Keep Breathing

What's going on? Eh, not too much. Cousin diagnosed with leukemia. Puppy getting sold (She's been recently introduced to a shock collar, too.) Autistic brother lost his job. People fighting and arguing around you. School starting again. Trying to work a website for my mother's cousin, but the program broke down and the deadline is getting closer. Summer homework pressure. Dance is taking a complicated step... Had to quit piano. After the major company my mom worked for fell through, my mom is just designing on the side. For neighbors and old clients. Self employed. Sort of.

Yeah, not too much really. I know you can't really tell, but my tone is absolutely 100% not bitter. If anything, it's amused. These things happen. I fully understand that.

But even though sometimes things like to get in the way of life, clogging up our flow and lifestyle, we need to keep breathing. Keep going. Press on. We can be desperately confused, sad, or even livid about how things turn out. But these feelings block us up even more. Anger, envy, and vengeance are all emotions that hurt the people around us, while poisoning us from the inside as well. It's important that we don't let them get inside us, and start to instead detach ourselves from the feeling. Look from a non-biased, positive third party on the situation. Are your trials truly somebody's fault?

This is the part where you breathe. Don't look necessarily towards the future. Just focus on now, if it's too hard. Not only live past this moment, but strive. While you're down, see the others around you who may just be facing a situation as well. Even in the smallest and seemingly unnoticable ways, help them, as you would like them to help you.

This isn't some kind of preaching talk. It's not a lecture to you to be better, or else. I'm just trying to share my experiences. These things have really worked on me. Of course, I still fail at my own stuff sometimes, but that's why we even go to church, or serve others, or forgive. To get better.

Now, when I take stock of my recent dealings of cards, I can see the silver lining of everything. Even though my mom doesn't have a full time job anymore, she's actually at home. I don't think she's been like this since I was.... at least two. Since the divorce. It's crazy weird, how you normal people live. And my step-dad got a promotion at the U, so that's good. I'm also getting some really great dance.......opportunities that I'm not supposed to really talk about, so that helps the pain that I might have to quit someday soon. Also, if my mom is really getting rid of my dog (which she is, see ksl.com) then my step-dad and I are pushing that I might be able to get a baby rabbit of guinea pig. Not everything, but some things are looking up. If you keep your eyes open, and in the right place, you can see the small miracles around you. They're the acorns buried in the ash of a forest fire.

Just trust me, when it gets hard. Keep breathing. Even when it's all you can do, it's still the best thing you can do.

Daydreamer

I'm a daydreamer. It's really nice sometimes, actually. If you have a long walk, you can just turn on a movie for yourself and sit back to watch. It can be anything and everything that you want to see. Just relax. Observe. See what you're mind comes up with to entertain your attention.

Daydreaming can become an escape. It lets you stop thinking when you don't want to anymore. You watch your own world, not the real world. Sorta like a drug. Hah.

Interesting Childhood Experiences...

You Know You're White When....

...You come home from a 2 week vacation in a condo literally on the beach in Oceanside, CA to a sister who asks you, "Why the heck do you not even have a tan?!" Then you show her your previous color ("tanline") and all she can say is "...Oh." And turns away from you.

You know you're white when you sunburn like a squealing pig, too.

Although I did suffer the worst sunburn of my existance on that beach, I endured. It's been probably two and a half weeks since I actually got the burn (first day there, how sucky. I had to wear a t-shirt the rest of the time there in the water and felt like a shmuck.) but I'm STILL red. I'm not joking. It doesn't hurt really anymore, it just itches like mad, but before...heh. Wow. It literally felt like every NERVE was a live wire, and even the lightest touch hurt SO FRIGGIN BAD. Not so good to be that burned with also a combination of a dad's habit of patting his hand on your back every THIRTY seconds.

HOW CAN IT BE AUGUST ALREADY? I have summer homework to do still, I'm dancing 5 1/2 hours a day, working to pay for all of that, doing chores, working on other jobs like making my mom's cousin a fullblown buisness website with seriously hundreds (3) of items to be linked with PayPal, and I go out of town every other week. LET ALONE maintaining a blog. My personal website hasn't been touched since... I don't even know. I have no idea how I'm going to make it to the school year.

That's why I'm trying out some new backgrounds and things on my blog. I'm ready for the new. My blog is so depressing I actually decided to NOT name my post "So Sad..." Like I have a billion times when I haven't posted in eight years. It's sort of like if you see a dead, really REALLY rotting various animal on the side of the road that you decide is so..... dead that you don't bring it up to your family.

Okay, so that wasn't the best analogy.

I'm just going to try again. As I have so many times already. But hey, the train made it, right? With all that chugging, he totally tackled that hill. He probably has some serious lung capacity.

Widget!

I made a widget! Over here ----------------------------------------------->

Yay! I didn't make it from those little sites that are all "make a free counter" or anything, I actually made it. Took a while, though.

