Paints & Colors

I never really knew how much I loved painting until just a few months ago. I have done a bit of painting all throughout elementary school, and beyond but I never really thought about how enjoyable it is until a few months ago when I was feeling quite stressed. A long time ago when I was 13 I went to a church girls camp and we were given boxes to paint for fun. For the past 11 years or so that box had a rather bad paint job but I never did anything about it because it was out of eye sight for a long time. Around the end of October I was feeling stressed and sad because of troubles with a close friend of mine and the fact that I had to drop out of that semester of school. I had some simple cheap paints in my art box and too much free time so one night I just decided to redo the box. I used the cardboard back of one of my fuzzy posters to paint on top of and to protect the carpet or any other surface from paint.

I wasn't sure what color I was going to paint the box at first, I experimented with colors for a while. After going through various purples, then indigo, and a dark blue I finally decided that I would paint it navy blue. A few weeks previous to deciding to paint the box I had taken another flower shaped box that I had and re-painted it navy blue and silver. I managed to stink up the whole house with nail polish fumes  doing that. Anyway, I had been painting on the floor, but moved to my desk dresser, it was more comfortable.

It didn't take me long after this to realize that I didn't have enough paint to finish the box. I went to Michaels craft store and bought the necessary paints and then went home. I noticed while I was painting that box that painting made me really relaxed and happy. I didn't paint for a while after that because i didn't know what I wanted to paint and at the time I didn't have very much money. I decided to go to Michaels and decide on more stuff to paint. I really enjoy painting wood, so I picked out some wooden boxes. I didn't buy anything right then, but waited until Christmas so i wouldn't have to spend a lot of money on the things I wanted. I got everything I pretty much wanted without naming the exact boxes, it was pretty lucky. I also had asked for a bunch of paints for Christmas as well and I got those too.

So from then until now I've been increasing the amount I paint. The picture at the top shows my latest finished project and one I am working on right now. It took me 3 days to paint that white chest, and I'm doing the smaller one metallic platinum silver. I will make sure to get more pictures when I am done painting everything I have. With all the various paints and brushes I have I really feel like my creativity is growing. I don't think I am quite done with the white chest altogether, just for now until i can find clear iridescent paint.

Anyway, before I painted the wooden chest a few weeks ago my room had been VERY messy. I hadn't cleaned it in probably 2 months. That friend who I briefly mentioned above and i were having more issues and we had a complete fallout. I find that when I am stressed one of the things that makes me feel better other than painting is cleaning, organizing and reducing m possessions. I am a minimalist and prefer to have as little as I can. Getting rid of things, organizing and / or cleaning makes me super relaxed. I did a major purge of my room and organized the whole thing, I got rid of quite a few things and moved others to better parts of the house. My newly cleaned room allowed me to have enough room to paint more.

Anyway, there are different levels of minimalism, I am as minimalist as I can be right now, i would love to get to a higher level some day though. Here is a video of one buy who took it all out. I probably won't ever get this far, I can do my best though.

I've always had this really big problem where I can never think of anything to eat at all. Today I am pretty sure 90% of what i ate today was chips. I had some beans and rice and cheese for dinner, and some ice cream. Other than that I have been really bad about food today. Because I am so hopeless about food and I want to get in shape I am going to start drinking Spiru Tein shakes twice a day starting next month. I feel my weight gain has more to do with lack of proper food and water than anything else. It's true that I don't exercise enough, but I think my food and water intake problem is the biggest issue. I can fix the water problem really easy, but I have to be more skillful about my food. I am determined to tackle my issues so i can be really healthy and become stronger. I am planning on walking every day and going to the gym a few times a week. Eventually I ant to start running and possibly swimming more as well. For now I'll take it one day at a time. You can't really rush this kind of thing.

My room has been in a constant state of being cold over the past few weeks, it's like it refuses to contain any kind of heat even when I keep my door shut. Not only does the beginning of spring mean that I can start walking again, but it means that pretty soon this problem will go away. I very much dislike being cold.

Today I went visiting teaching, the person my companion and I went to see is getting married soon and we talked to her for a good 40 minutes probably, though I didn't mind at all. We talked about her getting ready for the wedding and stuff and then we gave a spiritual lesson. Being the way i am I am not surprised that I have forgotten what exactly it was we gave the lessson on. It was nice to get out of the house for a while and see someone.

Because it was a very nice day today, after we left and I was dropped off at my house I decided I wanted to go get my ear buds and walk around the local track. I spent the next half and hour walking 4 times around the track and daydreaming while listening to techno music. I was very warm after the first couple of laps, but it felt very nice to not be cold. I went home after the 4th lap and just spent the rest of the day watching anime, listening to music and playing games on my phone. I was feeling pretty laid back after the walk and wanted to just relax. I am currently working on the Ghost Hunt anime for the second time, and after that I think I am going to try and get back into Detective Conan. I need to catch up on that anime very badly seeing as it is my favorite anime. A few days ago i started watching an anime called BECK. I had forgotten how much it swears in the English version. I quickly abandoned that and decided to watch something else.

Anyway, I've been in a pretty great mood today, besides the stuff I mentioned above I just did a little bit of surfing using the StumbleUpon toolbar. I am nearly to 10k page likes.

I should probably end this here, i think I haven't missed anything. :)

Senses

I have quite a few games on my iphone. To be perfectly honest I don't really play all of them that much. On occasion I'll go through all of them and play for a bit when I am really bored, but that is about it. There are actually just a handful of games on my phone that I bother playing often. Some of these are Tetris, Unblock me, Asphalt 7 and 8, and Puzzle & Dragons. There are probably a couple others I am blanking out right now. Puzzle & Dragons seems to be my obsession as of late, I can't remember if I mentioned it in one of my last couple of entries or probably both, but I've been playing it a ton. It's kind of like a cross between Bejeweled and Pokemon. Basically there are hundreds of monsters you can collect and you use them to get through various dungeons. You use a match 3 mechanic like Bejeweled to give the monsters power. The difference between this game an bejeweled though is that you can manipulate the elements around so you can get combos. Instead of further confusing you just look at this.

