t worry what others think.  Junior High is dumb anyway.  It is a time where everyone is trying to figure themselves out.  It is okay to not have a lot of friends.  If you have one good friend that accepts you for you, then you are set for life.  It is okay to sit by yourself at times.  Maybe go pick up a book if you are feeling alone at school. Be who you are, go have fun, and make sure you start off with doing theater right when you get into High School.  I promise you won’t regret that.”
6. Do you sing along to the radio? What's your favorite song to sing to?

 I catch myself singing to the radio when I am alone, driving the bus for work.  Since I work with children, we listen to Radio Disney, so you can get an idea of what I sing to.  But, altogether, I enjoy singing songs made by Disney Channel stars.  Sadly, I can sing along with almost any Justin Bieber song…
7. If you won the lottery tomorrow, what would be your first non-bill/debt paying purchase?

Since I am getting married in May, I would say buying a house.  The whole idea of renting will be fun, but I think it would even more be fun if I had a place where I could be myself.
8. Favorite vacation spot?

I’ve only been there once, but Disneyland.  I went when I was 19ish and remember the magical feeling I felt there, and the fun that I was able to have.
9. Describe your perfect day.

Doing something with Scooter, where we didn’t have to pay for a single thing.
10. What is one thing on your bucket list?

I think that doing ordinances in all of the Temples in Utah would be fun.
11. If you could be anyone else for a day who would you choose and why?

This one took me awhile to come up with an answer, but I decided that there is no one I'd rather be, than me.  I'm comfortable with who I am.  Honestly, I have my own trials and struggles to deal with and don't want to find out what other people have to deal with. 

Nominees (in no particular order):

Stress? What Stress?

Amy Which Way It Goes

LivingVi-Keri-ously

Questions for nominees:

1.      What is your favorite color and why? 

2.      Who is your greatest inspiration? 

3.      What is the strangest thing you've ever eaten? 

4.      What is one talent you wish you had?

5.      If you could take a one week trip to anywhere in the world, where would you go?

6.      What is the one thing you couldn't go a single day without?

7.      What is the last book your read?

8.      Do you prefer movies that make you laugh, cry, or scream in terror?

9.      What do you want to learn to do this year??

10.  Would you go skydiving?

11.  Why did you start blogging?

Confession Part 2

Since my last confession post I have gotten more Perry the Platypus garb, and I want to show you all what I have got. :)

 

This is the infamous Perry the Platypus Pillow pet that I wanted ever since I saw a friend of mine post of picture of theirs on facebook. My sister went to Disneyland this past week and was so kind to pick one up for me.  The pillow is big and fuzzy. On the tag it had something that made me smile:

 Designed to bring smiles to kids (and adults.)

Saw this Pez dispenser at Walmart and it just had to come home with me. 

Remember the belt? Here's the belt buckle that goes with it.

I was buying a drink from and I caught this out of the corner of my eye when I was checking out.

I love this bag. Did I mention that it's fuzzy?

I use this lanyard to hold my whistle, watch, and name tag at work.

I saw this for $3 and couldn't pass it up... The jokes are super corny but funny.

There you guys have it! I'll keep you updated when I find more stuff worth being in my collection. :)

Where do I go from here?

When I first started this blog it was because one of my college teachers required us to do so as an assignment. After writing the first post I thought it was fun and intended to write in it on a weekly basis... Well, it's been a year since my first post. I will try to be better and write more often.


I've been thinking lately about life in general. What am I going to do in my life? What's my purpose? What is the plan that I am suppose to follow? A set of lyrics from the movie Pocahontas 2 pops into my mind when I get into this mind frame:

*Note: I know that most of you that may decided to read this frown upon sequels, especially Disney sequels, but the redeeming quality to Pocahontas 2 is this song right here and that Disney sets history straight and has Pocahontas end up with John Rolfe.

They do what they must for now
And trust in their plan
If I trust in mine, somehow I might find who I am

CHORUS
But where do I go from here?
So many voices ringing in my ear
Which is the voice that I was meant to hear?
How will I know?
Where do I go from here?

My world has changed and so have I
I've learned to choose
And even learned to say goodbye

The path ahead's so hard to see
It winds and bends but where it ends
Depends on only me

In my heart I don't feel part of so much I've known
Now it seems it's time to start,
A new life on my own

CHORUS
But where do I go from here?
So many voices ringing in my ear
Which is the voice that I was meant to hear?
How will I know?
Where do I go from here?

First time I heard this song I was at work in the morning watching this movie. It caused me to tear up because of how true it was to how I feel about my current situation.

The thought that came into my mind was something that I have been going back and forth about: Going on a mission. I've always kind of wanted to go on one, but then, I haven't had the strongest desire to do so. The biggest obstacle in my way currently is my thyroid problems. To catch you guys up:

It all starts back in the Summer of 2009. I found that I had this lump developing on my neck. Not sure what it was, and getting kind of worried, I went to the doctors to see if they knew what was up. For those of you that know me really well I call the doctors "quacks" because I believe that most of the time they don't know what they are talking about and can give you their best guess of what they think you have. (When I am sick I can usually predict what I have before I go to the doctors. 9 times out of 10 I'm right.) They, of course, didn't know what was up and referred me to a doctor, which then referred me to another doctor, which then referred me to the Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist that I currently see.

