The Most Changing thing : Beautiful Things (singles event.)

I was at a singles social at a national youth convention, chatting with a new friend, when my sorry attempts to be charming were interrupted suddenly by music that was too loud for conversation. (I didn't mind, I was running out of small talk and I was about to get very shy lol.) There was a band from New Mexico, and they started playing a couple songs. The first song I don't remember, I was still trying to hold a conversation over the song, but the second song interrupted me...

The social itself was fun, stand up comedy, prizes (I won a pair of Dre beats earbuds!), and everyone was so dressed up! (except one girl in a power rangers shirt. which was cool, don't hate!) It was the last place I expected to hear anything that would matter to me, other than maybe "it was great meeting you, would you mind if I text you later?" (which, didn't happen lol.) but aside from that, as I was saying, it interrupted me. I don't mean my speaking (although that too), I mean it interrupted ME. The essence of my 'self', the thought pattern that is 'me', like a wave of rain interrupts the desert and makes it bloom. It drew all of my attention, and I think I was even staring slightly open mouthed in disbelief, not sure lol. Anyway, I had given up trying to speak over the first song, and I was just listening to the band when suddenly they start playing this song:




it turns out the song wasn't theirs, it belongs to Michael Gungor, named "beautiful things" and it's a few/couple years old. There are few times in life when you are absolutely certain that God is speaking to you and for me this was one of those times. Even after sin, even after being lost, or maybe running away...God makes beautiful things out of the dust, He makes beautiful things out of us.

Suddenly : a poem about despair.

just a quick thought, a poem about despair and how it keeps us from seeing the way out, and how sometimes we know it's there but we are so used to our situation we refuse to let ourselves be free.



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says the broken to the self,

my hollow soul will swallow the light, splattered with the blood of my heart in my

hands, held to my chest, take it and break it,

let it beat it's last and breathe a sigh of relief

the half life has passed, the ink streaks on the wall

are the black of my words, the accomplishments of my life displayed.

sink with me, and fly as we drown in the truth of our selves,

falling into the nothing that is the truth of who we are

far away, left to the void of the universe

seeking something special in a line of nothing,

blind by the hope that is a chain, no keys to freedom,

locked to perdition as we seek this self-definition,

the one that will bring fire to the heart of the dying

but no one stops to realize that we're all lying and

laying at the bottom of the heap, at the top of self,

choking in the fumes of our stench, born into flies,

buzzing ever in our heads, an ocean of brine, the taste in our mouths

from the times we've spit hate when we meant it in love

we can't get past the moment, suddenly stuck in this corner we've dug,

tripping on the moments past, we've become our own drug,

the light is behind us but we've closed our eyes,

can't accept the peace we've been offered,

stuck in norm of our own demise.

Bloomingdale's San Francisco: The Experience

The last thing I remember after posting that blog about how I was going to play video games until the crack of dawn was watching a YouTube video of a chick doing a very complicated looking hairdo and calling it an "everyday 'do". I remember thinking 'I could never devote that much time to doing my hair everyday...' next thing I know, I'm aware that I'm waking up from SLEEP. What started as a blink turned into a nightmare.

by some strange miracle, I woke up suddenly and, panicking, looked out the window. Pitch black. sort of. oh my God it's not black it's blue! I fly off the bed to my sister's room yelling for the time - it's 6:45a. I'm LATE.

My world comes crashing down. I had about 3 hours of sleep, my eyes are puffy, I'm incoherent, and I'm hyperventilating as I freak out, "I've missed it! I've missed it! I missed the trip!" I get online and find my boss's number in an email she sent, and fortunately they haven't left yet. After a haphazard whirlwind I managed to wash up, blow dry just my bangs, and put on clothing that matched by sheer accident.

*Red skirt, striped shirt, do i match? yes. wait! this is khaki not red! it's ok. still matches.*


I ran (literally. actual running.) out of my cul-de-sac to my van. Honest to God, I didn't even know I could still sprint like that, lol.

I'm praying under my breath (GOD DON'T LET THERE BE TRAFFIC!) and thinking to myself that it's too early for there to be traffic. ha....yea, about that. I got to the freeway entrance at 7:05 and traffic was just barely at a crawl.

Except the HOV...I was so paranoid about being caught that I seriously almost pulled a sweater over the body of my passanger seat and threw a hat on it but decided that was a bit much.

The HOV failed me halfway because there was an accident, so I got there at 7:30 no matter my efforts and I was giving up hope by 7:15.

