Books Glorious Books

Books.  I love books.  Since I can remember I have had a love for stories.  I can't recall the first real book I read.  Most likely I can't remember because the written word is part of my very being.  Fairytales were probably some of the first stories I heard and they still influence my life today.  Often my father would come in at bed time to tell me a fairytale, and then I would fall asleep dreaming of giant beanstalks, talking wolves, and enchantments of all sorts.  I believe if I were to try and distill the pure essence of myself, a good portion of that would be made up of all the many stories and books that have influenced my life.  I cannot live without the written word.  To do so would cripple me just as surely as hacking off one of my limbs.  Reading is my outlet.  It is a way in which I can immerse myself in facets of life that I would otherwise not experience.  The written word gives me the ability to expand my vocabulary and in doing so give me more ability to express myself and my ideas.  Ideas that stem from the amount of written word that I consume.  This is why I love books.  They are such an integral part of who I am.  Sometimes I wonder if I truly am just words.  I wouldn't be the least surprised if I were to shed my skin and instead of bone, muscle, and sinew I found words.  All the many words that I have ever read, heard, or thought.  These words would be so tightly packed and interwoven that they themselves would make up my inner frame.  Who knows maybe I don't have muscles, but only cleverly intertwined masses of words that work together to create me.  If this were the case I probably have a whole arm woven entirely of Harry Potter.  My love for the written word is a part of what drives me as a human being and also the reason for this post.  I have taken the challenge of dedicating a blog post to a specific book that I am grateful for.  Those who know me, also know I would sooner pick a favorite star in the sky then pick a favorite book.  That being said there are MANY books that inspire me and here is one of my favorites.

The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale

A friend suggested the book to me in jr. high and from the moment I read it I fell in love.  I fell in love with the characters how they have such strength and yet learn to overcome their weaknesses.  I was drawn in by the way in which a forgotten fairytale which I knew was suddenly brought to life fuller and more magical then before.  The depth and realness of the setting astounded me.  To this day I annually go back and travel the road to Bayern with Ani.  I feel the hurt of her betrayal and marvel at the strength it took for her to overcome the trials set in her life.  Along her journey I continue to fall in love with everything within the story from the quiet forest boys to the dashing young gentleman who comes to her pasture.  I am so grateful for this story because it draws me in, takes me on a journey, and then leaves me listening to the wind for weeks to come.  Somedays I still listen with all my heart to the wind hoping that maybe one day it will speak to me and then just maybe it will bring with it the image of a golden-haired girl in a gorgeous green pasture surrounded by geese.  This is why this book inspires me because it still leaves me with the lingering sense of magic woven by the tale even days after the last page has turned.

Sorry for the extremely long post, but remember I love words.  And the amazingly awesome reason for this post besides my love of books is this fantabulous contest put on by the wonderful, creative, fantastical author Beth Revis.  And here is a link to the contest/her blog which is awesome to read. Seriously.  Awesome doesn't even begin to describe her. -win19

Fabulous Fall Break

I have been off school for an entire week and decided to pack it full with as many fun adventures as possible.  This is the first time I actually went somewhere for break and didn't spend my time doing nothing of significance.  So to begin the chronicling of my adventures.

It began last saturday by spending the day catching up with my old roommate and baking a ginormous, ugly, but delicious cupcake.  We frosted it too soon and so it started melting, despite its ugly duckling appearance it tasted great.

We added the straws to complete the ugliness

I spent sunday relaxing and monday running a bunch of errands before going to work.  Luckily I got out of work early and headed down to spend quality time with my brothers for the night.  Come Tuesday morning I packed up and headed south for a little road trip to good old St. George, UT.  The first thing I did when I got there was order myself a fabulous pina colada bubble tea.  What's bubble tea you ask? Why only the most fantastic drink ever! It is pretty much a slushy type drink with big tapioca balls/bubbles in the bottom and you drink it with a huge straw so that you get the bubbles.  It looks like this.

