Crazy Socks & Writer's Block

Here's what I've been reading lately.  I talked about Cursed Child in an earlier post.  And I Darken by Kiersten White Kiersten White is one of my favorite authors on Twitter. She's always saying the funniest things, and she always responds to my tweets. I absolutely loved this book by her. It's a historical fiction about Vlad the Impaler, as a girl Lada. She is fierce and brutal, and not at all a hero. The story follows her and her brother Radu, who are left in a foreign country by their father and their growing up. The book is filled with blood, swords, and kisses. I will be honest, the beginning was a bit slow. It didn't help that I was reading this book at the pool, and only getting 30-40 page chunks read at a time. Once I sat down and actually read the book for an extended period of time, I absolutely loved it. Another thing that definitely helped me in liking this book is that I took a medieval history class and learned all about the area and ti...

I mentioned awhile ago that I'm getting ready to get off of my antidepressants. I want to be honest about my journey to potentially help others who might be going through it. I know that this is different for everyone, so I want to share my experience.  At this moment, I'm still on my medication, and I'm not meeting with my doctor until next week to even start the process. But, as the little planner that I am, I've spent all summer trying to get myself ready to get off of my medicine.  At the beginning of the summer, I was a mess. I was getting used to working full time, Sammy and I were trying to figure out how to eat when I wasn't there to cook, I was tired, I was stressed because having a grown up job is so different from just working at college and I was constantly worried that I was going to get fired. I was having panic attacks pretty regularly at night, and I felt like a failure. How was I supposed to get off of my medicine if I couldn't even fun...

The last three months of working full time have been very, interesting. It's gotten to the point where when people ask me what the latest crazy things to happen at work, I just shrug because it's all blending together. There are so many weird incidents, so many times that I literally scratch my head and wonder how someone could have possibly thought going to the library for that specific need makes sense, that it blows my mind. Some days I wonder how I could possibly do this another week, and other days I feel very fulfilled with my job.  There was one day that I got to color at work.   There was the day that a boy was looking for their next dystopian read. I got to walk through the shelves with him, pulling out all of these books that he might like, and got to just discuss something I loved.  One day I found this on the shelf.  That blurb says that, "on the planet Snare, the descendants of Islamic fundamentalists war with the descendants of scientis...

Three years ago today, this cute guy asked me to be his wife.    My mom did a photo shoot with me literally an hour before Sammy kidnapped me to propose. Who knew those would be my last photos without a ring on.  Side note. I'm desperately waiting for my hair to get that long again. Come on hair, you can do it! I remember picking out my outfit that morning, wondering if Sammy was going to propose, and purposefully picking a shirt that wasn't my favorite, in hopes that I wouldn't jinx it. It worked. Here's where you can read about my engagement.  It's a pretty great story if I do say so myself. Six years ago today, I met Sammy for the first time. This is the girl that he met that first day of school. Except I was wearing a much cuter purple shirt. Sammy wouldn't let me find or put a picture of him from back then, and since I love him I won't. But he looked MUCH different, and lived in Hollister shirts and too big jeans. Thinking back on f...

It's Sammy's first day back at school full time. I'm so excited for him. It's been two years since he's gone full time. He was willing to work full time while I finished up my degree. Now, it's finally time for him to go back to school and finish up his degree. I'm so proud of him for going back to school and not just settling. He's in for a lot of hard work, but he's willing to do that work and get it done!  I'm going to do my best to get a picture of him this morning with his back pack :) This will also be my first time not going back to school since kindergarten. This is literally the weirdest thing ever. I don't know what to do with myself. Actually I do. I'm going to finish up my writing, and read, and just enjoy my time without that nagging feeling of having a homework assignment that I should be working on. It's fantastic.   So on this first day of school for some, and my first day without going to school, I hope e...

I've come to a realization about cats. At least, my parents cat. Every time I come over, I want to cuddle with him. He's pretty dang cute, and I just want to hold him. But he knows how much I want that, and he avoids me like the plague. This cat is just like dating in high school. You have to play it cool. You can't let him know how much you want him to sit by you. Act indifferent, sit in the right chair, and then immediately start brushing him, and MAYBE you'll be lucky and he'll sit with you. I love how the cat holds up his paw when he wants something. He thinks that he's so sneaky sometimes.  We babysat Remi for a night awhile ago, and every time Sammy and I sat by each other, she'd hop up and get upset, keeping her eyes on us the whole time. We tried to sleep with her in our room that night, but I ended up sleeping on the couch for the first time ever. She wouldn't stop licking my feet and legs all night, and I couldn't take it. So I lock...

