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Showing posts with label awesome people. Show all posts
Showing posts with label awesome people. Show all posts

Sunday, September 1, 2013

5 am Web Surfing

First post since being married! First post since....well, forever. Kinda been slacking. Lots of interested stuff has happened that I could've posted about but frankly, I've been insanely busy. The only reason I am able to post right now is because I came in to work at 5 am today and it's a Sunday and I have taken a total of 1 phone call in the 2 hours I have been here. Not much to do. So I've been reading Andre Agassi's autobiography "Open" which is fascinating. I love tennis and I miss playing it. I haven't played in about a year at least. Makes me sad. So I got around to looking up the mens singles current rankings trying to see how my man Andy Roddick was doing.


You can imagine the shock that came over me when I found out he has been RETIRED since last year and I had no idea. Like I said on Facebook, I am now dead inside. 

Garrett Helund, however, brought me a little back to life. I watched "Country Strong" last night because I love the music and my husband works graveyard shifts and I had nothing better to do. His voice is amazing. I though he was a professional country artist. Little did I know that he is actually a famous actor and he plays Sam Flynn in Tron: Legacy. What the heck?????


That doesn't even seem like the same person! First of all, the voices sound totally different. Second, he seems like a small little man boy in Tron and a big, strong manly man in Country Strong. This just goes to show how extremely versatile he is. I am in love with his voice. And I am absolutely in love with this song.


I died inside a little bit again when I found out he is dating Kirsten Dunst. I don't know how she is as a person but as an actress I'm not a fan. But if they're happy, more power to them.


That's all I've found out for now. Hopefully anything else I discover will be good things that won't make me die inside anymore.

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Living in the Moment

A few years ago I came across a book called "13 Reasons Why" by Jay Asher. It was one of those books that you pick up and don't put down until you've read every single word. Today, I downloaded a book co-authored by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler called "The Future of Us". I started reading it and didn't stop until I finished, which was about 15 minutes ago. While I didn't like it as much as "13 Reasons Why", it did get me thinking a lot. "The Future of Us" is basically about a girl and her friend who get an AOL disc and download it onto her computer (before the internet was everywhere and iPods or Facebook were invented) and it has a Facebook account on it with their lives 15 years in the future. They become obsessed with how their current lives affect their future lives and it turns into this huge life changing thing over about a weeks time and don't realize how they are ignoring their current lives. 

As I've written in previous posts, I love Buddhism. Not as a religion or anything, but I think Buddha was very wise and teaches very useful concepts and ways to find happiness within yourself. A big part of Buddhism is something called mindfulness. It's about being aware of yourself and what is going on in the moment, how your body feels, managing your thoughts, and being totally present in the current moment. I have a few buddhist books and they go more in depth about the concept but it is really helpful. Most people don't know this but last year I found out I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I'm not ashamed to admit this anymore. Millions of people suffer from it, and it's not something you can just "get over" and stop on a whim. I've found that mindfulness is helps a lot with people who are suffering from extreme stress and use it remain calm in stressful situations. Practicing mindfulness and being in the present moment helps you stop worry so much about the future and enjoy life more. If you just focus on being happy here, right now, then a lot of stress goes away. Your life will turn out how it is supposed to. Everything happens for a reason, and it does no good to put all your time, energy, and emotions into worrying about how one little thing you do now will affect your future 15 years from now. 

If anyone is interested in reading more about mindfulness or Buddhism I love all the books I've read by Thich Nhat Hanh, he is very wise and has changed my life. 

Here is a very artistic rendition of him lol (all his photos were low res). Doesn't he look wise?


Saturday, January 19, 2013

Hallelujah for Whoops Babies

First of all, I'm not pregnant. Wanted to make sure that was clear right off the bat. Second of all, I love my baby sister Catherine Pearl. Feels weird typing out the name Catherine since I always call her Cat, Kitty, Baby Girl, Bub, Babe, Kitty Pearl, etc. The kid's got a lot of nicknames. I only call her Catherine when she's in trouble. A lot of people get confused when I call her my baby sister since she's almost 8 years old, but she is and will forever be my baby sister. I'm 14 years older than her and I was in the room when she was born. I changed her diaper, fed her bottles, babysat her, etc. etc. I am extremely protective of her and miss her all the time. 

This was when I took her to see How to Train Your Dragon in the park in Springville this past summer.  It was a good day :)

I got to see her today for the first time in what I think has been two weeks. I can't believe I went that long without seeing her. I was really missing her and feeling like crap so I went to visit her at my dad's house and I'm really glad I went. The second I saw her she immediately gave me a huge hug and said she missed me. I almost started crying. We ate dinner together and she saved me a seat right next to her and made sure nobody sat in it. She told me jokes that were actually really funny. She talked like a grown up to me and amazed me with how mature and smart she is getting. We played board games and she made sure she was on my team. When I was leaving she wrapped her arms around my stomach and wouldn't let me go and started crying. While it was sad, it actually made me feel a lot better. Today has been one of those days when I don't feel like anyone gives a shiz about me (we all have those days, you know what I'm talking about) so it was nice to feel like she cares and wants me around, especially since she means the world to me. I really don't know what I would do without this kid. She was a whoops baby but she actually turned out to be a miracle baby and she saves me all the time. I love that baby girl. 