Anyway I had woken up pretty early when I started playing and so no surprise to me I fell asleep again and slept another 3 hours around 9am. I managed to get a little breakfast before I fell back asleep, nothing super spectacular though. There is this drink called Zevia I am quite fond of. It's pretty much soda, only instead of being sweetened with sugar it's sweetened with stevia. It's great and it comes in all kinds of flavors.

Not very many people know but not only am I am introvert, but I am a highly sensitive introvert or a highly sensitive person (HSP). HSP get overwhelmed by all the sensory info (stimuli) around them. I get pretty overloaded and overwhelmed by a lot of things around me. HSP process all of the external information around them so well that our brains can get overwhelmed and burned out. I'm aware of a lot more than it seems because of this, I notice a lot more because my brain takes in everything so excellently. A good example of this is if I am around neon colors, flashing lights, and / or loud noises like a lot of talking people or something. When I am overexposed to things like this I might get anxious, stressed, tired, and in some cases my brain tries to respond by spacing out a LOT (it tries to shut off my awareness partially). Sometimes I get super restless and jumpy, the effects vary, and come in different combinations. I listed only a few of the things that happen to me.

Anyway, even though I an an introvert and prefer to be by myself most of the time and I'm an HSP I try and get a healthy amount of social interaction. I try not to shut myself in to much, I start getting agoraphobia if I do that. The way I cope with all of the sensory information around me is I use my sense of touch. My sense of touch never overwhelms me. I get jumpy and fidgety when I am becoming overloaded and playing with something with my hands helps a lot with coping with everything. I find it very relaxing to take full advantage of my sense of touch, I tend to last a lot longer when I do this.

The kind of things I love to play with are pretty simple. Things like Slinky, tangles, Rubik's cubes, stress balls, clay, putty, etc. There are so many things that fit under the category of fidget toys and / or stress toys. They are fairly simple to find because autistic kids also love these kind of things. I am obviously not the only person that uses this method to cope with all of the overwhelming sensory info around me.

I use officeplayground.com to shop for my fidget toys and stress toys. It has a whole lot of stuff and the site is really organized. Amazon is a great site too, but it takes a lot more searching and stuff to find what I want when it comes to stuff like this. If i can't find what i want on officeplayground.com I always go and find it on Amazon. I made a pretty big order at officeplayground.com today, 20 items in total and it cost me a fair amount of money, not too much though. I won't spoil the surprise and tell you what i got, my package arrives in 3 days or so UPS says. UPS is pretty spot on usually when I order something though so I'm not worried. I love the excitement of waiting for a package. I will make sure to get pictures or video or something like that when it arrives.

Anyway, after I did my order nothing sectacular happened for a few hours, I just had pasta and chicken for lunch, listen to Harry Potter, watched anime, and played Puzzle & Dragons. I was pretty laid back today. The ward had family home evening tonight, we had pizze and rootbeet, and a spiritual message. I don't remember what the spiritual message was sadly, but I loved the company and the pizza and root beer. Everyone introduced themself before we ate, they told their names and something about themselves, it was pretty cool. I think I might have slurred my speech a little because when I mentioned I have an obsession with stars everyone heard it as I have a room full of stars. I didn't even bother to correct them, the whole introduction didn't come out quite as planned. I told them I love to read, how many brothers and sisters I have, that i am probably the quietest person in the ward, and that my dream is to become a clinical psychologist. Somewhere in there I mentioned the thing about stars, I could have left that out though. Stuff like that always happens when I intend to make myself sound even a little cool.

I won't lie, I like to talk about myself. I'm nowhere near being a narcissist though. I am pretty open with people when I don't feel nervous or pressured. I know I can seem a bit cold and aloof sometimes, but I'm a pretty nice person and i try my best to always have good intentions and get along with everyone.

Anyway after the pizza and stuff I just went home and crashed. I didn't do anything particularly spectacular, just more of the same stuff I was doing before.

I've probably written enough to today, sorry it was so long, I get carried away sometimes. haha. :)

Culture

I figured I should probably wait until tonight to write this post. Nothing much besides church happens on Sunday. Today we learned about the importance of the sacrament and the atonement in church. I went with a friend a bit earlier today and hung out in the foyer My phone was only half way charged and so I brought my charger and played games on my phone before church while I was waiting. I have been into Puzzle & Dragons a lot lately. It is a really fun iPhone game, very fun bug also very hard sometimes. It's basically like a cross between Pokemon and bejeweled in a way. I like to listen to Harry Potter while I am doing stuff on my phone, that or one of my other audiobooks. I have a premium membership on Audible.com, so I get a discount and 2 free audiobooks every month. I'm in the process of collecting all of the David Eddings audiobooks.

We had pasta, potatoes, and chicken for dinner tonight. My sister made me a banana split after dinner it was pretty great. I don't eat stuff like that often, I prefer to eat healthy. I am not that fond of sugary stuff anyway, so my eating habits go well with my preferences. When I do eat sugary stuff I always make sure it is something I will really enjoy. I am quite fond of banana splits, so that was perfect.

I broke my sunglasses a few months ago, but because of winter I kind of just let them be for a while. A couple of weeks ago I bought some duct tape and I've been trying to repair them. I hope the duct tape stays on. I painted over the top of it with black nail polish.  I would hate to lose these sunglasses, they are my favorite ones, so that is why I am trying to hard to repair them.

I took a nap earlier today, but other than church and watching the Ghost hunt anime nothing much happened. This is Sunday though, so I am never surprised about it being calm a lot of the time.

Yesterday wasn't much different. I did pretty much the same things, anime, music, games, etc. I went through some J-pop songs on my computer, I need to clean some of those out. I used to listen to a lot of Nami Tamaki and Nana Mizuki when I was younger. I listened to them a bit too much though, so I think I am burnt out on those two singers. I think I need to overhaul my whole music collection. I have so many songs on my computer I haven't listened to in ages. Most of the music I listen to now I find on youtube because I don't want to buy or download anything.