After my bubble tea stop I headed to my grandpa's.  He took me to see a intense game of pickleball.  Of which I had never heard of.  Apparently its very poplar especially with retired people.  Its kinda of like ping-pong but played on a tennis court with a larger ball.  Interesting to watch, but still no one could answer the pressing question of why the game was named after pickles.  The world may never know.  We had a delicious dinner out and then spent the night playing card games.

Wednesday I woke up extremely early and drove to Las Vegas to drop my grandpa off at the airport.  I then spent a wonderful day in Las Vegas with my mom.  Our adventures began by wandering the various hotels with a croissant in one hand and a diet pepsi in the other.  I hadn't seen most of the hotels and loved seeing all the artwork and various architecture.  We spent the morning browsing the hotels and then the shops.  We ate delicious chocolate from some place and it was a heavenly experience to be sure.  I also was able to see tons of amazing cakes!  Someday I plan on being an amazing cake decorator, the cupcake above is not to be used as evidence to the contrary.  After a quick lunch we took a lovely nap by the beautiful venetian pool.  Then we drove back to St. George to see The Little Mermaid.  This show was the whole reason for the road trip and it was fabulous! The entire production was superb and I loved every minute of it.  I even came away with a super awesome little mermaid cup that is now my prized possession.  Seriously though I think I ought to be a mermaid, before or after becoming an amazing cake decorator I am not to picky the timing of events.  Here are a few photos of my adventure.

Me in front of...I have no idea where I am actually

The amazing Bellagio ceiling of glass

The Bellagio had an area full of plants in autumn festive shapes.

These are horses if you can see them.

A cool water mill 

More of the beautiful plants.  At which time my camera decided 

to take an unpaid vacation because it hates me.  So no more cool Las Vegas pics.

Thursday morning it was sadly time to pack up and get home to Salt Lake City.  On my way out of town I of course stopped and got another bubble tea.  Have I mentioned how much I simply love bubble tea?  The trip home was uneventful and then it was off to teach my amazing ballet classes.  We started their christmas dance and I hope it turns out well.  My weekend since has consisted of chemistry demonstrations for elementary kids, relaxing, working and not much else. Also I have been totally in to doing creative things with my nails and these are the results.

These are my cool newspaper nails.  The words got a bit smudged.

This is my thumb, which I love the most because it says 

Goose Girl, which happens to be one of my favorite books.

It also says Ella from Ella Enchanted, another favorite.

And these are my current nails.  I tried out my awesome new

shatter nail polish. They look awesome.

Now I am off to bake some muffins for the upcoming week of school.

Cocoa Krispies and Chaos

Sometimes I amaze myself with how random I can be.  My thought process can be especially random particularly if my roommate decides to join in on the randomness.  My last bit of random was last night.  I was planning on getting to bed before 11 because I have class at 7:30 in the morning on Thursdays.  Yet last night I found myself sitting in bed at midnight discussing with my roommate how I could fill a swimming pool with cocoa rice krispies.  Yeah, talk about random.  This discussion was prompted by the fact that my new lotion that contains cocoa butter makes me smell like I went swimming in a pool of cocoa rice krispies.  So in case you were wondering or have a dire necessity to fill a pool with cereal today here are the facts.  I started with a pool that was 4meters x 3meters x 2meters.  Meters just made the calculations easier, and hey I am a science major.  I then found it would take 6,350 gallons of milk to completely fill the pool.  Then I found that it would take 8,255 boxes of cocoa rice krispies to fill the pool.  My roommate and I discussed the perfect cereal to milk ratio and determined it to be about 2 boxes of cereal to a gallon of milk.  So when all is said and done you will need 2,167 gallons of milk and 5,503 boxes of cereal.  This will only cost you about 42,000 dollars assuming you could find an empty pool.  The result of this madness is that I fully intend to one day fill a pool with cocoa rice krispies and swim in it (even if its a kiddie pool).  Consider it added to the bucket list.  You have now had a very small glimpse into the madness/randomness that I call my mind, in which I live everyday.

