Random Pictures

I got a new phone.  I liked the bright colors of the iPhone 5C, so that's whatI went with.  I got a bright green one.

It's now covered with a purple phone case, so I guess having a colored phone is a 0 on a coolness scale of 0 to 10.

I know it's lime green, that's all that matters!

Anyway, so I have some pictures to share.

I am very proud of my bed head.

Really though, it rules.

One night while I was working, Lily got my phone, and took about 1,000 pictures. They all looked like this:

I do believe Lily is the cutest thing that has ever happened.

I'm sure all parents feel that way about their children.  NO SHAME!

It does get "freezing cold" here:

I had to wear a coat.

Exhibit A:

Notice the jacket!

I added the caption, after the accidental snap. Obviously.

Me and a supermodel.

Wasp Stings

Lily and I went to the park with Janel and McKinley yesterday.  We went to the park at the Disney Port Orleans resort.


Something new I learned - they let you "explore" the resorts.  Any resort! You just drive to the parking lot, and tell the person at the gate that you're exploring, and they let you right on in.  It seems a little strange to me.  Because, we totally could go swim in their pool, and nobody would know that we weren't actually guests there.

Maybe they don't care. Who knows.


Either way, the park at Port Orleans is shaded with pine trees. It's a cute little park, and the girls had tons of fun.


I hadn't eaten before we left, so by the time we were on our way home, I was STARVING.  We went to the drive through at McDonald's (because I'm really into health food right now) and then came home.  We walked inside, put the food on the table, said a little dinner prayer, and started eating.

Lance called at this time.  He is in Philadelphia on a "Boy's Trip" with my dad and my two brothers.

Then Lily said, "owey back!" and she started whining a little bit.  Sometimes she pretends to be hurt, so I kind of looked at her, and then carried on with my conversation with Lance.  Lily carried on eating.

But then she stood up and said owey, and started crying.  So I asked her, "Did you get hurt?"  She started crying harder.  I walked over to her, lifted up her shirt, and saw a WASP on her shirt!  I started screaming, and crying, and saying, "I DO'NT KNOW WHAT TO DO! I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!"  Of course this made Lily cry harder.  Finally I came to my senses and decided I should get the wasp off my hurting child, so I took her shirt off, and ran to the door. I'm still screaming at this point.

I don't know if you know, but I'm terrified of bees/wasps/hornets/anything that flies and has a stinger.

So I open up the front door and I'm screaming, and I'm shaking her shirt outside trying to get the wasp off of it.

I realize my upstairs neighbors are outside by their front door, probably thinking I'm a mad woman (which I am).


So I just throw the shirt outside and close the door.

Then I go back to saying, "I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!" because Lily is still obviously hurt at this point.

Lily has calmed down, and is looking at me like I'm crazy.

I try to look at her back, but she will only let me look long enough to see that there is one large welt in the center of her back, and three small welts on her right shoulder/neck area.  I can't tell if there is a stinger or not.  But, since there are FOUR welts, I know it's not a bee sting, as bees can only sting once.

I grabbed an ice cube, and put it on the biggest welt, and Lily didn't like that at all.

Emilee called sometime during these shenanigans, so she helped me calm down a bit.

At this point, I'm still concerned about Lily's shirt, who knows why, so I go outside and see if it's still on her shirt.  It is.  So I try shaking the shirt more, but the wasp is clinging on to it.  So Emilee tells me to smash the wasp with a shoe, then I was able to brush it off the shirt, and bring the shirt inside.

After that, we decided to just sit on the couch, and turn on Lily's favorite show, Caillou.  She sits on my lap, and stays there for nearly an HOUR AND A HALF!

That hasn't happened since before she could crawl!

We continued talking to Emilee for a long time.  Lily told Emilee all about the "MEAN bug" that gave her an "owey back."  Lily says lots of stuff, but I can only understand a few words here and there.  I think at one point she talked about mommy crying, and also mommy with a shoe.

Lily is brave, and probably would have cried a lot less if I had kept my cool. But, some things make me lose my shiz.

I'm happy she's snuggly, but sad she got oweys. :(

When Lily was done snuggling with me, she decided to put on her tutu.

Sweet, brave girl.

Cheating?

I hosted Thanksgiving last year. It was me, Lance, and Lily, my parents, and my two youngest sisters.  I spent weeks planning, and days cooking. I spent a lot of money.

It was absolutely worth it!

But in light of my current "burnt out" feeling, I decided to take an easier route this year.