There was a ward church activity yesterday in my home ward. I attend one of the singles wards for church, but I still have a home ward. Home wards are mostly attended by families and young people, young adults go to the singles ward that is in one of the completely separate stakes. For those of my friends that aren't familiar with church terminology a ward can consist of up to a couple hundred people or sometimes a little more. A stake is a collection of wards. I think that in my home stake there are 10 or 11 wards. There are 3 singles stakes within this region that I know of. There are a lot of other home stakes.

Anyway so my home ward had an activity, we had dinner, it was Hawaiian haystacks, ice cream cake, and something else that I forgot. There were tables set along the walls of the cultural hall and they each represented a different country. One of the tables represented some native American tribe or something. I could be wrong though, that one was the only one I didn't get the name of. a native American guy who's name I am sorry I don't know told a little bit about their culture and shared some of their music and a story with us. I thought it was pretty cool, I feel like a bit of an idiot for not knowing the name of the person that shared these cool things with everyone, or who he represented. I have to remember to be a bit more thorough next time something like this happens. I do remember something about morning star dancers or something like that. i could be wrong. *sigh*

Anyway, here are some picture of the tables.

Denmark and Scottland.

Japan

Vienna

Chile

Unknown one I mentioned.

Anyway, after that the kids in the ward got to open 2 piniatas, it was adorable. Nothing worth nothing happened after i went home, not that I remember anyway.

Anyway, I have a lot more to write about, but I think this is okay for today. :)

Spring is here!

I know it has been eons since I wrote. When it comes to blogging I have times when I just feel downright lazy. I used to have a blog on Xanga.com, but after they did the remodel I didn't like it so I ditched it. I was extremely bummed about what they did to the site, it looks like a Wordpress clone now. I personally think they should have just shut it down and let it be. Ever since that happened I've had a case of blogging depression where I just couldn't being myself to write at all. I think since last August I have only written one poem, it's pretty sad.

Today I'm not going to post anything terrifically detailed or anything. I'm not going to worry about filling you in on what has been happening yet, that will come gradually. I have found out from past mistakes that when I have had a long break from blogging the LAST thing I should do is try and cram everything everyone missed into one or two posts. When I do that I tend to just burn myself out and I lose my motivation when it comes to updating. You'll see bits and pieces here and there. I'm not going to stress myself out about letting people know what has been going on this time. I want to make sure I stay steady and don't fall off again.

Anyway, today I'm just going to post my book list. :)

1. The Hourglass Series: By Lisa Mangum
2. Starfire Angels series 1 & 2 by Melane Nilles
3. Elenium and Tamuli series by David Eddings (Read all of his books they are all great)
4. All of J.R.R Tolkien's books
5. The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan
6. Grimms Fairytales
7. Arabian Nights
8. Illiad and Oddysey
9. All of Orson Scott Card's books
10. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
11. ALL of Brandon Sanderson's books
12. The Beyonders Series by Brandon Mull (you should also check out the Fablehaven series and Candy Shop War. I have already read those)
13. Eragon series
14. ALL of Rick Riordan's books
15. The Immortals series by Alyson Noel
16. The Invention of Hugo Cabret
17. Leven Thumps series
18. The Work and the Glory series
19. The Kingdom and the Crown series
20. The Chronicles of narnia
21. Charles Dickens books
22. Terry Brooks books.
23. Midnight Pearls by Debbie Viguié
24. Time Machine
25. Les Miserables
26. Gone With the Wind
27. Dracula
28. 1000 Leagues Under the Sea
29. Jane Austin's books
30. Anne of Green Gables series
31. Gullivers Travels
32. Treasure island
33. Around the World in 80 Days
34. The Jungle Book
35. the Velveteen Rabbit
36. The Secret Garden
37. The adventures of Sherlock Holmes
38. The Three Musketeers
39. The Art of War
40. Shakespears works
41. Quiet: The Power of Inroverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking
42. Alice in Wonderland

Mixed Messages

Tonight my mom made orange rolls. I had fallen asleep watching Captainsparkle’s (a youtube user) twitch.tv livestream and I guess she decided to make them while I was asleep. She used the leftover icing that was used to frost my cake in July. Some of you might think that using 2 month old icing is weird, but it was in the freezer and it was still good. I had actually woken up for a few minutes a couple of hours before this to eat dinner. We had creamed eggs over rice, it sounds weird but it’s good. I didn’t feel like staying awake after that, so I decided to go lie down again. I woke up to my mom asking me if I wanted my light out, this was around 10pm my time. I told her yes, but I ended up waking up anyway so I just turned it on again. It was after this that I found out about the roll, they were still in the oven at the time.

Today at school nothing really spectacular happened, I just went to English and History. In English we did a free write excersize about what we would change about the world if we could change one thing. I chose to write about how I would change people’s perception of different disabilities and impairments. So many people are ignorant about this kind of thing it is scary. We also talked somewhat about rhetorical situations and prepped for this weekends assignment. In history we talked more about the time of the renaissance time period and abut the catholic church and other stuff. I am just getting started with this semester so I am not doing much right now so far as work goes. I know it is going to get more difficult, but I know I can do it.

