Becoming An Aggie

The life lesson for watching The Vow last night was to keep a journal in case your head is bashed in an accident and you can't remember your life. I hate writing in a journal, it bugs me, and my handwriting is weird so I will blog.

In the last month, I've gone to Ephraim, Rexburg, and Logan for work. Logan by far is the best! I had never been up there before and everyone at work kept telling me how awesome it was but I was a little skeptical.  I went by myself and did not get lost! Yay! 10 points for me...take that universe. I drove up main street so I could see what was around during my free time. 

Kiera told me that I could become a true Aggie by riding the bull statue....and I could become an ultimate Aggie by riding the bull in the snow, naked.

 As per usual, I would be totally down for either of those but, alas, I did not discover the location of the bull. 

After and in between my meetings I did a little exploring. My favorite thing was the temple and how chill the town was. Here are some pictures I took on my crappy picture phone.

Here's the front of the temple

 A friggin sweet tree I saw on the grounds

And here it is at night (through my truck window...it was snowing)

I hung out around the temple for a while. It was so beautiful, I love the style and stone. I also went around the city, checked out the lamest mall ever, bought some sun dresses from a thrift store, and found this totally rad little used bookstore on main street. I wish I had more time to look at all the books and other small shops but I was there to work. 

It definitely was a chilly day with some snow but it was really beautiful and cool to just hangout by myself and explore all day. Logan is the shiz, I hope I can go back when it's a little warmer and explore even more!

Even though I didn't become a true Aggie, I could see myself spending time or living up there, y'all should visit :)

Why I Must Avoid Online Dating

If you are observant and noticed it is after 2am, two points and a gold star to you. I've been trying to sleep for four hours now with no luck. But I managed to watch a new Joseph Gordon-Levitt movie. I love him. Love like I created him to be my new Heath Ledger, who is dead and will remain perfect in my eyes. Anyways...

While walking to my car and driving home from my friends' Super Bowl party tonight, I thought about how I've had such a hard time finding friends (not co-workers), let along guys I want/can date. Where do people find friends? Or boyfriends? Online? Then the thought, "There's no way in hell I could ever try online dating. I would be so dumb to try," entered my mind.

Why would I be so foolish? Well, lucky for you I compiled a list of things that would most likely come out while trying to find a match that would either screw up my life or make everyone avoid me like the plague. 

(By sharing this list, I fully acknowledge that I might never make friends or hear back from half of you)

Dating Deal Breakers

1. I have what some might think and have described as an "unhealthy" obsession with Michael Jackson.

 I may or may not listen to this album everyday.

And by may or may not, I mean I do. Everyday. I also watch his History DVD any time that I feel sad. And I once morphed our faces to see what our child would look like. And it was beautiful. Waaayyy better looking than that Angelina and Brad's wonder baby. 

2. I frequently google baby farm animals. Also, more often when I'm sad or lonely. Sometimes with my 7 and 9 year old cousins so that I don't feel weird. I only like animals in miniature versions. 

.

This pig will be mine!

3. I sing a lot. And dance. I live in a basement by myself and sometimes it takes a while before I realize I've been singing everything I'm doing or talking aloud. Not like in a Sybil or Shining way, just in a I'm-used-to talking-to-people-all-the-time-and-now-I-live-alone-and-it-never-stopped-me way. And I just like to sing all the time, especially when driving. 

4. When people ask me if I'm dating someone or who my last relationship was with I answer with Netflix. Mostly joking but I do spend a lot of time with netflix. I also would choose a night in with it rather than try and mingle with people I don't know.  I need to stop with the dating an internet video store joke. It's weird. 

5. I don't sleep well. Obviously. I watch too many tv shows and movies during the night. I once watched 5 seasons of Gossip Girl in under two weeks. Granted I had kidney stones so I spent all day and night doing it, but it's pathetic nonetheless. I've also given up on sleeping pills because they: don't work correctly, just make me tired without sleeping, and I buy things online. At least I'm not creepy like the Twilight vampire and watch people sleep. I just resort to watching 12 hours of DVR and who knows how many hours of Netflix or sketchy downloaded movies :)

Bonus: Anything about myself as a kid. This includes but is not limited to: cemeteries, terrible occupational goals, fear of basically everything (animals, knives, etc), perfecting my reading abilities with trashy celeb mags, my tendency to start fires, getting an unusual amount of concussions, wanting to train animals to fight each other (roosters, fish, dogs),  hardly wearing clothes and skinny dipping, thinking that if I hoped and prayed hard enough I would turn black, and having Drew Barrymore as an idol. 