I was so thrilled when I got there and everyone was still there waiting for me! I apologized profusely and told them the above story. I traveled with my manager (Leslie) and two other winning associates (Jane and Destini).

so we make it to the airport and the flight's been delayed 10-15 mins. We go to print our passes, and of course, Mine won't print. it's ok, we switch machines and that one prints for me. Leslie laughs at me for being a problematic traveler. :p she has no idea.

we get to the security checkpoint, and I must have looked like a terrorist because I got pulled for a "special screening". I walk into the abandoned lane and the lady waiting for me puts on blue gloves. what the heck? I immediately thought of carlos mencia and the cavity search joke. I will stay here in az if that's what this lady is thinking is about to go down!!!!

breathe, it didn't happen. They did swab my hands for gunpowder though, and of course I passed. Then we were put in a special lane for screening where we didn't have to take off our shoes or coats. It was very weird.

We're in the waiting area, and Leslie decides to try for the Starbucks line while the flight attendant gets on the intercom and gives us this long spiel about how there's bad weather in San Fran. After a few minutes she says we have to be in the air by 9:03 in order to make our landing slot, so we line up to get on board. Destini looks at me and says "I think your gel dried up, here's a mirror." Jane laughs at me and compliments destini for always being prepared. I look by my right ear where they point and I have orange colored TOOTHPASTE in my hair!! Too much to just wipe off, I have to get water on this thing and wash it out. OMG. could this get worse? lol. I try to pull as much of it off as I can with my fingers as we all get aboard the plane. Leslie still hasn't appeared from the starbucks line, so Jane calls her and they don't let her board until nearly last for being late. It's cool, we saved her a seat.

As I'm buckling in, still trying to pull out toothpaste, the guy behind me almost drops his carry-on onto my head. I'm like "hey! be nice!" he says "it was a reflex test. you passed!" lol. jerk. anyway, the flight gets delayed another 50 minutes, and we have to sit in there. The lady next to me is coughing and doing some twitchy thing with her hands as she reads off her computer screen. Uh oh. I'm sensing a remake of Quarantine 2. O_O if she starts making growling sounds I's SO off this plane.


We finally take off, and they bring us our complimentary soft drinks. I don't want a coke, I want a fancy free drink, so I'm looking at this thing called a "tonic" but that sounds too much like medicine, so I order something called a "Mr. & Mrs. T bloody mary mix". That's some sort of juice I'm guessing, but the red looks slightly coagulated and the top is completely clear. hmm. well, it can't be bad, they just made it and they wouldn't give me something rotten. ugh. it's probably tomato juice. I hate tomato. I ordered it though, so I'm going to suck it up and drink it. I take a mouthful of apparently extremely RANCID sprite. But my boss and coworkers are on my other side and I didn't want to spit it back into my cup because that would be SUPREMELY un-classy and I've already given a rather bad impression of myself.
I swallow it and my mouth is burning. I tap the flight attendant and tell her, "I don't want this, what is it?" she says, "oh, you asked for a bloody Mary though?" "yea, I don't know what that is, I thought it would be like a juice and soda mix?" she laughs and says "Then this must have been quite a shock! It has quite a lot of vodka." O____O <- my face. I was in shock. no more adventure for me please! I asked her for a Shirley temple, and she makes it with cranberry juice and sprite. We land in san Francisco, and it's POURING rain. What we consider Flash Flooding here in Az, but it's beautiful! There's so much color in San Francisco, and it's so green! If there's one thing that draws me to California it's the vibrant life that goes on there. The vegetation and the people and the buildings, everything seems to say "live here!" and one day I really will! here's the first couple pictures I took. sorry for the quality! it was with my Nintendo 3ds. :p

Our driver Daniel was very cute, talked in this beautifully smooth voice, and drove like Vin Diesel in Fast 5. He was clearly experienced at his job, I would've been in a panic driving in that much water and traffic. He got us close to the building and we ran inside. We were finally here!!!