I ate at Jamba Juice today again, I got a Mango Peach Topper, it is one of their parfaits. I ate it in History, I was so hungry. I had a donut as well in my instutute class, and a hot pocket. I have decided every wednesday I am going to allow myself to just eat whatever I want. I figure it will be alright as long as I keep walking a lot and doing yoga and stuff. I will be being careful other days of the week so i don’t gain weight like crazy. I actually lost 20 pounds over the summer vacation due to my improved eating habits. I didn’t get to

Sometimes I worry that I give people mixed messages when I use my cane. I like using it sometimes, but then there are those times when I hate it. You really wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between when I use it and when I don’t. I decided to take my glasses for a trial run today. I have never liked glasses, anyone that has read a lot of my blog entries knows this. I haven’t changed my mind, I still hate them with a passion and will never start using them regularly. I am not sure if I am even going to bother with the cane now either, I guess I will take it day to day, right now it’s a no go though. I don’t like looking disabled, or impaired, so if I am still bothered by it a few weeks from now I’m just going to stop using it at school. There is no reason to stress myself out about it, and if people ask questions I will just explain it to them. I also kind of feel like a liar when I use it, like the whole thing is a lie. If I were a normal person I would undoubtedly use it, but I’m not and I’m capable of a lot more than other people with my vision are. Even my eye doctors and the people around me will tell you this is a fact. I know that it is perfectly normal for some people to use it off and on sometimes, but I’m not the kind of person that would be okay with doing that. I don’t want to confuse anyone, so I’m not going to do something I don’t like.

I think I am going to stop here and wait until tomorrow to write more. I’m feeling a bit tired today. I just wanted to get this out of the way so I can get to the more interesting stuff tomorrow.

 

A new Beginning

Sorry I am late, I was waiting for Xanga to launch.

Xanga is back, the timing of this is just perfect. I started school again last week. I am taking Word Civilization part two and Basic Writing 2 this semester. This last week hasn’t been that eventful school wise anyway. I basically just got introduced to my classes, and got my textbooks. I have actually sent my textbooks to be converted to audio. I will still have the actual textbook when they are finished, but I will also have a copy I can listen to as well!

Actually a funny thing happened when I was going to give the Accessible technology office my text books. I was on my way to the school store to buy something so I could get cash back to use on the bus and I saw this lady that had a cane. I was carrying mine (raed below) and I said hi and she said her name was lisa and she was heading to the AT office as well. I told her that I would see her there after I get my money. Anyway so I did that and then went to the AT office and gave them my books. The guy that took my books needed my first and last name and I told him my last name and over to my left I hear Lisa say “No way that is my last name as well!”. The funny thing about this s that my dad has a sister named Lisa. To make this even more funny My dads name is Robert, and guess what Lisa’s husbands name is? That is right it is Robert. So My dad has a sister named Lisa, and this woman I met in the hallways earlier that is also named Lisa has a husband named Robert. Strange coincidences happen every day and this one was one of the funniest ones I have come across. Not to mention that she is also visually impaired and uses a cane (sometimes) like me. That was a fun trip to that office.

I have started taking the bus to school this semester. I really don’t know why I didn’t start this sooner. I feel like I have a lot more freedom now that I have a bus pass and can just go wherever I want to via bus. I accidentally missed a bus last week and was late for school. That is probably the only drawback I see so far. I have also noticed that a lot of the same people get off and go onto the bus, I have a feeling I’m going to be making a lot of bus buddies. I have already met some really interesting and sweet people. I love how the bus has more than one stop at school, so I don’t have to walk from one end of the campus to another. I had to wait two days from Monday for my bus pass to activate, I just picked it up somewhere at school and just brought cash and quarters with me for those two days. I also used those two days as an excuse to buy stuff from the school ice cream store because that is how I got my cash. I think I might have an addiction to Chex Mix Muddy Buddies haha.

World Civ (history) is the same as last semester. The professor mostly just gives a lecture the whole entire class and the only homework we have is 1 paper, a project, and just the basic reading. I knw the drill pretty well now so I am sure I will do a lot better this time.  We started where we left off last semester, around the time of the renaissance times.

My English or Basic Writing 2 class hasn’t been hard so far. We only have class 2 times a week and the rest is online. The first assignment this last week wasn’t that hard, we just had to write a short about me paragraph in MLA format. I have to admit that I always get nervous with English at first. I think everything is going to be fine though as long as I keep up and do my best and don’t over think. My english class and my History class are on opposite sides of the campus, I usually have to walk or run pretty fast from English to History every time.

I am also taking Christian history at the institute

I missed the school food during the break. I am going to cut down on eating at school, but it is nice every once in a while. My favorite places to go to are Jamba Juice, Pizza Hut, Subway, and Rockin Robbies. I probably go to Jamba Juice the most out of all of them. They are actually building a Taco Bell on campus right next to Jamba Juice. I am not sure if I am going to eat there or not, it depends on how good the food is, I think it depends on who is preparing it. I guess we will have to wait and see. I am probably going to pack a lunch most of the time, but I will undoubtedly frequent those places from time to time.

I have been taking my cane for a trial run this week. I think using it on campus is a great thing. I don’t really use it anywhere else besides the bus. I feel like people have a right to know that I have bad vision and that is why I carry it, well that and it helps me with all the steps and stuff on campus. I don’t have to use it, but for school it makes things easier. It’s still a bit weird carrying it around sometimes just because I don’t use it that often. I don’t really use it for general mobility, it’s more of a depth perception issue. I haven’t gotten any negative reactions from anyone and I don’t mind answering questions either. I have gotten a few questions from people at the bus stop this week.

I was sick for this whole last week. My whole family was sick actually, we all had colds. It wasn’t anything particularly nasty though, just a stuffy and runny nose, a little cough because I had crud in my lungs. I felt kind of bad, but not horrible except for maybe the 2nd day. I made sure to take lots of vitamin C and eat stuff that had it as well. I took a lot of other vitamins as well to make sure my body had a lot of support. My immune system is pretty good and that just made it a whole lot better. I am pretty much over the cold, just have a little bit of coughing left, but not much. I am glad it went away fast because I would have hated to have to deal with it for a second week.

Everything has been going smoothly and the weather has been nice. I’ve been playing a lot of old computer games from the 90′s lately. It’s funny how even after 20 years I still love the games of my childhood. I have been playing games like Ken’s labyrinth, Skyroads, Prince of Persia and some others. I have always been fond of DOS games and was really lucky to find a newer version of Ken’s Labyrinth that words on my computer surprisingly enough. I am trying to make a Let’s Play for that game  currently.

I have a lot more stuff to share with you guys, but for now this will do, no use rushing.