This year it will be me, Lance, and Lily, my parents, my youngest sister, and my younger brother and his wife.  I am also going to invite a friend and their family over. So the number of people to have Thanksgiving Dinner at my house is TBD.  Perhaps I will invite missionaries as well.  We shall see.

Either way, we ordered some Boston Market last week, which I love. There is a Boston Market within walking distance of our house.  That's not really saying much... it is exactly .7 mile from my house, or a 13 minute walk (according to Google Maps).  With our meal came a lovely advertisement for holiday catering....

Yes please!

After looking into it a little more, we decided to go with the Combo Turkey and Ham for 12 meal.  It comes with everything I want, and more!

I will also be preparing a few dishes in addition to my Boston Market order: Brussels sprouts, green beans, corn, "THE" frozen salad (that I'm not really a fan of), chocolate pie, pomegranate pie, and probably a relish tray of some kind.


This will be SO much easier, and basically cost the same as last year.


PS: I like Boston Market's Sweet Potato Casserole better than my own, and I like my own very much...

Anxiety

Social anxiety is not fun.


To be honest, I didn't realize I had social anxiety until recently.


Part of me really likes getting out and being around people. The other part of me stresses out and worries about it non stop. My whole body shakes. Sometimes I cry for no reason. I'm unkind to my husband and daughter for no reason other than my nerves.


I've recently noticed that I try to ease my fears by spending a lot of time on my appearance. I suppose I do it to try to feel confident about myself and cover up the fact that I'm constantly second guessing the things that come out of my mouth.


Sometimes I'll plan makeup and outfits days, even weeks in advance, just so my favorite outfit will be clean, and I'll have my most flattering face on.



I am much more comfortable behind a computer screen. Because backspace.





We went over to a friend's house on Halloween: Janel and James and their daughter McKinley.

The original plan was to eat pizza and then go to Celebration to trick or treat.  When we got to our friend's house, we talked about how crazy busy it looked just to get on the road that leads to Celebration, so we kind of cut that plan and just hung out at her house and let our girls play together.



I had a great time!  I enjoy their company. I like talking to them.  We have quite a bit in common, considering we both ended up here, quite randomly, from Utah. We're at similar points in our lives.


Why can't I stop thinking about things I said?  Why am I so worried that I offended them? Or said something stupid?


For example, I'm worrying about talking about work too much.  Or about my weird sleep schedule.  I'm worried I didn't ask them enough questions about themselves. I'm worried that I'm this annoying person that people just "deal with."  I'm worried that I didn't bring drinks that they liked. Or that I wasn't polite.  I'm worried that maybe they thought Lily was rude or outrageous.  I'm worried that maybe they wanted us to leave sooner than we actually did.


And typing this all out has made me cry.  This is real. This isn't in my head, this is consuming my life.


And it happens ALL.THE.TIME.




Make it stop.

Trunk or Treat

I love to plan and prepare Halloween costumes.  I hate to wear Halloween costumes.


For Lily, I had planned for her to be Mrs. Nezbit. I wanted to get her a Buzz Lightyear costume, a little pink apron, a blue hat, and then a teacup trick or treat bag/container/thing.


I was very pleased with myself!


Unfortunately, I was drowning with work, and only came up for air long enough to get her the Buzz Lightyear costume.  We decided to put a blue flower in her hair, and have her wear a purple tutu that she got a from a birthday party she went to recently.

It worked.  Not nearly as creative and adorable as the original costume plan, but oh well.


My costume... I have no idea how it came together.  I wanted to be Effie Trinket.  I guess I planned most of it before work exploded.

I bought my dress from Goodwill back at the beginning of September.  Super cheap. Super awesome.

Around the same time, I ordered some false lashes online.  They were $2, with $2 shipping. Score!


Then the weekend before the Trunk or Treat we picked up a blonde curly wig from a Halloween store. From the dollar store we picked up some gold flowers and purple flower earrings.

And just like that, you have Effie Trinket.


I did a test run a few days before the Trunk or Treat:

I did not apply the eyelashes, because I was worried I would ruin them.  After putting on the crazy makeup, I decided I wanted the pink on my eyelids to be brighter.


Thank goodness I skipped practicing with the lashes!  I had to cut them to get them to fit my small eyes, and I ended up cutting off the wrong side of one of them... bah!

So the final product:

I wanted Lance to be Caesar Flickerman, but we had a really hard time finding a blue wig, or a shiny suit.  So we decided he would just be someone from The Capitol.


He picked out a crazy wig that was orange and black.  I told him I could make his eyebrows and (crazy) mustache orange, if he wanted.  He decided he wanted them to be black instead, so we got some black face paint.