After many blood work tests they decided to do a biopsy on the lump on my throat to see if it was cancerous. For those of you who have had a biopsy know that they use a good 2 1/2 inch needle and stick it in the area that they want to get a sample of. They then suck up some of the tissue and take that to get tested. With it being on my throat I had to make sure that I didn't swallow while the needle was in my neck, or else they would have to do it again. They had to restart three times.

After that I went home and was just left sore and tender, and my neck hurt bad. One of my sisters decided to invite me to go do baptisms for the dead with her, and I decided, why the heck not? My neck throbbed the whole way there. Right when I stepped into the temple my neck stopped hurting, and it didn't hurt anymore after that. Definitely a testimony builder, right?

Well, the results came back from the biopsy and it was inconclusive. They decided that they didn't want to take any chances and so they scheduled me to have a surgery to take it out in the coming two weeks. Terrified, I prayed... A lot... I prayed for comfort and courage. It was the first surgery that I had to go through. The day of the surgery finally came. My ma came with me so I wouldn't have to drive myself home after the procedure. Sitting in the room there were doctors coming in and out asking me questions. Finally the anesthesiologist came in and asked me if I had any allergies to any anesthesia medicine. Not knowing for sure, since I had never had to take any, I told him I didn't think so. He then left and I was left sitting in the room with my mom. She then turns to me and tells me that one of my great grandpa's died because he had an allergic reaction to an anesthesia medicine. My heart stopped at that moment. My thought was, "I have a good chance of having an allergy to the medicine, and today could be the day that I end up dying." (Yeah, I'm dramatic, but that's why I do theater.) I then looked up at my mom and told her, "If I'm meant to die today, then so be it." Well, long story short, I came out of the surgery alive, or else I wouldn't be writing this blog post, right? :)

Well, after the surgery the doctor decided to keep an eye on my thyroid. Well a good 9 months later he found two cysts on the left side of my thyroid. He told me that he wanted to watch to see if they grew, so he scheduled me to come back in 9 months. I was kind of thinking of going on a mission, but I was like, okay. I can wait until January of 2012 to see if things are okay, right? Well, leading up to that my throat got tender, my sleep patterns went all funky, and my eye sight has been doing some funny things. I had a lot of symptoms that looked like Graves Disease. I went to the appointment last week and found out that the cysts grew a bit and that there were many more that started to form on my thyroid. My doctor, deciding not to do anything else, told me to come back in NINE MORE MONTHS to see if the cysts grow any more. He didn't really address any of my concerns, and sent me on my way.

Any way, getting back to how this relates to a mission, I am left to: do I just wait and see if the docs can fix me, or do I go out to the field and if I actually have major problems come home in the middle? If I go out, I want to dedicate my whole self to the mission, and I don't want anything to send me home.

In the meanwhile, with wait that I was going to have to do, and highly considering going on a mission, I decided that the fall of 2011 I was going to take the final class I needed to get my associates in Family and Human Studies at SLCC, and work as much as I could to save up money for a mission. Well, less than a month before school started for the fall I got a call saying that they dropped that class because not enough people signed up for it. My thought was, oh great, what am I going to do now? It was too late to go get registered at the University of Utah, and there are no more classes that I can take at SLCC that will help me in my educational pursuits. I ended up having to take off a semester of school, which was one of the hardest things that I had to do.

One of my sisters came up with a plan that Spring 2012 I take that last class I need and also start taking classes at the U. I thought it was a great plan, and sent in an application to the U. Long story short with that, SLCC was a little slow with sending my transcript, making me miss the deadline for applying at the U. Right now I am taking my final class at SLCC and will have my Associates in May and I WILL be going to the U in the fall.

Life's a funny thing... You may think that you know what to expect, but then a curve ball comes your way, making things all confusing again. What is expected of us is to get back up, roll with the punches, and keep moving forward. Well, it's not always easy to try and stay positive and to keep going. This picture illustrates what we need to do though:


Interesting thought... Try again tomorrow... that's all that we can do. We got to try your best and have the courage to keep going, even when life sucks. Keep smiling.

The next thing the song reminded me of is dating... Yeah... I know what you may be thinking... Attending a singles ward they talk about it ALL THE TIME! I'm not even kidding you... We even had a couple come and speak about how great marriage is during Sacrament meeting. Sure, every girl thinks about it from time to time. Do I have a boyfriend right now? No... Could I have a boyfriend right now? Yes... The past year I have had five chances to get a boyfriend and I turned each of them down... It's kind of interesting: ever since I was 19 I went through a cycle of where I would have a boyfriend for three months, he would dump me, and then in three more months I would have a boyfriend. It was something that I got teased about a lot. Where I'm at now, I haven't had a boyfriend for almost a whole year coming up on my birthday (yeah, I got dumped on my birthday, but that's another story if you are daring to ask me). There is one that I would like to date, but wouldn't in his current situation and there is another that I would be interested in dating, but I don't think he knows I exist... nah, just kidding about that. He does know that I exist, but the most that I get out of him is him calling certain things I do "cute" or "adorable." Sigh! I just need to find my unicorn, as one of my good pals puts it.

Well, what I know for sure is, I need to trust in the Lord and keep pushing forward. He has a plan for me. I don't know what is in store, but if I do what is right and do my part, he will lead the way. I just need to keep moving forward! I know that whatever choice I make, I will learn from it. :)