Valentines Day!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!

I've decided this may be my favorite holiday. Not for the romance and the flowers and candy, but for the opportunity to show and express your love for the people you love most. I love the secrecy of surprises you get to give those you love. I love feeling loved, but more loving others. I love telling and showing friends and family I love them and seeing their eyes get watery or their lips crack into a smile. I love making frilly pink and red things and giving them to people. I love seeing the couples trying to do cute things for each other. I love that my Dad doesn't give my mom flowers on Valentines Day because it's too expected and surprises her with flowers random days of the year when she won't have a clue! I love that my Dad's Valentine for me was half of a $5 foot-long (my favorite kind--Chicken Bacon Ranch!!) and half a cookie. I love that my Mom spent an hour making me a beautiful card and filling it with confetti hearts. I love knowing that all the way in Guatemala my sister read the Valentine I snuck into her suitcase. (My brother will get his when he gets back, I didn't get the chance to sneak his in his suitcase!) Most of all I love the few things I don't dare post. Those very close to me know those few things and know that they made me so happy I cried and am again.

Yes, it is hard to be single on Valentines Day, but it doesn't lessen or dampen the brilliant glow that loving others and being loved by others makes me feel. Yes, it's hard to work on Valentines night and see all the couples, but the tips were great! (Even if it was because they felt sorry for me!) But I love this beautiful holiday. Maybe enough to call it my favorite. I'm not quite sure yet.

"If you live to be 100, I want to live to be 100 minus one day so I never live without you." Winnie the Pooh

"I was born with an enormous need for affection, and a terrible need to give it." Audrey Hepburn

Adventure

Well, my brother and sister are probably boarding their plane right now to go to Guatemala. They're doing service their with a dental group (I'm hoping my mom comments and puts the name of the group on here, because I always spell it wrong!). I hope they have a great adventure but, like every Disney movie, get home safely.

Speaking of Disney, I really miss Disneyland. I keep dreaming about it. And all this missing the Happiest Place on Earth (which I still think of as home), is not helped by the return of Dole Pineapple Whips to Krave--for those of you who don't know those are sold at the entrance to Adventureland. It's like my own taste of Adventureland. But with no Bazaar to go look into, or journey through Tarzan's Treehouse, no Indiana Jones to ride on, or Jungle Cruise to go through laughing too hard at the half-baked jokes, no Bengal Barbecue to walk past and tell my best friend (who is always there with me in my dreams, like she was those beautiful 6 months) "That's the Jonas Brothers favorite place to eat in Disneyland!" and no reply from her--laughing of course! "You've told me a thousand times! And I'm the one who told you that!". I miss working with everyone there at the Emporium, I miss class on Wednesdays sitting next to Micayla, I just miss that life I had. Though it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my whole life, that 6 months was the most beautiful and wonderful, happy time in my life. And I miss it terribly. Anyone have a time machine they can give me to go revisit that? :) No, it is a beautiful memory and shall stay golden and glowing with fairy dust as it does. And as is the new theme for Disney Parks "Let the Memories Begin."

I'm on my own Adventure currently. An Adventure to use Brave Words to set the truth straight and still see the Beauty in others. An Adventure to set the truth free and to make things right. And let me tell you, it's an Adventure. I've felt my balloons be popped halfway to Paradise Falls, and felt my jeep break down in the middle of my journey. But also, there have been good things come from this Adventure as Indy or Mr. Fredrickson and Carl or any other adventurer would experience too. Though relationships have been tested, already they've become stronger. Though I thought I would fall apart, already I have become stronger and--surprisingly--braver. There's still more to come though, the worst isn't over, but the best is yet to come.

Just remember, "Adventure is out there!"

New Job

So it's been a while since I've updated, sorry about that! Well, I've found a job since the last time I posted. It's at a fun frozen yogurt place. My favorite part is getting to eat the yogurt at work for free! :D So far it's working out really well. That's after 3 days working, and hopefully it keeps getting better.