He wore my collared orange shirt, to match his hair, a black suit jacket, and some fitted jeans, along with his church shoes.

I think it turned out pretty good!

My favorite part about my costume was the makeup. Putting it on, and even better, washing it off!

Effie has really white skin.  I used concealer and a white eye shadow pencil, blended all over my face.  I put more of the white eye shadow pencil all over my lid, to make the hot pink stand out brighter. I also used extra of the white pencil to cover up my eyebrows as much as I could.  Who knew a person without eyebrows would have to cover them for this look?  ;)  I used the Urban Decay Electric palette for the hot pink eyeshadow, which I also used as blush.  For my lips I used a hot pink lip liner, covered with hot pink lipstick, and then a bright purple eyeshadow from the Electric palette in the center.

Easy peasy!


Washing it off felt amazing.  I do not think you are supposed to use cream eyeshadow and concealer all over your face.  Hello, clogged pores.

Also, I am allergic to pink eyeshadow. And it stained my eyelids, made them swollen, and cracked and peeling.


Totally worth it.

Not-So Scary!

Even though I haven't participated in life for the past two months, I was able to do some fun things with my little family.

We went to Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party a few weeks ago.


I didn't know much about it before we got our tickets, but everyone who had been to the party kept telling us it was really fun, and we had to try it once.

I was worried that it wouldn't be worth what you pay.  It is a better deal if you do NOT have season passes.  To get into the party you simply have to buy a ticket to the party - it is not in addition to your park tickets, and it is cheaper than regular park admission.



The difference between the party and a regular night at the Magic Kingdom is that there is a special Halloween parade, special fireworks, trick or treating at lots of locations around the park, and extra character meet and greets.

Most people say that there is also little to no wait to get on any rides.



After presenting our ticket at the entry, they gave us wrist bands. The wrist bands were to show that we paid for the Halloween ticket, and we didn't have to get kicked out of the park at 7 pm, like everyone who did not purchase a ticket to the party.


Lance was mostly interested in trick or treating. I was mostly interested in the fireworks and the parade.  So, it worked out so we both got to do everything we wanted.  Neither one of us are into character meet and greets, so we didn't do any of those.

But first, we ate some dinner.

At Pecos Bill's

The parade was awesome.  It's lead by the headless horseman, which scared Lily quite a bit. She stared at him as he rode by (which was quickly, since he's on an actual horse), and then watched the direction he came from, expecting more scary people.  The headless horseman rides by about 15 minutes before the parade actually starts, and after a while of not seeing any other people coming Lily said, "Head gone! Scary!"  It was pretty cute.

First float of the parade

The parade was pretty awesome. It included all the villains, and a lot of cool lights, and music and dancing.

Haunted Mansion

The park was decorated with awesome things. The Haunted Mansion was lit up purple and blue, and had lots of fog surrounding it.

Buzz Lightyear! (Not a flying toy)

Once again, I did not take very many photos.  Lance took a lot, and he tried sharing them with me on iCloud but I can't get them to work.  I'm a little frustrated, but, at least I took a few I can share!



The morning after the party, I asked Lily what we did last night. This was her exact reply:

"Head gone!  Scarry!  Treat!"


So, the highlights of the night were the scary headless horseman, and the trick or treating.  She remembered all the important parts. :)

Autumn

Fall is a great time of year in Florida.

The humidity goes away, but it stays warm.

The EPCOT Food and Wine Festival happens, and never disappoints.

The parks (the Disney parks) are less crowded because the kids are back in school.

Dancing With the Stars is on TV.

Ok ok, DWTS has NOTHING to do with Florida.  Whatever.





Fall is my new favorite season.


Spring was my favorite in Utah.  Nature would turn from dead and gray to colorful and pretty. The ice starts to melt, and therefore my toes would thaw as well. :-)





The past couple of months have been really difficult.  It was once again our political cycle.  The 2012 cycle nearly killed me, and this one was much better, but I worked a lot more, and in a later time zone.



Our pay period is every two weeks.  My time sheets look like this:
Sep 13-26: 107 hours
Sep 27 - Oct 10: 138 hours
Oct 11-24: 154 hours


I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me. It's my choice to work. I love my job. I love the people I work for. I want to work hard for them and do the best job I can.

I do want you to be impressed though. Surprised. Shocked!  :-)


I actually showered this year! That's a step up from 2012.  Boom, baybeh!  But, with my (terrible) hair cut, after showering and sleeping, this is what I looked like while I worked most days:

Sexy.