On a different note, my life is crazy hectic.  Downtime is a thing of the past, with the exception of my sunday nap.  I am only taking 16 credit hours of math and science classes.  I then use my ample amounts of free time working my job at the restaurant a minimum of 3 nights a week and teaching dance once a week.  I then try and squeeze only 5-6 hours of homework in each night I am not working.  So with all my extra time I am of course initiating world peace and ending world hunger, or in reality finding a spare moment here or there to watch a movie with my roommates or read for pleasure.  Remember how I was planning on becoming a self proclaimed hermit this semester. Ha! That was the understatement of the year.  Forget being a hermit,  I just dropped off the face of the planet and have no contact with the outside world.  Ok, maybe I exaggerate a little, but only a little.  Regardless, I am really enjoying my classes for the most part, though I could do without physics homework due on saturday morning.  All in all I plan to keep on enjoying my learning experience and also getting the most out of every spare moment I get to relax.  I am mildly surprised I even found the time to write in my blog.  So long, farewell, until we meet again.

You Know School is about to Start When...

Tomorrow I begin my third year at college.  I can't believe that I'm already a junior in college.  Where has the time gone?  It felt like yesterday that I was a junior in high school and now I have a brother who's a junior in high school and I'm in college.  Sometimes I still can't fathom it.  I have spent most of my summer studying like crazy and it paid off.  I passed OChem! Barely, but I passed.  Now I begin the next semester of OChem and I am determined to do better this semester.  That means I will pretty much spend from now until December studying, in case you never hear from me.  Nevermind that's a fact, you will never hear from me.  Despite this I am still kind of excited to start a new semester of school.  And so I am taking a few of my precious free moments to reflect upon school and what it means.  With school starting tomorrow I have noticed that you can always tell its that time of the year by certain signs.  Here are some that I've noticed.

You know school is about to start when...

1.  You can number the days of freedom left on one hand, and you begin to hear comments like "There is no way school starts in 4 days."  Or you can mentally calculate the your dwindling hours of summer.

2. Most of your remaining free time is spent running errands to every place imaginable.  Such as the mall, grocery store, atlantis, bookstore, campus, narnia, more clothing stores, walmart, etc. (I didn't really visit narnia or atlantis this week because if I had I wouldn't be worrying about school).

3. School supplies are stuffed in bags around the room.  My favorite part about school is the new supplies, not clothes, but pencils, pens, notebooks, and everything else.  I know I am a freak.

4. You have spent more time in a dressing room then your actual room.  This is an exaggeration, but then again one hour of clothing shopping feels like an eternity to me.

5.  You had to sell your soul, or another suitable payment in the form of limbs or first children, to pay for books/tuition/fees/whatever else they deem necessary for education.  Not the truth but close to it.  Still worth it though.

6.  Desks become piled with the ridiculously huge textbooks you just bought.

Yes, I am taking OChem II, Calculus III, and Physics

Hence the reason I have become a self proclaimed hermit

7.  You are regularly attacked by items falling out of your fridge and freezer.

You thought I was joking about being attacked. 

My daily routine includes an exciting game of fridge/freezer jenga. 

8.  Communication in regards to little things is non existent.  Hence our apartment has a bajillion bunches of bananas.

At least we will get our daily fruit intake

9. You realize you probably should figure out how to work your alarm clock again.  Hitting the snooze will come naturally so no need to refresh that particular habit.

10.  You get really excited for school while planning and preparing to get to all of your new classes and learn lots of new subjects.  Truthfully I am really excited for school and to learn new stuff.  This semester is going to be hard, but I will find a way to enjoy myself.  I do love to learns!