It's been a rough week this week, trying to work through some issues with some people that I love. I tried using brave words, and they kind of backfired. I say kind of because now some of the issues that were brought up will be resolved and life will be a little easier. It was not easy to say some of the things that I did, and I'm a bit sorry about saying them the way I did. I'll figure out those Brave Words with practice. And hopefully that practice doesn't have to come painfully.

I don't even know what to say today. So have a great day! Stay positive!

P.S. I actually tried the chocolate frozen yogurt! It's awesome!

Job Hunting

So, now that I am back in St. George, and am no longer the incubus of viral plague that I was for the past week I've started job hunting. And it's hard. And I don't like it. But I'm trying to be positive and brave and know that I will find something, and it will be good for me (even if good for me isn't pleasant). At least I graduated high school. At least I worked for Disneyland. Oh Disneyland, how I've missed you.

I decided it was brave to come back to St. George, sort of. If I would have stayed in Anaheim I would've had a job for sure, and I could've kept running from some issues and ignored them, I could've avoided the shame of telling everyone hear "No, I'm not going to college because I'm a loser and can't afford it. But I'm gonna pretend I'm not going to college because I don't know what I want to do so it's smarter to just make money right now." But I'm facing it, and trying to be brave and trying to be a big girl. Thank you to all those who are standing by me and supporting me and encouraging me. Heaven knows I need it.

Reminiscing

How can one person get so attached to a patch of concrete with mechanics, actors, and wood covered in paint? I'll tell you how: they were a part of magic there. I made magic. I helped make memories for who knows how many people! That is so amazing! I brought smiles to little girls and boys faces by telling them happy birthday or showing them the toy they wanted. I brought tears to one old man's eyes for giving him a button that said that he was an Honorary Citizen of Disneyland, because he'd created magic for some other guests. I was reminded of friends and family in the personality of others. I cried when I saw Mickey as I was walking in. I sobbed when I looked down Main Street USA to Sleeping Beauty's Castle one more time tonight, as A Christmas Fantasy Holiday Parade floated down the street. Disneyland became my home. My coworkers became my friends. Mickey and Minnie and Donald and Daisy and Goofy and Pluto and Belle and Ariel and Cinderella and Rapunzel and Peter Pan and every other character became my closest friends. And Abby and Eric and kids became my family. And my best friend that I went through all this with became more my sister, and carried me through all this (I wouldn't have made it without her). And my family (yes, Rae, you included in that) stayed my rock. Looking back on these most amazing, difficult, magical, beautiful, challenging, near impossible adventure, all I can do is cry. Tears of happiness that it's over, tears of sadness that I now must move on. Tears that I will no longer be going to the Happiest Place on Earth nearly every day. But soon, perhaps, I will be back here, making dreams come true--mine and others--and Letting the Memories Begin.

C

Christmas

So today is Christmas, and it doesn't feel a bit like it. But that's okay. My family was at Disneyland with me this week!!! :) It was amazing. And wet. Very wet. But we went on nearly everything!! And I took some good photos! Which I'm sure you already looked at! :) Sorry I haven't posted lately, I've been exhausted beyond belief! And honestly not very positive but I'll try to post more! :)

C

I wish...

I wish I was one of those people who would go out into their living room and tell their roommate (who only words that you don't say in front of children are appropriate for describing!) and tell her to SHUT UP ALREADY! She's been yacking at the top of her lungs for the last three hours. And I am about to ring her fat neck. Along with fake coughing and then glaring at me because, oh I'm sorry, thanks to HER I've been sick for 3 weeks! Sorry for the complaining, but it had to be said!

I wish also that 2:30 am was here so I'd be home on my way to dreamland. For that is when I should be arriving home from work.

I wish also that I didn't have to work 2:30 this morning.

I wish I was being positive right now.

So to tell you all about my new obsession! I love, love, LOVE lampposts! I actually doodled some during church last week! :) They used to be made so beautifully! Of course now, put a wood post in the ground and stick a metal post perpendicular to that one with a lightbulb in it and there's a lampost! Soon I'll have the energy to go take photos of them and post them on here. :) Love all of you!

C