Sorry that the writing is so small, it was hard to get it all to fit in that sidebar, which I didn't even completely manage, as you see the right side is cut off.

You also probably think that it's ironic for me to have an email-link widget over there, when you can just comment on a post... but hey. Some people might not want their comment to be seen by everyone. Or if I haven't been checking my blog for ages and you want to yell at me a bit... I can respect that. Besides, it's not like it gives out my email to the whole world--which is quite handy, if I must say.

I feel so bad that I haven't posted in...uh...more than a month, but I do have a long post in my drafts that I will get published. :)

Ideas, discoveries, recognitions, attainments....

Whatever you want to call them, due largely to the lack of upkeep on this blog, I am going to post some simple thoughts I've been having lately.....

1. IS ZELDA AND THE OCARINA OF TIME NOT THE BEST GAME EVER INVENTED??? It's freaking amazing. How do I live during the hours that I'm not playing it? In close second and third and forth are Harvest Moon, Final Fantasy, and Super Smash Bros. Overall, I have to say that Nintendo and Blizzard are the best game-makers out there. Viva la 64!
2. Counting off, all the kids in my family are married now! WEIRD. I mean, I have a big family. I always have just assumed and percieved myself as 6 years old, and marrige and or even highschool was eternities away. Just go watch DragonTales or something on TV and you're all set! But, now it's just Caroline and I who are left...... ahhhhhh!
3. How lucky are we really to live in America? I mean, when my brother was in Rio de Janerio we would try to send him little things in the letters to keep him happy (like Koolaid Packets--Hey, he really liked them!) but it always happened to be the letters that we sent with goodies never reached him.............. *cough*
4. DANG YOU WIRELESS MOUSE! Now I have to use my mom's computer (the amazing one, of course.) which I'm not entirely complaining about except it has none of my music. The mouse on Caroline and my computer died AGAIN and while I was updating my iPod library, cutting here, adding there, making playlists... But I didn't finish, so my iPod is completely lacking in everything except, let's face it, techno, Enya, and french rap. Ouch.
5. Why are resolutions so HARD? It sounds so easy to just say to do _____ every day during the summer, but NO.
6. School's out! Even though through a terrible fluke through the public school system (dang you also) I got only 4 signatures in my forty-freaking-five-dollar yearbook, it's all cool. I get to now run in the rain, jump in puddles (not denying it), and leave tens of extremely long messages on my friends' voicemail while they're out of town. It's a party.
7. When I'm not working. I have SO MUCH TO DO. My mom has been advertising all about the website I built for her buisness, so I have to build three more in this month. That's not counting the summer homework, dance programs, hours of chores a day, babysitting for family and neighbors, dog training....etc. That's why this blog is so sad. I'm trying to manage my time as best as I can, while also fitting in all the calling and getting muddy-ness.
8. Planning... I'm going to have a birthday party up at my cabin on July 7th and 8th. I have a lot to do in that area too. Dang. I just remembered.
9. Remembered has a LOT of E's.
10. Rich people suck. I mean really, what do they DO with all their time? Do they just sit around, stare at their housemaids, drink tea, reorganize their personal library, and donate to causes? All of this rant is supposed to make me feel less jealous. Oh well. Long live middle class. We all know it's worse for a lot of people, and I'm not saying I'm not greatful for what I've got.
11. I'M ADDICTED. To reading.
12. Speaking of addicted, my mom is postive that soap operas are an epidemic across America. No joke. She won't even let us watch 5 minutes of one while we work.
13. The music on my playlist (bottom of page) is really not music that I listen to normally. If it all was on my iPod, I think that it would all have to be put under a playlist called "Nice, Pleasant, Reading Mix".
14. I'm going to have to write a #14 on my list because it's bad to end on 13.
15. Not that I'm superstitous or anything, cause I'm not. There are those crazy people out there who won't live on floor 13 in a appartment building like the Friendship Manor, so the owners are forced to disconnect the 13 button in the elevator and call the 13th floor the "14th".
16. Though some tracking systems that I have on my blog, I see that people from all over the world have looked at my blog. Why? I don't even know how Pam found my blog...(QUE FOR ENLIGHTENMENT IN MY COMMENT BOX) It's so weird. Once in a while you get weird comments from random people who all you can say to is "Who the heck are you??"
17. Interior Designer Mom: Plus side- Cool house. Down side-literally THOUSANDS of fabric samples!!!!!!! I'm going to stab someone in the neck if I have to organize another scrap of Hickory Chair "silk heaven".
18. I really need to study the driver handbook! Hopefully I'll get my permit really soon, yay driving!

I think I'm going to have to stop now. My brain rejects thinking about all that I have to do. Ugh. Baby steps. Blog, now done! Move on to......... chores. Yaaaaaaaaaay.