The Boy Who Lived...and The Girl Who Survived

This week marked an end to my childhood in a way.  I being the voracious reader that I am devour anything with printed word.  That being said The Harry Potter Series did not escape my attention.  I believe I picked the first book up at around age nine.  It was a lovely birthday present from my aunt who shares a love of all things books.  Since that fateful day,  The Boy Who Lived has been with me for the past 11 years. So pretty much my entire life, or so it seems.  I was able to quickly read the first three books and then from that time forth had to painstakingly wait for the next volume to come out.  In my anticipation for an amazing new book or movie I would always read the previous ones to make sure I forgot nothing.  Every summer I would find myself delving back into the world of wizardry just as anxious as the year before.  These books were a part of growing up for me, as well as many people my age.  This summer was no different from the past 11 summers, except that I know it might be awhile before I again visit Diagon alley, Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, and all the other magical places.  This being the case my roommates and I felt that this experience needed the proper send off.  I personally reread all the books again, except sadly OChem got in the way of life and I am still finishing up the last book.  Once the books had been read we embarked upon the longest day ever devoted to The Boy Who Lived.  What did that entail you ask?  Just spending 21 hours in a dark theatre all day long watching ALL eight movies.  We arrived a little before 6 am in the dark hours of the morning after only 3 hours of sleep.  Once there the magic began.  Come 6:30am we were watching the scrawny boy find out he was a wizard.  By 12:30 that night we were anxiously preparing for The Chosen One to vanquish The Dark Lord.  It was so much fun being able to watch the entire story from start to finish.  I don't believe any other way would have satisfied saying goodbye to something that has for so long been a part of my life.  Is this truly goodbye?  No, but it will be a good while before I again pick up those novels.  So for now I say so long to The Boy Who Lived.

6 am and Posing with HP

Right before the 1st movie with my Awesome HP Loving Roommate

All 3 of us about halfway through (we changed T-shirts throughout the day)

Team Gryffindor!

3 am the next morning.  WE SURVIVED the 1178 mins.

And so marks the ending of an era, but not really, because as far as I am concerned Harry Potter will always be The Boy Who Lived and will continue to touch the lives of generations to come. 

Sizzlin' Summer

The title of this blog is a bit deceiving because until this week its been off and on chilly weather.  I do believe though that we have finally hit summer time heat.  Despite not always having sunshine I have managed to have an amazing summer full of fun.  It began with a week off of school during which I celebrated my awesome roommate Debbie's 21st birthday.  How did we celebrate?  It began with delicious homemade apple pie, spending the day dressing up, and then a night out on the town.  We ended the night by playing 21 of course.

The Delicious and Beautiful Apple Pie I made

My fabulous roommates (Birthday Girl on the Left) and 3 Candles for 21

Hannah did everyone's hair amazing.  

My roommates and I all dressed up 

We went to a restaurant that served non-alcoholic mocktails and they were awesome

My awesome winning hand in 21

Also monthly at our apartment we have what we deem as Dessert Nights.  We have one night a month where we invite all our awesome girl friends over, everyone brings fruit or something, and then we make fabulous dessert and play games.  The first time we made crepes, this month though we made dessert pizza complete with sugar cookie crust, cream cheese/cool whip topping, and fruit.

Most recently I threw my old roommate her bachlorette party.  She was late notifying people so it ended up just being her, debbie, and I.  It still turned out great though.  We took her out to dinner at her favorite place Costa Vida.  Then we took her mini-golfing and afterwards made ourselves sick on sugary pina coladas and strawberry daiquiris.  The best part was she had no idea what we were doing and we blind-folded her from place to place which was quite entertaining.

The beautiful bride to be with her first gift of the evening. Post-its!

When she moved out we put about a hundred post-it notes in her stuff,

she still finds them months later.

The blind-folded bride.  

Delicious Costa Vida

Mini-golfing. I managed two holes-in-one and Jessica got one as well,

which is good because she had to get a hole-in-one to get her next gift. 

Pina Coladas anyone?

And that has been my summer up to date.  It has also been a very long blog post, sorry about that, but this is really my only form of journaling right now.  Until the next big adventure...