The Bloomingdale's was unbelievably beautiful <3 I wanted to rush to a bathroom and fix up but instead we met with the store manager first thing. I was a hot mess. my bangs were starting to curl up at the ends, the toothpaste left my hair grainy looking, and the wax I had applied to keep my hair from frizzing was not doing it's job. He was very professional and polite though, and we all felt very welcome. He gave us a quick tour of the store, and advised us on good eats in the area. It was about noon at that point, so we had exactly two hours to shop before lunch, because we needed to leave by 3 to make the return flight and avoid traffic. I went straight to the fancy bloomingdale's bathroom, rinsed out the grainy toothpaste and straightened my bangs. (I happened to have brought a tiny itty bitty straightener with me.) There was no saving the rest of it, so I stuck it up in a bun with a pen and got back on the sales floor. Here are some shots I took of the sales floor :)

I returned a pair of shoes I had ordered and tried on a million pairs of shoes, but nothing fit! The front was too narrow or the shoe was too big in length. Finally I gave up and hit the clearance handbags. No luck there, I was determined to get something Tory Burch though! I went through all the wallets and bags and just couldn't find something I liked. I walked away for a bit and hit the beauty area and in the end I bought the lip gloss from a lady that gave me beauty advice for about 20 mins, haha...




Jane and Destini found me wandering around Marc Jacobs' booths and told me we have 15 minutes before we had to be upstairs. I hadn't bought anything yet! So I went on a quick run back to wallets with them and Jane helped me choose two wallets to compliment my crossbody bags. Here's quick pic of my fabulous purchases courtesy of Bloomingdale's!

A Michael Kors crossbody, a Marc by Marc Jacobs crossbody, a Tory burch wallet, a Michael Kors wallet, Acqua di Gioia by Armani parfum, Chloe parfum, a bobbi brown lip gloss, and a pair of Enzo Angiolini pumps that didn't make it to the picture because I gave them to my sister for her bday. :) I ordered most of this to be shipped to my house, but the wallets and gloss I got at the store.



lunch was delicious, we ate at Straits, a Japanese restaurant on the 4th floor of the mall. Looked like this:




we had salmon and tuna sashimi so fresh that I would swear they caught the fish not 10 minutes before serving it! I didn't get a picture of the food but here is Leslie and Destini :) about to dive in to the cuisine!




our flight back was pretty uneventful, the flight was delayed an hour but we made it back in peace. :) This was such a fabulous experience, and I'm so grateful to Macy's for making it possible for all of us! <3

The Sleepless Countdown to San Francisco

A very long time ago, I broke up with Mornings. She would come around and try shining in my window, and I'd close the blinds and shut the curtains to shun her out. To this day, I only tolerate her enough to take my brother to school then come back home and slam her out of my life. This is very very important to know because if you invite me to an event, and it's before 11a, chances are very high that I won't be there. It's not on purpose, I definitely mean it that I'm going once I make the plans with you, but my body just Does Not Respond when I try waking up in the morning! It's like zombie mode on Hard level. In fact, I'll even own up to it, now that I start work at 1:45, I sleep til noon every day. I just happen to wake up around 11:45-ish and don't get out of bed til about 12:15p. lazy? maybe. actually yea, definitely, cuz even though I sleep around 2:30-3a, that's still a TON of hours of sleep, way more than adequate.



Why am I telling you all of this?? because tomorrow is my trip to san Francisco! For those of you that don't know, I won a $500 shopping spree at the San Francisco Bloomingdale's from work and tomorrow is my flight out there. I'm Super Excited!!! I already used my gift card (no taxes and no shipping fees, um yes!) so I'll just be going because heck yea why wouldn't I want a free day out in San Fran??! Where's the problem you ask? I just checked the itinerary.

oh


my


gosh.



I have to be at work at SIX THIRTY A.M.! 6:30! It's 1a and I'm just pulling my clothes out of the dryer to see what I'm going to WEAR. What do you wear to Bloomingdale's? I feel like I HAVE to dress up or else I'll look like the poor schmuck that I am, hahaha.....When we get there we'll be meeting the store manager, and having lunch with him too I think. It's very exciting, I've never been in a Bloomingdale's before and from Google images, it looks gorgeous! I'm going to spend the entire time in their clearance section, lol.

Anyway, so to remedy the 6:30a.m. situation, I've decided not to sleep. Why? because I don't have a phone or alarm clock to wake me up at 4:30 so I can be up and ready in time. If I go to sleep right now, I'll literally sleep through any alarm until at least 8a.m. anyway, and it would be WAYYY too late at that point. So wish me luck as I play video games until the crack of dawn for the sake of a free trip to san Francisco. :p

High school reunion a la Fall Festival (:

hello reader. This is heather, the evil twin. >_< I have nothing to say, I just wanted to glare. And now I have. *glare*

Jk, hahaha....(:

   This weekend I decided to visit some old friends at their church's fall festival. We all went to high school together, and I haven't seen them in a few years now so it was sort of a reunion. I'm not going to lie, I was extremely nervous! You never want to be that person at a reunion that hasn't done anything with their life, lol. Which, honestly, is pretty much where I'm at. (no kids, hubby, or even a B.A. to show for my several years out of high school!) Nonetheless, it was great seeing where everyone else is heading in life! (: babies to be born, some with kids already a few years old (freaking ADORABLE), weddings being planned, new businesses starting up, college degrees moving along....everyone is so grown up! I still remember everyone as they were in high school. The khaki skirts/pants, the time someone popped a stink bomb and we had to evacuate the class, the time the guys were so exasperated by my lack of baseball skills that they spent a lunch period training me to catch...(it sounds sweet but it was vicious and cutthroat training, hahaha....)

(: actually, I think reminiscing was the best part of seeing everyone again. (Ah yes...the four-square battles....LEGENDARY!!!)

I took a friend of mine with me to this festival, and despite the frequent interruptions ("omg!!! I remember you!!!! How are you??!!! *hugs!*)  we had a lot of fun! For future reference, games with bean bags are the easiest to win, lol. We went away with goldfish (mine died this morning. :C I hadn't even named them yet.), candy, wristbands, painted faces (batman!!!), a tiny stuffed bunny, a jumprope for me, and a sheriff badge for him. Overall, a saturday night well spent!

Dieting: The backslide

"Infinite shame! INFINITE!!!!!!"

That's what I'm thinking as I join my incredibly thin coworkers in eating cupcakes. Oh, and my mountain dew is smiling smugly at me. Or rather it would be if it had facial features. (in my head it does. *glare*)

All of this wouldn't be a big deal if I was just content with my body, but I'm not. Sometimes I am, I forget that I can't shop at just any store, that I can't just eat whatever I want and not gain weight, or that I can't get on rides at the fair because the seats are made for ppl with less booty.....but other days bathroom mirrors have me saying "darn you! why didn't I do the squats!" (cuz by the way I didn't make it past day 4.)  Pictures are out of the question, cuz that evil beast adds ten pounds to every body part. (i have enough pounds, thank you.) And my skin is shriveling in this dry cold-ish weather from my lack of water intake soo....you'd think carbs would cause me panic instead of temptation......
*stares pointedly at mountain dew and cupcake wrappers*

I am terrified, ironically, of regaining all the weight I lost. It was substantial, to me, and I'm about halfway back. :'(  So, since I can't in good faith trust myself to get back on track, I am instead tattling on myself to this blog. accountability and planning seem to be the keys to my success, and I finally gladly admit that fact after years of crash dieting.  so back I go, because I need to. Back, because I want to.

8 reasons to keep my glasses. The anti-lasik.

As many of you know, my mom works for a lasik surgery center and devotes her life to explaining the pros and cons of lasik. Recently, my sister got lasik and she's thrilled with her "better than 20/20!!" superhuman vision. I however, have opted to remain a four-eyes.
I used to Hate glasses, but now I just don't think my life would be as funny without them, believe it or not! Here are the reasons why:

1. I will probably never break the now 2nd nature habit of pushing my glasses up my nose. (when you're not wearing glasses that movement looks stupid. -_- trust me. I've done it.)

2. they're like rear view mirrors! Ppl don't know this but some reflective metal frames can be perfect for seeing whats going on behind you!! (in the right light, so can the lens!)

3. You can never be wrong about whether the water is hot in the shower or the kitchen, the lens fog will be your guide!

4. FIDGETING. you can never clean the lens nor bend and unbend the arms enough. *bends. Unbends. Bends...unbends.*

5. Need a moment? Screw the snickers! Whip off those bad boys and polish them with your fancy lens napkin for dramatic effect.

6. We glasses-wearers have our own unique body language. we fight through our glasses, we flirt through our glasses, and procrastinate with them too!

7 conversations like "i wonder what you look like without glasses?" would Never happen! it's glorious to tear off your glasses and astound with your cuteness.

8. And finally, I'm pretty sure it's too late to avoid having "glasses face", I'm pretty sure its set in already so why fight it?
(you know what I mean by that! Where your face now looks weird without glasses for no obvious reason?)

So yea, maybe I do break my glasses every 3-4 months, drop them almost daily, and gotten terrifyingly separated from my family at costco when I'm not wearing them (i was like 15, they went out of earshot, I couldn't see more than 4 feet in any direction, we were out of state, I nearly hyperventilated..... It was hilarious.) but stories like that wouldn't be possible without them!!!