I told her to put together an outfit to wear to school the next day and she came out in this while laughing hysterically. She is the funniest, smartest, sweetest kid I know. 

I told her the cactus was about her size and told her to go poke it, so she did lol. Only barely though, she didn't get hurt. 

Hanging out at the western store in Thatcher, Arizona. Not much goin on in that city....

This was at Temple Square :) She's missing her two front teeth. Adorable. 

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Sunny Side Up

Today has been an awful day but also a fantastic day. It started out with me having to go to the dentist and get two fillings replaced. Halfway through the process my dentist decided to step out into the hall and talk to sales reps for 15 minutes while I was tilted upside down with a hole drilled in my tooth. I need a new dentist.

THEN, I barely made it to the gas station before I completely ran out of gas and it cost $45 to fill it up. It's never cost that much. Yay for insanely high gas prices. 

THEN, I went to work and despite my beliefs that work could not get worse than it's been, it did. I'm convinced the owners are going to lay me off cause they're plummeting out of business. They're slowly taking all my responsibilities and giving them to their son and the butt kissing manager without telling me. It was the cherry on top of the crap I put up with there. I've applied at 5 places in the past week and haven't heard from any of them. Job hunting sucks. 

BUT, I found out Three Days Grace released a new album last month. 



They are in my top 5 favorite bands. I can't believe it took me this long to find out they had released a new album but I downloaded it the instant I got home and it's amazing. Here's one of their awesome songs from the new album Transit of Venues. It's called Chalk Outline.


I also finally went grocery shopping after not having food for like 2 weeks. I have my Fanta and fettuccine alfredo :) 

I finally cleaned my room. It is amazing how much better it feels to have a clean room. I got my comic books up on my wall and they look awesome. I only have one more wall left to decorate so it finally feels a little bit like home. 

My day just got a little worse when I had to clean up the whole downstairs of my apartment because my roommate is a disgusting pig. I just found 2 rotting jack-o-lanterns covered in mold sitting in our kitchen. It was nasty. 3 bags of garbage....all from her. She spends all her time making out with her boyfriend so I guess she doesn't have time to clean. 

I'm not gonna let it ruin my day. I'm gonna watch The Office and Park's and Rec while eating my yummy dinner and then listen to Transit of Venues all the way through :) 


Sunday, October 21, 2012

Luck O' The Irish

Not many people know that the popular saying, "luck o' the Irish" is an ironic phrase. Since I'm part Irish, that's probably where my sarcasm comes from. "Luck o' the Irish" means bad luck, not good. It comes from history where bad luck kept falling on the Irish people. I have really bad luck with Utah men. I only realized today that every time I see a really, really attractive man on tv or in movies and I look him up, it turns out he's Irish! It's happened enough times to make me realize it's probably not a coincidence. My Irish heritage is probably where this uncontrollable attraction to Irish men comes from. Here are some of their beautiful faces. 

Exhibit A:

Alex O'Loughlin

He was born in Australia, but the name "O'Loughlin" comes from Ireland, so he is of Irish descent. (The Australian doesn't hurt either, they're super attractive too.) 

 He has dark hair and beautiful eyes, plus a gorgeous smile. What more could a girl want?

Exhibit B: 

Colin O'Donoghue

Born and raised in Ireland :) Pictured on the left as playing Captain Hook on the tv show Once Upon a Time. 

Beautiful eyes, beautiful hair, beautiful face. 
Probably a beautiful personality too lol.
Then there are the more well known ones like:

Colin Farrell

Also born and raised in Ireland.  

 I wouldn't mind if my future husband looked like this :) 


And the older ones like

                      Pierce Brosnan

and
                                                                 Liam Neeson


Apparently Ireland just produces a lot of really attractive men. So I have come to a conclusion. After I graduate, which is sooner than I thought it was going to be, I am going to go to Ireland. I have wanted to go for years, so I'm gonna go. I will go and photograph the beautiful landscape and experience the awesome culture and admire the locals lol. Sounds like a pretty good graduation present to myself. And who knows, maybe I'll find a handsome Irish man to marry in a castle :) Only time will tell. 

Monday, September 3, 2012

Sometimes You Just Need a Little Home


These lyrics couldn't be more spot on. Being sick for a month gets you down. And all I want is my family, my home, and my puppy. Luckily that's only a half hour away for me. These past few days with my mom and sisters have been exactly what I needed. Sometimes you just need a little home. 