 

Ordinary Sunday

I have church early in the morning around 9:30am, so sometimes I don't feel like waking up. I usually just got to a different ward in one of the nearby church buildings by my house. My ward is a ways away close to the University I attend, so that is why I usually can't just walk. I attend a singles ward that is populated primarily by unmarried people around my age. The ward I attend when I miss this ward is actually the one I grew up in, it was my home ward up until a few years ago when they changed the boundaries of the wards and stuff. I don't really like going to my home ward because I started going to the singles ward before they changed it so it's super weird for me to go to my actual home ward because it is in a different building with different people. There are some people I know, but not as many as i would like.

I have been feeling weird and more distant with the singles ward as of late. I feel detached from everyone and like they don't even notice I'm there. I usually have to find a ride every Sunday if I go and this can sometimes be annoying. Sometimes I feel like I'm a bother to the people I get rides from. I don't really enjoy getting rides from people all that much, a lot of the time it is super awkward for me because I am not that social of a person. I am probably going to be leaving the ward in a few months depending on how I feel after I clear up a few things that are personal. After I clear up these personal things and get my life more straightened out I might change my mind, but for now I feel like leaving. I don't really like attending my home ward as I stated above, but sometimes we have to do stuff we don't want to I guess. I don't know if I will adjust, but I hope I do.

I was attending church today in my substitute ward when I had to make a trip to the restroom. I was blowing my nose when I was in there and suddenly I see blood on the toilet paper. Naturally I had one of those "Oh crud" moments and immediately plugged my nose with some of that toilet paper. It was pretty bad, but it didn't last long to my surprise. I did manage to drip blood down my shirt when I was changing the toilet paper inside my nose though. Lucky for me I was wearing a black shirt though, so none of it showed. I always feel fatigued, panicky and drained after I have a nose bleed like that so I decided I was going to go home after sacrament meeting and not stay for all 3 hours. I made sure my face didn't have any blood on it before I left the restroom and sat down until sacrament meeting was over. It was a nice sunny morning here, so the walk back and borth was pretty pleasant. I will have to get pictures for you one of these days. I was glad when I got home though. I was sleepy and just wanted to take a nap.

I ate some pistachios and hung around the house seeing what everyone was doing. I watched an episode of "Kickin It" on my phone while I lied down and I fell asleep right after it and got a good 2 and a half hours of sleep. It felt like I slept longer, but I really didn't and I felt all recharged and ready to face the rest of the day when I woke up.

I really didn't do much after church to be honest, just played games on my phone and watched anime. I have been trying to catch up with the Detective Conan anime. I still have a long way to go seeing as the anime is in the 700's now and I'm only on episode 210 or something like that. I find the anime interesting and it is my favorite show though, so I don't mind at all. I'm really in no hurry to catch up at all. I enjoy taking mysteries in. Detective Conan is a murder mystery anime with a lot of characters, plots, twists and turns. I would recommend ti to anyone easily.

besides watching anime I listened to music and had beans and rice for dinner. My mom made it a bit different this time. She put more than one kind of beans in the post, tomatoes, celery and some other stuff and made it more like a soup. It was okay, it wasn't my favorite but I liked it enough to eat it. We usually make the same things over and over again over here, so I wasn't surprised we had this for dinner. Most of us are pretty busy so we aren't super fancy and we rarely ever eat together at all. I didn't really finish my dinner because I put to much in my bowl, but that was okay I guess.

My sister made a little bit of pudding afterward and I had that and a glass of English toffee flavored milk for dessert.

Anyway, that was my day today. I have a lot more to tell, but for now I will cut off here.

Curve-ball

I am the kind of person that likes a lot of freedom and space to do my thing. I am the kind of person that would love living on my own and doing my own thing. This part of me sometimes causes me a lot of anxiety because right now I lack a lot of life skills that a lot of people have usually by my age. This fact has been causing me a lot of grief for a while, I don’t know how to get around on my own, or even do simple things like do my own laundry and my cooking skills are mediocre at best. Never in my dreams would I have guessed I would be thrown the unexpected curveball I was thrown today at my appointment with my vocational rehab councilor. 

When I left for her office I was just planning on telling her the price of my books, my tuition, what classes I’m taking so she could pay for my tuition, but I got something even better. Around May sometime next year I’m going to be given a chance to live in an apartment with another girl and there will be some other people as well living in different apartments nearby that will be learning lifeskills besides me and my roommate. They are going to teach me how to do stuff like get around on my own, cooking, doing laundry and probably a lot more things. All the people that are going to go through  this will have visual impairments as well. To say I was happy when I got this chance is an understatement. For a while I have been feeling like I really need to get out, like I need to be on my own and learn. I have been praying that God would help me get through my hard times. Today I had no doubt that this is an answer to my prayers. I know that it isn’t going to be easy, but I really need this and I know it is right. A lot of my family and people around me aren’t going to be able to see me for six months starting next May, but this is something I desperately need. I really give God credit for what happened today, I wasn’t expecting this at all. I not only get to do this, but my vocational rehab councilor is also getting me a bus pass that will last for a year. Words cannot even describe how good I am feeling right now. I finally get my wish and get to learn a lot of stuff I’ve been learning for a long time. 

I could have chosen to go this year, but I want to get prepared a little more, get in better shape, get mentally prepared, etc. I also want to do two more semesters of college before I go through with this. God is good, and he knows just what I need, that is for sure. 

I was supposed to see my vocational rehab councilor a week ago, but I missed the appointment twice. This was my third time making the appointment and I made it this time. I was worried for a few days that I wouldn’t get to go because I was waiting for my financial aid results and I had to take a math test and get the list of books and all this stuff. I had blanked out making the appointment earlier in the summer. I am glad I did it just in time. I am taking English and History and decided to skip out on math the last second because I’m sure I’ll get enough challenge. 