Living on the Blue Side of Life

Sometimes I want to do something crazy and spontaneous just to challenge who I am as a person.  Nothing life altering, but something that makes people think and question it.  Usually though I am all talk and never action when it comes crazy and spontaneous.  Hence my problem, talking, which is the opposite of doing. Which is fine, because last time I checked I haven't changed my name to Hamlet.  For the first time though I did something crazy! What did I do you ask?  I dyed part of my hair bright teal blue.  This is a big deal.  Mainly because every time I've gotten my hair highlighted before I usually start hyperventilating and freaking out at the hairdresser.  Apparently I have an irrational fear of never being able to return to my natural hair color.  Which is stupid, I know.  Back to main point though is that this past week I dyed my hair blue.  In the process my awesome roommate also dyed her hands blue to match. Haha.   So here is picture documentation of my spontaneous process.

My beautiful brunette hair that I am so afraid of losing

The beginning 

Studying for OChem while I wait

My amazing roommate's hands

The main blue streak in my hair

Lots of Blue!

 And now I am living on the blue side of life, and its not much different from where I usually am.

The Beginning of the Bucket List...

So I have started the bucket list of my life.  I began it this year and have since checked off a couple of them from my list.  Right now the list is just sitting in my mind, soon, oh so very soon I will actually write it down.  I have also decided to document this bucket list as I complete it throughout my life.  Some of the items on my bucket list are simple, some will be more challenging.  Each and every item though is a part of life I wish to experience.  Here is a glimpse of the items on my list (in no particular order):

Read all of Shakespeare's Works (8 down, plenty to go)
Zorbing in New Zealand (google it)
Make a dress completely out of Duct Tape
Gondola ride in Venice
Discover Atlantis (Don't know if this will get checked off, but its on there nonetheless.  I will take becoming a mermaid as an acceptable substitute for this item.  In case you were wondering.)
Visit all 7 continents (this one might take awhile, seeing how North America is the only one checked off)

This is like I said a small glimpse of the list that I have begun creating for myself, on the other hand I have already started or completed some others on my list, including one I checked off yesterday.  Now follows the completed/sort of completed list (this time in chronological order):

Swimming in an Underground Cave
This was checked off the summer after I graduated.  My mother took me down to Riviera Maya for a Senior Trip.  While there we went inland and I swam in a cenote.  Which is an underground lake, they are everywhere in Mexico.  I also swam in underground river/cavern this december when I went again to Riviera Maya, Mexico with my family.  I have checked this off twice, but I would definitely do it again.

The Beautiful Cenote

Swimming in the Underground Cavern

Don't know what zip-lining has to do with swimming underground but it was fun!

See the 7 Wonders of the World
Ok, so I haven't really checked this off.  Truthfully I haven't even really began (remember haven't left North America).  I only put this on the list as a sort of completed because I have seen one wonder of the world and it was truly amazing.  This was also checked off on my awesome Mexico trip.  I was able to go visit Chichen-Itza.  I can definitely see why its listed as one of the 7 wonders.  After seeing it twice I am still in awe.  If this isn't on your own personal bucket list, add it now.

Own a Pair of Ruby Slippers
Need I say more?  I shouldn't have to but I will.  It is a common held belief of mine that every girl should own a pair a ruby slippers in her life time.  I just barely bought mine this winter while on a shopping expedition with my mother to the exotic store known as Target.  So I got my ruby slippers at target, and so what if they were only $3.  I can still say that this was checked off my list because I am now the proud owner of this lovely pair of shoes.

Catch the Bride's Bouquet
I put this on my bucket list after a conversation with one of my friends at the wedding of my dear friend Arielle.  It was after her bouquet toss that I decided to put it on my list.  Some of you may scoff at the easiness of this task, but let me tell you it is not easy.  First of all have you ever noticed how many girls are vying for that bouquet, the answer is a lot?  Second have you also noticed how aggressive girls can get?  The catching of the bouquet is still thought of as a time honored tradition and many girls still feel that it has the ability to predict the timing of their marriage.  Well, regardless of these facts  I was the one who caught the bouquet at my friend Amanda's wedding.  I seriously thought that this would take a lot longer than one wedding to accomplish, but luckily it did not.  Do I now believe I will meet the man of my dreams tomorrow, probably not.  Regardless I am still ecstatic that I caught it and now only regretting that I forgot to document said event with my camera.  Hopefully I can get the picture later.

