"You can have Manhattan I know it's for the best. I'll gather up the avenues and leave them on your doorstep. I'll tip toe away So you won't have to say You heard me leave. You can have Manhattan I know it's what you want. The bustle, and the buildings The weather in the Fall. And I'll bow out of place To save you some space For somebody new. You can have Manhattan 'Cause I can't have you. You can have Manhattan The one we used to share. The one where we were laughing And drunk on just being there. Hang on to the reverie Could you do that for me? 'Cause I'm just too sad to. You can have Manhattan 'Cause I can't have you. And so it goes One foot after the other 'Till black and white begin to color in. And I know That holding us in place is simply fear Of what's already changed. You can have Manhattan I'll settle for the beach. And sunsets facing westward With sand beneath my feet. And I'll wish this away Just missing the days When I was one half of two You can have Manhattan 'Cause I can't have you." Manhattan by Sara Bareilles I love this song. It fits my nostalgic mood today. As I finish counting down to the end of December, where my 4 month separation from Nathan comes to a brief end for 1 week, I can't help but relate to the ache in this song. Thank goodness we don't have to be apart one day more. 23 days and counting down.
Can we just skip the part where I complain at being bad at this and get to the point? K, thanks. The snow this morning sparked some random thought in my mind. So...I'm blogging about it. Since I've been home there's been a lot of things I've been looking forward to. Spending time with my family, getting to see friends again, earning money, real food, and most of all the holidays. Not just the holiday itself, but for the atmosphere to FEEL like the holidays. It's weird when you're eating turkey and stuffing in your swimming suit at the side of a pool and it feels more like the 4th of July than Thanksgiving. It gets worse when Christmas trees go up around campus and Christmas lights get strung up every palm tree. You try and focus and make it feel like Christmas, but when you're listening to Mele Kalikimaka on repeat while you're at the beach, it sort of kills the mood. Don't get me wrong!! Right about now, I wish I could be soaking in the sunshine in 75 degree weather. haha. But the holiday season finally feels like the holiday season to me. The feeling of coming inside and warming up with hot chocolate after it being really cold outside. Decorating the Christmas tree with just the lights on the tree lighting the room while listening to Christmas music. Waking up to an eerily beautiful silence, sneaking to the window to see the first blanket of snow. (True, I did have to wake up insanely early to get that blanket of snow out of the way so I could go to work...but it was worth it.) Those are the feelings of the holiday atmosphere I've missed so much. My life is in the incredibly slow and safe lane while it snows. So in the meantime I'll bundle up and dream of the sunny weather other people are getting while I enjoy my hot chocolate and inches of snow. And who knows, I might even build a snowman. ;)
Well, it's official. I'm probably one of the worst bloggers known to man. But no longer! At least I hope...
I've found new time to blog! What time is that, you may ask? Why during breaks, and the extra time I have lying around during lunch, at my JOB!
*Cue celebration music* YAAAAAY!!!!!
I know right. Being back home and being lazy was fun...for a while. Then when the cash ran out and the fun stopped rolling, I knew I needed to get off of the couch and do something with my life. With school on hold, I was hoping to find a job. I was searching for a job that had a long list of qualifiers to be great. But after a while of searching, I didn't need qualifiers. I needed a JOB! Thanks to the magic working of my dear Daddy, he set me up with someone in a temp agency and I kept my fingers crossed, while still looking for a job of course. That was in April.
It wasn't until last week that my finger-crossing good luck even kicked in. But when it kicked in, it kicked in! So, here I sit. In my own little cubicle. At my own little desk (that I techincally share...one day it will be mine). At my own little duel screened computer. With very nice people around, all hard at work. Making the big bucks. I feel so official! Needless to say, I'm not bored anymore. I'm working hard. I'm playing hard.