But thinking about all of these things made me realize they are some of my favorite qualities...I love Michael Jackson and he really inspired me as a kid. Little animals are super cute so everyone should look at them and be happy. Singing and dancing are my favorite things to do and I don't care if I have to do it alone, it's just as fun. Netflix really is the best. Not sleeping sometimes requires I fuel up on Dr. Pepper and I LOVE Dr. Pepper. And even though I was a really shady kid, it makes for good stories!! 

If This Were to Happen to Anyone, It Would Be Me.

This last week I went to Rexburg for work. I took a co-worker with me and we were supposed to run three informational meetings. Most people know that I am slightly challenged when it comes to directions. Not that I've ever been lost a millions times before. I'm basically the queen of U-turns. Anyways....this time Mapquest led me astray. Big time. Like took me to Boise instead of Rexburg. About 30 minutes before the first meeting, we realized that something was up. Our phone GPS didn't work so I called my boss. Here's how it went down.

Me: "Hey! I have some bad news. I think we are lost and the meeting starts soon. We're in some place called Glen's Ferry..."

Boss: "Glen's Ferry?"

Me: "Yeah, I have no idea where we are."

Boss: "Wait. Shelene, are you joking."

Me: "Dead serious. All my messing around has ruined my seriousness. You know I can't lie without giggling. And all I want to do is cry right now."

Boss: "It's true, you always laugh when you are lying or joking. You are 250 miles away from Rexburg."

Me: "That makes me want to throw up. Or cry. But neither of those things are going to help us right now."

Boss: "Just laugh, this is kind of funny, we'll figure things out. It will be funny."

Me: "It's too raw, too soon. There will be no laughing.....okay, maybe in like an hour."

In case you would really like to see how far we were...Click here

So my co-worker and I eventually make it to Rexburg...four hours later. 

Here's Rexburg. This place be poppin'.

Eventually, we did our other meeting. Followed by eating too much, singing and dancing in the car, and talking about beautiful men. All around fun times. Then the next day I got to listen to my other boss tell everyone he was not surprised we got lost. "I've seen the way you drive, Shelene." So rude. Just because I get turned around all.the.time and totaled two cars in five months doesn't mean anything. #bitchidontknowyourlife.

Drug Induced Sleeping

If anyone has ever lived with me or known me for a long time, they are well aware of my bizarre sleeping habits and dreams. Most of the time, I'm a crazy insomniac that chooses to read or watch Netflix all night.  Also, I have some of the weirdest dreams ever, well, actually second to my mom. And I think most of the really crazy ones are when I am under the influence of some type of sleeping  drug.

Speaking of sleeping pills, I don't do well with them. They never quite work like they are supposed to. I've heard that some people on ambien eat through the night and others drive their car. I am a drug-induced-online-shopper. If anyone finds a support group for this, please let me know. I purchased a few things from Victoria's Secret the other night and had no idea until I received my shipping confirmation email. At least I got the sizes right.

So dreams...remember this post about overcoming my fear of vampires? Well, I got all cocky and started watching the Vampire Diaries. I know, don't judge me. Anyways, the other night after I watched a new episode, I had a dream that this guy 

Klaus, One of the original Vampires started to rip out my heart to make my nice vampire friends angry. To prove some point Klaus just decided to reach in my chest and pull my heart half way out, leaving the "heart strings" attached and then place it back into my cavity. Gross, right? Yeah, what the H is wrong with me! The rest of my dream I had a huge hole in my chest and my pissed off Vampire bffs tried to kill Klaus for causing me pain and a really gnarly flesh wound. It scared the living crap out of me and  when I woke up, I about ripped off my shirt just to make sure that I did not in fact have a giant hand hole in my sternum and my heart was fully attached. Damn that show. 