So now I have unofficially documented the items I have successfully completed and look forward to conquering more as I live my life.

A Mermaid Struggling through Finals

So apparently making a goal to post once a month would have been a better idea.  At this point in my life I am just trying to make it through the last few weeks of the semester with out going insane. So far so good. Once Upon A Time... there was a mermaid that loved life and loved to learn.  She wanted to learn more of the world but the only things taught at the underwater University of Atlantis were underwater basket weaving, history of mermaids, and biological ocean life.  None of this held the slightest interest for her.  So she made the decision to go to land in order to expand her knowledge of the world.  Once on land she headed out to a beautiful university nestled in the foothills of a stunning mountain range.  Here at this amazing place she was able to choose to learn anything her heart desired.  She set her sights on mastering the art of potion making better known as chemistry.  Though she continues to enjoy her studies, she has found that obtaining knowledge is also very difficult.  Especially if she is trying to master the concept of integrals and taylor series.  Come the end of this month though she will never have to try and pound such mathematical equations into her head again.  This she looks forward to, so that she can continue her love of studying chemistry.  And for now the beautiful mermaid/human bids you adieu, because she highly doubts she will find the time to write again until her finals are done. The End.

Life in the Fast Lane

So I created this blog to give me the opportunity to write because I never seem to find the time.  Apparently life gets in the way of blogging as well.  I am recommitting now to find the time in my busy, busy life to write at least a little every week.  We'll see how it goes.  At this point in life I just spent my entire weekend giving henna tattoos, watching lots of movies, playing just dance, and getting very little sleep.  All in all a successful weekend minus the sleep deprivation.  At this rate I might be able to catch up on my sleep when I am 30 or maybe during a Sunday nap.  That sums up life for the moment, but I am sure that will change in an instant.

A New Year...

And so it begins.  A new year full of possibilities has begun, though the first few weeks have been squandered away already.  As with the beginning of every New Year, I as well as everyone else make what are known as "New Year Resolutions" and try my best to fulfill them.  Unfortunately if you were to ask me what my resolutions were last year I would truthfully say I have no idea whatsoever.  That being said I have made a resolution this year that I will try my utmost to keep.  And this is where the blog finally comes into play.  I have decided to create this blog for the sole purpose of writing.  This writing is mainly for my own benefit, but others are welcome to read and enjoy a glimpse into the chaos I call my mind. 

I am now putting forth some disclaimers regarding this blog for anyone who is daring enough to read it. First and foremost there will probably be no apparent theme to this blog, some posts might be updates on my life or I might use the space to write a book review or a short story of my own imagination. Therefore most likely taking the posts in a unified group, everything will seem kind of random.  The second disclaimer would be that though I hope to update this blog weekly that is no guarantee or promise on my behalf.  Third disclaimer would be that I know the blog looks kind of blah at the moment, but I will improve it with time, hopefully. Those are the only disclaimers that I can come up with at the moment though I am sure there are others to come.  

So now to truly begin my blogging experience I will give you a quick glimpse of who I am.  Right now I am majoring in Chemistry at the University of Utah and enjoying every aspect of it.  This year of schooling has been wonderful and very different from last year when I was majoring in a performing art which I also loved, but it wasn't for me.  Besides school I work, play, and study.  That's about all I have time for.  I love to dance with all my heart though I am not taking any classes at present.  I am also a connoisseur of books (if that's even plausible), better known as being a book worm.  That pretty much sums me up in a nutshell, a very tiny nutshell, for there are many more things I could tell you about myself if I felt the desire.  Overall  I love my family, friends, and most of all I just love living life!