Monday, July 23, 2012

It's Surreal That I'm Starting to Love Surrealism

Pinterest is awesome. I have found some really cool artists on there. Yesterday, there were a couple of amazing photographers I found. Their style is really cool. One of them is Martin Stranka, and the other is Lissy Elle. They both do surreal photography. I am really NOT into surreal paintings, but for some reason I really like these photos. I guess I like it for the same reason I like Tim Burton. It's different.

Martin Stranka









Lissy Elle








Thursday, July 12, 2012

If Only I Were a Child Prodigy

Today, the crazy old lady I work with showed me a video of a child prodigy artist named Akiane. She is AMAZING. She started painting when she was only six, and she is completely self taught. Her paintings are all spiritual, which is interesting since her mother was an atheist. She started painting pictures of heaven and Jesus and told her mom that they were from visions and that Jesus IS real. She had never been taught anything about religion or heaven since her mother was an atheist, so it's interesting that these images would come to her. She has full, hour long time-lapsed videos of her creating her paintings from start to finish. It's amazing. She really is an inspiration. Plus, she sells her original paintings for $5,000-$3,000,000 so that helps. I would HIGHLY recommend going to her website  by clicking HERE and looking through her gallery. It shows her paintings by the age she was when she made them and it is incredible. Here are some of my favorites:

This is a painting of Jesus entitled Prince of Peace. It takes my breath away. A little boy who came back from a coma looked through many pictures of Jesus and said none of them looked like him. When he saw this painting, he immediately recognized him as Jesus and said this is what he looks like. I heard that from the crazy lady so who knows if it's true or not, but it's a good story. 
This poem, entitled Prince of Peace, was written to go along with this painting of Jesus. 

Perhaps I wanted to catch it
perhaps not

But one morning
an eagle dropped a diamond

And right then
with my faulty brush
full of my own hair
I wanted to paint

I wanted to paint the wings-
Too late - they flew away
I wanted to paint a flower
Too late - it withered

That night the rain
was running after me
Each drop of rain
showed God's face
His face was everywhere
On homes and on me

I wrung out the love
to make the red

I wrung out the stumps
to make the brown

I wrung out the trust
to make the pink

I wrung out my own eyes
to make the blue

I wrung out the seaweed
to make the green

I wrung out the nightly pain
to make the black

I wrung out my grandmother's hair
to make the gray

I wrung out my visions
to make the violet

I wrung out the truth
to make the white

Today I want to paint God's face
IT'S NOT TOO LATE !

This photo doesn't do the painting justice but it's the best one I could find. This is called Forbidden Fruit. The description Akiane gives for this painting was beautiful. Read it below. 
...One morning I woke up earlier than usual, and right away I decided to paint, but I could not find any canvas in my studio. My family was still asleep, so quietly, still in my pajamas, I searched my art closets and found one small canvas that I'd worked on a few years ago, but later gessoed it in black.

After my prayer I began painting a young woman's portrait. next to a branch of fruit. Suddenly I felt God say, blend all the races, because this is Eve, the mother of all mankind.

Right then and there, I understood the meaning:
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is full of forbidden fruit: red for the knowledge of evil, the green for the knowledge of good. It was created to be tempting, fragrant and easy to be picked. Although the fruit resembles the grapes, it was not.

At first, Eve thinks that she will gain wisdom by biting into the fruit of knowledge, but unexpectedly she finds the deception as the red blood of suffering drips from the green fruit. The knowledge of good and evil is simply too much to understand and experience for a human, and now Eve is looking up to God for forgiveness and help...

This is her self-portrait called Co-Creation
This is a portrait of Mary and baby Jesus.
I painted Mary in a silky blue robe surrounded by a background palette of cerulean, cobalt and Persian blue. This is how I interpreted the vision of baby Jesus and his beautiful young mother. The robe connects both of them as if there were one.

Mary is the symbol of love, warmth, affection, tenderness and devotion. Her story is the story of love and faith.

Mary with her tender love embraced Jesus at birth, embraced him on the Cross and embraced him on his resurrection. That is why the lower hand in a shadow is her witnessing the crucifixion, and the upper hand in light is her witnessing both the birth and the resurrection.

The quality of pictures on her website are a lot better than the ones I downloaded off Google Images so I would recommend going to her website to look at them. She has more portraits, landscapes, poems, etc. and they aren't all obviously religious. GO CHECK IT OUT. You won't regret it. 

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Happy Belated Birthday America

Once upon a time, after a super long struggle, a really great country was born. The birth certificate was signed by many great men, and America was official. People now had freedoms, rights, and endless opportunities. So what do we do to celebrate this birth? We shoot off fireworks and play with other forms of fire. We eat delicious meat and juicy watermelon and just enjoy being free. The 4th of July is my absolute favorite holiday. Witness the celebration:




Turns out it's a lot easier to write your name with a sparkler than with the moon.



I Love You



Shooting star

Recreation of the duel in Harry Potter
America is great. I am proud to be an American, and I'm proud of all the men and women who fight to keep us free.