I remember that night as if it was yesterday. We all smashed into Kevin Mitchell Brown's car and drove to Kahuku Grill. We ate food together, played games together, laughed a lot together, and even cried a little together. I'm so glad that we have this picture to capture the happiness the we all felt while being in one another's company for two semesters. Even though we knew that it was the last time together for a while, we knew it wasn't forever. These people are truly my friends forever. It's interesting to think this was about one short year ago. Just think of where we all are now! (Going from the top row left to right). Esther traded perpetual summer at BYU-Hawaii for the perpetual winter at BYU-Idaho to be closer to her wonderful twin sister. Even though I miss her dearly, I swear I can sometimes still hear her laughing. Miss Kelly is still here at BYUH with me. Thank goodness. She's the only consistent thing about this photo and I'm oh so grateful for that. There's me! Smack dab in the middle. Center of attention. Enough said. ;) Hannah Atkin is no longer Hannah Atkin. Rather Hannah Lucile Bartholomew. We sent her away from Hawaii and she just up and got married. haha. I definitely miss the times we spent in Math lab attempting statistics. Sara LeCheminant was at BYUH with me for last semester, but is headed to Russia to teach English in a short while here. Then she'll come back to me! haha. I'm so glad to be a part of her life and live vicariously through her and her amazing adventures. All three of these amazing young men, sitting on the front row, have chosen to serve missions and that's the next step on their horizions. Camron is already in Poland. Parker's getting ready to head to Italy. And Kevin is heading out to Brazil. These three guys are the absolute cream of the crop and I'm jealous of all of their future wives. hahaha. The memories I've made with these people will stick with me forever. This is one of those pictures I will show my children and tell them: These are some of the best people I have ever known. We came from all over the United States and Canada and ended up on a rock in the middle of the ocean. They all went from complete strangers to me, to some of the best friends I have ever had. And I love each and everyone of them will all of my heart. Aloha nui loa, Makeli
So this isn't some sad post about that awesome Alan Jackson song. I actually just needed a title for this blog post. Remember when...I started that 30 day challenge and got like...4 days into it...and it lasted me 8 days total? (See July of last year if you don't. haha.) I've decided that I want to do it again and actually finish it this time. For a quick reminder, here's what my 30 day challenge looked like:
30 day challenge that I like. hahaha
1- Picture and 15 random facts
2- Nicknames
3- Picture of you and your friends
4- A habit you wish you didn't have
5- A picture of somewhere you've been and a memory
6- Favorite superhero and why
7- What makes you happy
8- What you wanted to be as a child
9- pet peeves
10- Favorite song of the week
11- A favorite quote
12- Something you don't leave the house without
13- Goals
14- Picture of you and your family
15- Favorite snack foods
16- Top 10 favorite TV shows
17- Someone I'd want to switch lives with and why OR iPod on shuffle, first 10 songs.
18- Your day in great detail
19- An obsession
20- Elementary school
21- Something you're proud of
22- List of 10 favorite foods
23- List of 10 favorite movies
24- Something you've learned
25- Something you're looking forward too
26- Talk about your friends!
27- Photo of your city/where you live
28- What stresses you out?
29- Who is your hero?
30- Picture of you today and what you learned over this 30 day challenge.
Considering that there's 31 days in January, and I only got to day 4 of my challenge last time, I'm going to start with day 5 today. It's going to look like I'm a day behind but by January 31st, I'll have done challenge 5 through 30. It'll all work out. I don't particularly want to drag this post out, so I'm going to do a new one for day number 5 of my challenge. :)
Basically, one of the funniest things of my life happened today. Courtesy of my lovely friends Kelly Retallack and Savanna Jane Gregory.