I’ve been through a lot of stuff this summer and this year in general, but for now I just want to tell you about this. There will be plenty of time for stories of the past later. It is a beautiful day today and things are looking up and I feel so good now. With all the drama with friends and with the Xanga site relaunch I have been feeling a bit fried lately, but I am back to life now and ready for a new semester at school! 

I’ll write more later. I have so much I haven’t said.

Red and White

So yesterday I woke up around 5:30, I had been so tired the night before and just decided to give into my sleepiness around 8:30pm. I don't always do this, sometimes I just stay awake, but then sometimes I have trouble getting to sleep later because my school semester kind of messed up my sleep rhythm a little. I think it is getting to be normal again, but I'm having to take it one day at a time. The funny thing about what happened the night before last night is that I actually fell asleep with a towel on my head. I usually never do this, lucky for me I breefly woke up for a few minutes around midnight so I could take it off. My hair wasn't really messed up that much, I was glad. I went upstairs an hour after I woke up, my mom was slicing a pineapple and my add was getting ready for work and was frying some eggs. I decided that while the pan was still hot I might as well make a couple too. My mom asked me if my brother could have my eggs because he was in a hurry and hadn't eaten anything. I didn't mind, but it turned out he didn't want them, and I had actually added a third egg, so I decided to make an egg and cheese sandwich for breakfast. So I had that and some of the pineapple for breakfast, it was pretty good.
Our roses have finally bloomed, they have been a little late the past couple of years because of the weird cold weather we have been having around the time they usually bloom. Every year in the past we usually brought some of the roses to family members graves on Memorial Day, but we have had to cut down on that because of the weird weather. I will get new photos of the roses soon to show everyone here.

Red and white were the colors of my friend's wedding reception. Over here we are usually all LDS most of the time, so we have a temple ceremony in the morning when we get married and then later for those who can't go to that we have some sort of reception where people can meet the couple and their family. My friend Nezumi had her wedding yesterday and for her reception it was European with Japanese influences. The whole thing was amazing and she was so beautiful. There were refreshments, some sort of fruit in a cup, cupcakes, and some other stuff I don't know the name of. It was outside and the weather was perfect with a light breeze, you could hear various family members speaking Japanese, and the atmosphere was just nice in general. Instead of just a signed guest list she did a photo guest list. I am not to confident that my picture will look that great, but oh well. Haha. Instead of the usual wedding dress Nezumi dressed in a kimono, she looked very lovely! Here are some pictures! Apparently after I talked to her and met the families and stuff she caught me taking the last photo, so it worked out nice.




She is also best friends with my other friend Britney that also had a wedding last week. Sadly I missed that one, I fell asleep an hour before it, I was so exhausted that day. When I was going through the line meeting her family members some of them couldn't speak english and so her mom translated back and forth for me and the other people. Her family members also wore kimonos as well. Nezumi is moving to Japan soon, I'm glad I got to see her get married. We have known each other for a very long time. Her friend Britney is the little sister of Amanda, the girl I used to be best friends with until my senior year of high school.
I talked with some friends for a while and then left after I saw her and everything. I walked back to my house after this and just watched some youtube videos, played Minecraft, and some other games. I got really tired around 8pm and slept until around 6am, I was sooo tired. Sorry for not getting this up yesterday. On the other hand I have been meaning to move my blogging to the mornings, so I guess this works out just fine. :)

Endless Photo organizing

So today and yesterday I have spent a good part of the day organizing photos and getting them ready for flickr upload. I have procrastinated this for a long time because I knew it would take forever. I just finally finished just a few minutes ago. Nothing much other than this happened yesterday or today. I did watch some minecraft videos today, and played some Tetris and stuff. I took a nap and just hung around the house and stuff like that.  I've been keeping a close eye on the Xanga fundraiser for the past few days, I really don't want it to close, that would suck for me majorly. 

My flickr page is HERE

We had baked potatoes with cheese and whatever else we wanted to put on them today for dinner. :)

The Highlight of the day was definitely this morning when out of nowhere Ronnie messaged me. he has been having a difficult time and we kind of fell apart for a while. I am glad he is talking to me again. A series of things happened and first he tried pushing me away and then I tried doing the same thing but gave up after a while. Honestly I really hate living my life without him. I hate the void I feel when I don't have him in my life. I'm really hoping he comes over here sometime this year or soon or whatever. I can't wait to see what the future holds for us.

Oh, and almost forgot, I was taking a nap today and I had this dream I was in Cincinnati or somewhere where Ronnie was. I think my family was on vacation or something like that. I remember walking past some shops or something, kind of seemed like a really weird mall and I realized I was pretty close to him. I was nervous for a minutes and when I walked a little distance away across some street and went into this building where people were getting drinks and playing games I was actually trying to hid my face from him but he saw me. He was happy to see me, and invited me to join him and his friends. I'm not really sure why, probably because my parents were waiting, or because I saw something interesting or because I thought he was nearby still, but I wandered off exploring this place I was in. I was quite stressed when I couldn't find him and a little while later I knew I had to return to my family because I didn't say anything to them about what i was doing. For the rest of the dream I spent the whole time trying to get to him again, it was both exciting and scary at the same time. I met some really weird people including some mob boss that I almost upset. I got pretty close to finding him I think when I was woken up by my niece playing the piano. I was actually relieved when I woke up, because i hadn't really lost track of him in a busy city. haha. This just makes me want to see him even more. :)

Anyway, this is all for now I guess. I'm probably going to listen to some music, or watch some anime, or play minecraft or something.

Do Over

Oh man, I've been working on this house in Minecraft, today I remade the house for the 3rd time. The first time I had the basement raised completely out of the ground, and the front door on what is usually the first floor was raised in the air. There was a balcony all around hanging over the basement, or in this case the new first floor. I finished that version but, after a while I decided I wanted to re-make it in another minecraft world with a proper basement. The second try I put the basement too deep and the window wells didn't work out that well. Now on version 3 I have FINALLY got it right. I am done with the walls, floor, and ceiling so far right now, I still have to do the outside exterior, and the interior decorating. This is just one of many projects I have planned for the future. I will show my house and my other builds with you sometime soon. :)

That has taken a lot of my time today, besides catching up on some anime, and some other stuff nothing really that interesting happened. I fell asleep early yesterday evening around 8pm right after dinner. We had potatoes, roast, and salad. The dinner was fantastic, but because I fell asleep right after I never got to update my last blog entry. I guess it is okay because I didn't have much to talk about today. I did wake up for a few hours in the middle of the night, but i didn't feel like adding anything to the entry anymore.