But by far, the best (and most re-told) dream is my centaur dream. You know, centaurs...the mythical half horse-half human. So the dream goes...for one reason or another I was transported to another world, similar to the movie Avatar (the one with the blue people). The new world was a very beautiful jungle and full of multicolored plants and animals. It was basically Pandora but on crack (yeah, that awesome!). Unfortunately, the world was inhabited by centaur people that wanted to kill me. The last thing I wanted to do was die on some freak planet so I begged for mercy. Those kind half horse people allowed me to live if I agreed to become one of them. Since growing a couple more legs was out of the question, I had to perform all the necessary tasks associated with becoming a centaur member. My final test was to marry an actual man-horse. I wasn't stoked about having to wed the freak man but I chose life. Anyways, long story short, my centaur husband was actually pretty fine. He was like one of those sexy centaurs in Fantasia, if cartoon centaurs could actually be sexy. So here is a family photo of me and husband. 

See, centaur is attractive with his six pack and bushy tail. 

So after time, horse husband and I fell in love and conceived a child. (Don't ask how, my dream skipped over that part). Life fast forwarded like 6 months and one day I felt a kick. 

It was at the exact moment that the thought first entered my mind. "Were those feet or hooves?!" For the first few months it never occurred to me that this baby might have a couple of spare legs and I was going to have to birth it. The thought was so stressful I woke up...never to discover if there were feet or hooves. 

thank goodness. 

My poor past roommates have heard this story and others. I'm also a re-occurring dream person, I have the same dreams all the time. Like when I was a kid, I read that crocodiles could leap 10 feet out of the water to catch and kill their prey. So then on I slept in constant fear of a crocodile escaping the Phoenix zoo, hopping on the 202 for the 9.2 miles to my house, busting through my window, and leaping the less than 10 feet onto my top bunk. All of that seemed really plausible at the time and about ruined my life. 

Just to be mean, I'm going to show you proof of this terrifying event. 

Good luck sleeping tonight. I know I won't. 

Excuse me while I take prescription strength sleep meds to make myself semi-tired.

Good night and happy dreaming :) 

Queen of Sketchiness

Every once in a while, I tell a story to coworkers or friends and realize how strange I really am. Or how much of a weirdo I was as a kid. I grew up with very exciting and adventurous people with plenty of stories that can one-up mine so I lived in a bubble of unawareness. Thinking about how I was as a kid and what I morphed into, ultimately has made me realize how sketchy I have become. I was in Arizona last week and asked my mom if she was ever concerned about me as a kid. Her response, "No, you were extremely intelligent and everyone loved you." Here was the evidence I presented her with:

Exhibit #1:
I am the oldest child and grandchild. When my younger brother was born I loved him but also would've been very happy if he mysteriously disappeared. I played it hot and cold with him, I would shower him with love and then attempt to get rid of him. I would ride my baby brother like a horse, or drag him by a limb into my bedroom and pile all my stuffed animals on him. My mom said that she couldn't ever leave us alone because she was afraid of what I would do. A few years later, brother and I wanted a pet fish. I begged mom to buy us betas so I could train mine to kill Brother's. Sociopath alert.

Exhibit #2:
When I was in Kindergarten, I wanted to do two things, just for fun: One-steal cars, Two-cock fight. You might remember how I had my dream jobs of becoming a stripper or bartender. But my other two activities were just "hobbies" that I was convinced I would be great at. In fact, to practice stealing cars, I took a wire coat hanger and went to town on my parents key hole of their old Honda. Needless to say, it did not go over well and I had to confess my wrong doings before my parents called the police to report an attempted break in (and bent key hole).

About the same time, I walked in to my parents watching a show on cock fighting. I was sucked in and decided that I could be the best cock fight trainer there ever was. My conversation with my mom went like this:
Me: "Mom, I have to do that. I would be SO good at it."
Mom: "Do what?"
Me: "I need a chicken so I can train it to fight."
Mom: "It's a rooster and you can't do that."
Me: "Why not?! I could do it and be so good at it."
Mom: "Shelene, it's terrible. They put sharp things on the roosters and train them to fight. The roosters get so hurt that they usually die. It is really sad, mean, and inhumane."
Me: "I guess that's sad.........(long pause)....(creepy voice)... But, my chicken would kill all the other chickens."