I finished Harry Potter and the Cursed Child a few weeks ago. I've taken the time to mull it over, and have left out spoilers.  First off, I had to wait a whole day to get my copy. Monday morning I woke up early and went to Target to get my copy before heading off to work. I felt a little bit of that excitement from going and getting a copy as a kid. Recently I went to the same Walmart that my dad took me to to get the seventh book years ago. It was a fun day. He took me to McDonalds beforehand and then I got my book, and then I read all day until they forced me to go to bed, then I woke up and kept going, was interrupted while I went to church, and then finished up.  When getting this copy, I waited a few days before reading it. I had a few other books to finish up with first. I read it during lunch breaks and so on. I finished it in two days. Going in, I felt pretty excited. It was so nice to see Harry and everyone again.  There were a few weird scenes in t...

This last Tuesday was just a lovely Tuesday.  It was so lovely in fact that we didn't take any pictures.  Sammy has started working part time at the bank because he's headed back to school. So, he had the day off. We decided last week to get out of bed when the alarm actually goes off, and go for a morning run. That has been honestly amazing. We have so much more energy throughout the day, we're happier, and we're getting our exercise. Plus, when we have to take a break and walk, we hold hands which is great.  Sammy came and met up with me for lunch which was fantastic. It's so special when he comes and visits me in the middle of the day. We got real tacos together which was great. Sammy also checked the mail knowing that I had some bracelets coming, and brought them for me. So I got my bracelets, and my spousie.  When Sammy was about to leave, one of my favorite patrons came in. My first week of starting, he kept proposing to me and telling me that...

One thing that's always interesting when meeting new people is bringing up my beliefs. I'm thankful that I've grown up in a place where not everyone shares them, and I get the opportunity to learn from so many other people and their beliefs. Starting at my new job, I knew that I was going to have to bring up my religion at some point. It's such a big part of my life that it has to come up. Especially in the real world where there's a coffee pot brewing in the back, along with a tea kettle, and I get invited out to drink.  I shared my beliefs one by one with my co-workers. Some, to explain why I didn't want some coffee, other's to share about the new temple opening up nearby. Everyone was very respectful and nice about it, and two of my co-workers know a lot about my religion which was nice. However, there was one co-worker I was worried about. I'd heard rumors that they can hold grudges. They were planning a party on a Sunday, and it came off that ...

Today is an anniversary. Not of dating or anything Sammy related. A year ago today I started working on my newest novel idea. This idea came to me, I hate to say it, in a dream. After a summer of sort of plodding along with an idea I'd been trying to re-work for years, I had this dream which absolutely compelled me. I decided it was time to at least give it a shot. To my surprise, this story just flowed out of me.  I keep track of my progress and word count with these sticky notes.  I finished the first draft in two and a half months, writing in the morning, between classes, sometimes even in class if the professor was just plodding along. I just couldn't stop! Then, to my surprise, after giving the story a bit of a break, I actually had ideas on how to make it better. I ended up editing the beginning of this story multiple times my last semester as a senior honors project. I kept up writing after that, and finished a second draft on July 2nd. That was something that ...

One thing that has been interesting as a married couple is going on double dates with other couples, and inviting them over. When Sammy and I were first married and started going to our new ward, there were no young couples without kids there. So, we didn't hang out much with anyone. Then, a young couple moved in and they literally lived across the street from us. Sammy and I quickly invited them over for dinner, excited to make friends.  That was an, interesting to say the least, night. When I texted a few days before asking if there was anything they were allergic to, they informed me that they didn't eat red meat, gluten, dairy, or certain nuts. I sat there staring at the phone for a bit, wondering what the heck in the world I could make. It took a lot of research and questions back and forth with the wife before I settled on chicken, salad, and guacamole. I had to buy a new salad dressing though because all of mine had dairy in them. Dinner was okay, and afterwards we ...

Now that I've been at work for awhile, I've ventured out into the world, under the guidance of my much braver co-worker. She took me to a legit taco stand where we had real tacos.  It was quite an experience. The building was all white and said TACOS Y PAPUSAS on the top. When we went in, we stepped up and the door was impossible to open because there was some sort of weird vortex of air inside. There was only room to stand and order at two windows. The rest of the building was all kitchen.  Just inside the window there was this hunk of meat spinning around. Whenever someone ordered tacos al pastor, they just shaved off a bit of meat from the hunk and threw it on the grill.  It was unbearably hot inside. I was starving and started to feel faint from the heat. Finally I was able to order, and we waited for our food. It was so worth it.   Not pictured was the papusa that we split, and the limon Jarrito we had as well. These tacos were so good. I can't ...

I had this insight the other day while driving to work a few weeks ago. I was thinking about mindfulness, a technique used for anxiety. The definition of mindfulness is a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.  I'm still learning to use mindfulness myself. It's definitely something that's hard to use in the moment of anxiety, just because when I finally get to a moment where anxiety is bad enough that it's bothering me, I've already gone down a road of multiple thoughts and worries that get me there. It's hard to piece through them and see which thoughts aren't true and which are. With mindfulness, you're supposed to be able to deal with the anxiety by accepting what is real and what isn't and just staying in the present moment.  A few weeks before this thought, I'd been getti...