Anyway, here is a spoiler since this post is kind of bare. I'm way past this stage of building the house now. I was using the Candycraft texture pack, so everything has a candy theme in the photo. :)

 

Xangaville Drama

Today I was caught in the middle of some drama over at the Xangaville group on facebook. I accidentally worded something wrong and offended someone there because they misunderstood what I said. It doesn't matter what it was about, so I won't say on here. Things quickly got ugly and people started to defend me and... I guess you could say the person got in a bit of trouble for being harsh. It didn't last long, and it wasn't really the person's fault that things erupted. I sometimes have a hard time with wording things. The drama only lasted for about 5 minutes and then it was done, but it was interesting. I held nothing against the person and quickly owned up to my mistake and things are fine now. To lighten the ominous mood that has been sweeping over the facebook group over the past few days I posted a picture of Discord from My Little Pony and said "Blame it on Discord". I think a few people got a kick out of it.

I didn't get a whole lot of sleep yesterday because our loud dishwasher was running. I think I got probably 4 or 5 hours I think. We need to fix it or something like that. I have pretty much been tired all day. Church is pretty early, so I had to get up at 8am and find a ride and get ready and stuff. I kind of zoned out at church a lot and couldn't concentrate, I'll probably read some talks or something later to make up for it.

I am a huge Minecraft fan and have been working on a house for the past few days in the game. Today one of my favorite Minecrafters is doing a live-stream (generikb). I have been listening / watching his live-stream on twitch.tv. I think he is doing it until 8pm GMT or something like that, might be a little off on the time. I will make sure to put pictures of my house when it is finished. I tried live-streaming once on this laptop, my computer can't handle playing Minecraft AND live-streaming it too. It went up to 99 degrees celcius pretty fast. Someday I will definitely live-stream when I have a different computer however.

I went to Costco yesterday and bought new glasses, they should be here in a few days, my family also bought a bunch of groceries. We were getting a bit scarce and most of us have been too busy up until today to shop, so it was nice. I am definitely going to have to stretch my money this month because of my purchase today, I think I will be fine however.

When we were bringing in the groceries yesterday I felt something wet on my shirt when i was carrying the bag of lemons in the house. Being a bit puzzled I lifted the bag up and looked closer and there right before my eyes was a REALLY moldy lemon, it was so unbelievably gross. I laughed at it later, but it made me gag. No one wants moldy lemon juice on their shirt or clothes in general.

My nieces and my sister got back from a weekend camping trip, it seems like they had fun. I haven't been camping in a few years, but I love it. In my church girls from 12 to 18 usually participate in a 4 day camping experience every summer. I went for all 7 years and had a blast every year I went. We played games, roasted stuff over a fire, told stories, learned songs and medical stuff like CPR, went hiking, and a lot of other stuff. I still miss doing that every year, I hope I can get on the planning commitee some day so I can be a camp leader and go again. The camping sites varied, my first year we slept in tents, my second year we slept in these weird triangle cabins that were SO dusty, I hated that one. For the rest of the years I went I went to this really nice camping site with pretty nice cabins that had wooden bunks. Out of all 3 sites i went I think the first one was the best. We had to sleep in tents, but the scenery was beautiful and there were SO many places to explore, it was wonderful. I will have to find pictures sometime for you guys. I have plenty of stories about when i went camping, but I'll save them for another time, no need to tell everything right now! :)

Anyway, it is still pretty early right now, so I'll most likely update this post later, and probably maybe re-post it. :)

Just Chilling Out

It's been a few weeks since I got out of school, I have been just taking it easy and I passed all my classes! I've just been playing Minecraft, watching anime, stuff on youtube, been drawing new stuff for the re-launch of my DeviantART page, been writing various things, and talking to friends on and offline.

For a few weeks after school I just kind of lost all my motivation to write, or do anything for a while, I was so burned out. I admit I did procrastinate a few times during the semester and got behind and everything just seemed so big at the time. I chose the wrong teacher for my sociology class, it was 80% test 20% everything else, and that nearly made me fry. I think the hardest thing for me during the semester was the reading for history. It was so hard to concentrate, and i got behind on the reading, and I got so stressed about my renaissance presentation, and also my paper in Sociology. Normally I am fine with reading, but I had become rusty when it came to reading that kind of textbook and really had to push my brain and my eyes to the breaking point. During my last reading session before finals I actually pushed my eyes so hard they actually physically hurt for a whole day afterward.

It's pretty much needless to say I won't be making a lot of the mistakes I made this past semester in the future. I did pass both History and Sociology with C+'s and that is fine for now.

I have finally got my motivation to write back now, so I will be here more and will be doing blog posts daily again. I've been listening to one of my favorite Minecrafter's previous live stream he did last year on twitch.TV, it is saved on there and I thought it would be fun to watch everything I missed back then and to listen to his commentary and the commentary of his guests as well.

I went to Costco today and bought new glasses, they should be here in a few days, my family also bought a bunch of groceries. We were getting a bit scarce and most of us have been too busy up until today to shop, so it was nice. I am definitely going to have to stretch my money this month because of my purchase today, I think I will be fine however.

Some of you know I also blog on Xanga, the stuff I write on here is pretty much the same as what I write on there though with some additional features that are on Xanga. It's a bit different over there, the community is tight, and small and the site is more in the background. I also do stuff with audio on there, can't do that on here though unless if I start using sound cloud or something. Anyway, they are probably going to have to close possibly around the middle of July if they don't raise 60k by then. They have already raised a quarter of what they need already, so I think they will make it. I have a premium membership that I pay for every 6 months, I went ahead and renewed that today because I am still blogging there and it would have been not very fun if I didn't have premium because I have used all my free storage space.