Mom said that she was a little concerned about that incident.

Exhibit #3:
When I was staying with my G'ma, I would get passed around a lot while she was at work. I have an aunt/bff the same age as me and we usually would end up taking off or playing together. Our favorite activity was to find money (usually on my grandpa's dresser) and go get ice cream. We lived in a small town and would wander until we found a store or ice cream shop. After we would eat our treats, we would stop by at our favorite spot, the cemetery. We would steal flowers off the other graves and put them on our "family member's." Really, we just found people with the same last name as us and put the flowers on them. This was usually accompanied by some fake tears and made up stories about how much we loved them. After we were done mourning our ancestors, we would lay in to grass and stare at cloud shapes, and sometimes take a nap.
It wasn't until later in life that I realized most kids didn't hangout in cemeteries and steal other peoples' flowers.

Present day:
Just a few weeks back, I gave a tutorial at work on how to watch TV shows and movies online. And how to easily and illegally download music.
 As hard as I try, I just can't shake the sketchy. What can you do?  :)

Google Ruined My Life

I'm the little nerd that referenced my encyclopedia and dictionary a lot as a kid. I also read many biographies on people just to see what they were like or what they really did. Yeah, what kind of kid does these things? The same kind of kid that wanted to be these things when they were little. I truly believe that google was invented to prevent my ADHD and constant curiosity from being ridiculed. Life needed to give me some type of a chance to appear as a normal person. I google everything. Seriously, everything. I hear or think of something and jump on my computer or phone to instantly google it. If I'm not near either of those, I have to resort to taking note on a post it until I can look it up later. I think I have a problem.
The other night a friend was talking about how cute puppies in wagons are, and I had to find proof. I was researching "puppies in a wagon" on google search, and then I got carried away. All of my friends started to do the same and compare our pictures. Here's some of the highlights:

"Puppies in a wagon"

"puppies in a basket"

"puppies in a shoe"

"puppies in the snow"

"puppies in a car"

What is my life coming to? I also spent over an hour googling hamsters, hermit crabs, miniature frogs and turtles. I want a pet that will be difficult to kill off but I'm afraid of commitment. I think I will just stick to googleing animals and whatever else comes into my head for now :) I love google for saving my curious mind, but I hate it for wasting hours of my time. I love it and I hate it, it's my preciousssss. I don't know what I would do without it, though! I <3 Google. 

15 Going on Hot Mess

While looking for my passport the other day, I found my journal from when I was younger. I was flipping through my early teen entries and found numerous lists from days I was grounded. Apparently, when imprisioned I would get bored and write what my favorite things were and names that I liked (let's not talk about all the Laquisha and Shaniqua names I picked).  I read just a few things from age 15 before I was too disturbed and thankful to continue. Awkwardness and hot mess like none other. Here's a little example of how I've changed:
THEN                                                     NOW
Age: 15                                                  24
Height: 5'1"                                            5'2"
Weight: 95 lbs                                      I rather not
Hair: Hot Pink                                       Back to natural
Piercings: Ears and Belly button             Ears
Food: Steak                                        Sushi or Thai
Color: Blue                                          Blue
Movie: Josh Hartnett                          Shawshank Redemption
TV: Anything on MTV                        Right now, New Girl
Place: California :)                               Guilin, China
Music: 50 Cent                                   Everything
Book: To Kill A Mockingbird             BofM or McCarthy's books
Hobbies: Shopping, Dancing               Movies and work
Job: Babysitting                                  ILP and respite

The one thing that has stayed constant: My boy JT. Hate all you want on Justin, he still has my heart.

What's that Justin? You wanna dance the night away and then get married? Done.

Thankfully, my lists are the only thing that keep me from cringing while skimming through the journal. For all my friends that stuck it through with me in Junior High, bless your sweet little hearts. I'm sure those friends are the ones that kept me from going completely wild, keeping me away from bad boys, making me go to class,  and having me take out my piercings. Maybe being 24 isn't all that bad, I dig the things I like and I love the person I've become. Thanks old journal for taking me back and making me grateful :)