I'm sure most everyone in the office has time sheets that look similar to or have even more hours than mine.  Especially the owners. They don't keep time sheets, but they work the hardest and longest of anyone.  That makes it easier for me to give them all I've got.


I feel very lucky to have the job I have.




The hardest part about the past two months has been going to church.  Lance has been home with Lily, so I can sleep during the day.  But after my Saturday night shift, I get hardly any sleep before getting up for church.

My regular schedule is to be off by 1am Sunday morning.  Then I get up at 7:30am for church.   That's already not really enough sleep.  So... you can imagine that getting off work at 5, or 6, or 7am isn't really the most fun thing in the world.

I went one Sunday with zero sleep before church.

Most Sundays I at least got 90 minutes of rest before getting up, which was enough to at least look human. (I think.)

I skipped Sacrament meeting. A lot.  And if I didn't skip it, I missed it anyway because I was running late.

But I am proud of the effort I made.




I'm really excited for life to start going back to "normal" even though I'm not really sure what "normal" is.


We aren't sure if Lance will go back to his previous job.  I really like having him home all the time.

With the holidays coming up we have a lot of trips planned, and if Lance got a new job that means we would risk having to cancel some of those trips.

Hair Wrecks

Cake Wrecks.

Have you heard of it?


People post pictures of horrible cakes that they see that have been made by professionals.

Some of my favorite posts show the inspiration for the cake vs. what they actually got.




I just received my third bad haircut IN A ROW.  And I'm thinking about starting my own website:
Hair Wrecks.



I will post my before hair, my inspiration photo, and my after hair.


What do you think?  Would anyone read it?  Do you think eventually I'd get enough people reading it who would send me pictures to post?


Is it a mean idea?

I won't post the name of the stylist.

Birthday Party

Lily got invited to a birthday party last Saturday.  I think she had fun.  She's really independent, so she didn't do a whole lot of playing with the other kids. But she did eat like 4 cookies!


I only took one picture:

They had the movie Frozen going on in the background, so that was fun. Lily really likes that movie.  They played some fun games, and had a yummy lunch. They also decorated little Minnie Mouse bows. Lily really enjoyed that. She loves "stickies!" (Stickers.)  They also had a Pinata, but I think Lily was confused by it.

I only knew one person there, which was really uncomfortable for me.  I do not do well when I'm surrounded by strangers. It's exhausting.

When I got home, I just wanted to snuggle with my doggies.  I sent Jessica this snap chat, which pretty much sums up my life after any social activity:

Bentley understands me. ♥


Happy Friday!

Hilton Head Island

I have a little story for you.

I do not like my legs.


Well, actually, there are a lot of things I don't like about my body. But my legs are covered up the most.


How often do you see me in shorts?


Exactly.


In 7th grade I wore shorts to school and a boy told me my legs were "big" and "white."


Ugh.

Anyway.



I went to the beach.  And for the first time ever, in my LIFE (or that I can remember as a matured woman), I didn't cover up my bum with shorts.  I wore my swim suit bottom all by itself.


And nothing happened.


I know, crazy right?  Nothing happened!


Just kidding, actually, ocean waves pulled down my swim bottom several times, and lots of people got a full moon.  But I don't really care.  My butt and thighs weren't the ugliest ones on the beach.

But even if they were, it doesn't matter.  I'm SO done with being self conscious.  I'm SO done with worrying about what people think of my body.  I don't care.

Enjoy that full moon, random strangers on the beach!


In fact, here's a plumber's crack for the rest of ya'll.

And here are some more photos, for fun.

This beach though. Gorgeous!  The best beach I have ever been to in my entire life.

That's not saying much, because, well, this is probably the 5th beach I've been to in my life.

First time swimming in the ocean.

It is salty.

It is kind of scary.

Emilee got stung by a jellyfish.  Bad.  I was right next to her. It could have been any one of us.



What I really liked about this place was there there were two rinsing stations.  After you get off the beach, there is a walkway that helps you get the sand off your feet.  Then you come to the first rinsing station.  It's just for your feet.

Then a little ways farther, there are taller showers for your whole body.  They do a really good job of keeping the sand away, so you can actually be sand free by the time you get to your car.  It's magic!


We had a lot of fun.  I can't wait to go back.  Definitely worth a 6 hour drive.

Unpopular Opinion: Pumpkin

"Unpopular Opinion" title stolen from Janeal.  Hope you don't mind!

If I could edit this E card, I would replace the word "yourself" with the words "your BARF."


That is all.