This is my main blog now, it has my custom domain name and everything. I am actually working on getting all my blog posts off of xanga and onto here still. I moved some more of the blog posts from 2009 today, and did 2008 yesterday. It will be really awesome to have everything here once I am done. Xanga doesn't have an export feature, so I have to do it myself manually. Once I get everything here however, if I ever want to move somewhere else it will be a breeze.

I'm not going to give anyone the link to my other blog, it really isn't necessary, it'll all be here pretty soon. I hope you guys continue to read my blog in the future. To anyone that is new, welcome to my blog!

If I forgot to write anything, I'll just write it tomorrow.

Xanga Armageddon

Yes, I know the title is very ominous, but that is what the atmosphere of the site is like right now. It seems like we have already given up. Personally I will be fine either way. If Xanga closes I will be sad, but if it doesn't and it changes I'll be okay with that as well. I understand some of your frustrations, but don't lose heart so fast. I know they have said a lot of things about how things will probably be if they succeed, like there would be paid blogs and stuff. You never know however for sure what will happen if they actually do succeed in getting money. Xanga might change, or it might stay the same, the future, despite what we have been told is still up in the air at this point in time. The fact of the matter is, no one knows what will actually happen at that time. The team has made plans, but plans change with different events, so I see no point in pretending like there is a meteor coming towards Xanga right now. Enjoy it while it is here!

I apologize for my absence this year, I know you guys love reading my blog when I do post. I haven't been around a whole lot this year due to trouble in school and such. It has taken me some time to recover from that nightmare, a whole month in fact. I have been relaxing watching anime and catching up on various TV shows. I've been working on jump starting my DeviantART, have been reading, spending time with family, and playing games like Minecraft and Destiny Online. Don't worry about missing stuff, I can always tell stories about stuff you have missed later. I used to feel quite bad about making you guys wait, but whatever you have missed I can still tell you about.

All this drama reminds me of an experience I had a long time ago. I used to blog on AOL Journals back when they existed. I think that was my first blog I ever had. Sometime around then after a few months I created this account, it wasn't until 8 or so months after I started blogging there however that I created this account. I didn't use Xanga however until a year later. Somewhere in the time I started becoming inactive on AOL Journals and started going on Wordpress, and Xanga and stuff like that I lost EVERYTHING on that blog because AOL Journals had closed and I didn't know about it at all. That was a huge tragedy for me, I am still sad about that to this day. I really hope no one has to go through the same thing I went through. I don't want this place to close because somewhere, someone will come looking for their blog unaware of what has happened to the site. I'm sure if people lose their blogs they will be stressed about it. For me, from my point of view, Xanga possibly changing really isn't as important to me as just preserving people's history.

This is no longer my main blog, even if things disappear you guys will still be able to find me >>> HERE <<<  My blog will always be around, no matter what, it is just in my nature to want to write what I think down, even if i do occasionally disappear (which I know is probably a bad idea to do again because it probably would have helped me with school and staying sane this past semester).

Anyway, these are my thoughts for right now. I will most likely post again later, or tomorrow, or something (who knows).

You guys do your best to have a good day (or night). :)

I usually don't ask this if you guys, but please rec. <3

 

Finding a New Game... Or Not

today was pretty uneventful, I have just been looking for a new online game to play, napping, and reading tech support stories. Saturdays and Sundays are lay back days for me.

Friday was fun, I went to my nieces school carnival. It was mostly for kids, they had ponies, a rock climbing wall, face painting, food, and other stuff. I got some cotton candy and got a dinner from Costa Vita (a resteraunt nearby was catering). My sister brought me an orange flavored water. The food was great and I spent a while walking around, and just seeing the stuff there was. I took place in the silent auction they were having, they had a lot of different baskets of stuff like candy, sports stuff, gardening stuff, etc. I saw this basket full of Spry and Xlear products, my family is a big fan of Xylitol sweetened stuff, we use the toothpaste, chew the gum, etc. I placed a couple of bets, but I didn't win it, because someone bet higher than me. I was going to bet on something else, but couldn't find anything else I wanted to bet on. I just got some sweet break and a water instead with my money (everything cost tickets, $1 = 4 tickets, mostly everything was 4 tickets so I only needed 8).

My sister won massages, movie tickets, an oil change for the car, and a gardening basket, so that made up for me loosing. I'm hoping that I can go with her for the massage because I've never had one.

I am really glad I got some sun yesterday, I don't get it often enough I think. I really need to go outside more often this spring and summer. I have a bad habit of staying inside, I am a bit of a computer nerd. It's so easy for me to spend a lot of time on my laptop when I really have nothing I need to do when I am out of school until August. I am going to make sure I don't spend the whole time sitting on my floor this summer playing games however. I want to start running, and practice my yoga and pilates more this time around.

After the carnival when we were walking home I spotted out lilac bush and it had bloomed and smelled so good. I forgot to take a picture last year and almost forgot to take one this year, luckily on my way back I noticed the bush and got a picture this time. It is about 12 or 13 feet tall now, when we got it when I was 9 it was shorter than me! I will put a picture later

This online game I've been playing for years called Destiny Online is closing sometime next week. I have a lot of history with that game. I was a player GM (game master), and a moderator for about 2 and a half years. I made sure people didn't break the rules and helped with bug reports and stuff. I have made hundreds of friends on that game the 4 and a half years I have bee playing it. I am kind of sad it is going, it's going to be hard replacing Destiny Online. I might just stick with minecraft, it seems to be the only game I like right now besides that, plus it is both single player and multi player if you want it to be. I will have to show you my builds for sure sometime.

We had Stir Fry for dinner, that is the second time this week we have had it, I can't complain though. I think I want to learn how to cook however so we can have more variety, that would be nice.

Anyway, I guess that is all for now. :)