After the New Student Orientation talent show, Savanna Jane, Kelly and I were trying to figure out something to do. We decided to stoop for a while and then go to sleep. Kelly says that she needs to throw something away in the garbage can. The closest one, and the one she goes for, is across the street from where we are. So she starts to run to the garbage can and SJ just starts pushing me whispering "run run!" So we start running the opposite direction. I glance over my shoulder to find Kelly hasn't noticed that we're running away. We find this ramp thing and just run up it. From Kelly's angle, she wouldn't be able to see us if she was walking the way we just came because..there's a building in the way. However, there's a light above us illuminating the whole ramp and other than the building, we're completely out in the open. The two of us are trying to be quiet but we just keep on laughing. We can here her coming so we press ourselves against the wall, attempting to be as silent as we possibly can, and praying she doesn't see us. Suddenly, she appears at the end of the ramp. I'm thinking we're done for. Of course she's going to see us. We're right here. NOPE!! Instead, SJ and I press ourselves against the wall even harder and Kelly is looking dead ahead. She starts motioning to these people who are walking past us, pointing over the ramp to the other side, nodding, and putting her finger up to her lips as if to tell them to be quiet. She absolutely believes we are hiding on the other side of the ramp in the grass. Kelly crouches down, (mind you SJ and I are watching this whole thing happening), waits, and then screams "RAWR!" as she pops up and looks over the ramp into the bushes which she is surprised to find completely empty. At this point in time, SJ and I can't handle it anymore and we just start busting up laughing. Kelly turns around to see the two of us atop this ramp laughing our guts out and just gives this huge "WHAT?!" as she joins in the laughter. We later learned that she thought we were behind the bushes because one of the bushes was casting a shadow that totally looked like a head. The three of us definitely had a good laugh about that for a while. (LOVE YA KELL)
For some reason it just reminded me of The Emperor's New Groove. It's the part of the movie where Kronk has a Kuzko, in llama form, in a bag and is singing his own theme song music which he conveniently pauses as he "hides" against the wall. I hope you get a good laugh out of any part of this! :)
Hello? Is this thing on? Haha I apologize for the inconsistent blogging. What can you do sometimes?! Life just...loves to ruin itself and get in my way. But! We're blogging in the new year here!!! Yay! So I ended up in Hawaii for New Years Eve and didn't have any grand plans ahead of me. I was actually considering skyping my family and their New Years plans. Which...were pretty much the same as mine. Completely and utterly undecided. Instead I started asking around to my friends who are still around campus after the break. There weren't many but still enough to make it fun. I ended up on a foodland run with Kelly to get snacks for a simple party if 5. But let me tell you...we could've fed a small army or 3 guys with how much food we bought. We needed sweet and salty and savory all at once. After about seven phone calls to my mother we had chip dip, chocolate, and a plan to wrap stuff in bacon and Martinelli's sparkling cider. It was guaranteed to be an awesome night. I went over to Kelly's house and we started cooking away. We wrapped water chestnuts and pineapple in bacon and made a sauce also. (Recipe courtesy of my Mom and whomever gave it to her.) By the time we were done everyone else had showed up. While waiting to ring in the new year with our countdown, we ate tons and tons of food while we played card games! A few rounds of Uno and then we moved onto Apples to Apples. In which, I was the ultimate winner. We decided our cards would represent our future husbands. At first I was thinking my future husband was probably bipolar when I won cards like eerie and then majestic and things like that. As the champion with 8 cards, I had just decided that I would have to have two different husbands. I just couldn't live with the words eerie and undesirable being used to describe my future husband. However, desirable, majestic, and other wonderful words rounded out a man who...probably doesn't exist. But hey, a girl can dream. As midnight came around, we broke out the plastic cups and Martinelli's sparkling cider. We toasted to 2013 early and then all gathered on Kelly's porch to countdown the last 10 seconds of 2012. 2013 began with another toast and then tons of fireworks shot off from all different angles as we watched from the perfect view point. Then all of a sudden we saw these lanterns that were floating up in the sky along with the constant stream of fireworks. Well, the consensus was that you couldn't have lanterns without Tangled music! So we grabbed the music and listened to "I See the Light" from Tangled while watching fireworks and lanterns rise into the starlit sky. It was pure magic. It has got to be sign that 2013 is going to be an absolutely dream filled new year. To 2013. To a year better than last. And to pure magic. HAPPY NEW YEAR! :D
