Advice

It's ALWAYS a choice.

Well, Nuts

I have been feeling, lately, like what I can only describe as a wash of beige. I feel colorless. Bland. Unremarkable. My skin is breaking out again. It's one of the bad spells. Ever since a few brief stints on a particular pill at the beginning of the year I have been breaking out regularly, though it varies in severity, even though I never broke out like this in junior high or high school. Meagan says it's karma coming back to give me what I deserve for having such great skin when all the rest of the adolescents were makeuping their pizza-faces. I don't know about that. Acne is so fickle and its causes so varied that it's hard to say why certain people have more or less issues with it. I have been using the Clinique Anti-Acne system for a while now and have really liked it, but I'm thinking that perhaps it's just not strong enough for my new super-acne, or my skin just got used to the medication and it's not as effective as it was when I started using it. Kira swears by Proactive. I remember using it for a while during high school and definitely didn't have any complaints, though I don't know that I would have been able to say for sure that it was that great either because I never had very severe acne to begin with. I've pretty much decided to give that one another shot once my current set runs out. Hopefully it will help me even out again.
Also feeling really not so happy with my body. I lost a full 35 pounds at the beginning of the year, and was feeling great. I have continued to scrupulously record my food intake and maintain my calorie budget, but I wasn't able to bring my treadmill with me to Arizona in August and have therefore not been walking like I did at home. I know that I could go outside, I know that I could do other things, other aerobic workouts in my room, blah blah blah, but the sad truth is that I love walking on that stupid old treadmill too much to have the determination to do much of anything else. I love walking. It makes me feel so great, and while I was doing it I was constantly and steadily losing weight. I want to be a person who goes for a walk every day, and eventually work my way up (stubborn lungs..) to running. It's more of a lifestyle than a workout routine and even in my short stint I have already felt the immense benefits and consider myself thoroughly converted. I think I let myself fall into a funk whenever I'm in Arizona. I detest the weather 90% of the year and find myself confined to the house which does not harbor very strong get-up-and-be-active feelings. I've actually gained back 7 of the pounds I lost at home. It's not the end of my story. Far from it. I'm letting myself just bum out the last few weeks that I'm here and then as soon as I get home I'm starting fresh again. I'm going to lose that last 30 pounds if it kills me. (Note: I know it's not about the number. It's about getting fit and healthy and feeling good about myself. Thing is, I know myself, and it's going to take that 30 pounds.)
Last but not least on my complaining spree, I am feeling completely unimpressed with everything in my closet. I have purchased a few new items of clothing over the past year or two, and I like my clothes, but everything is getting so old. Even my old favorite staples are fading and wearing and getting holes, and where I could have worn them as a nice outfit for a night out, now they seem too dingy to be on the "date night acceptable" list. I have a few pairs of jeans that I wear every day which shrink up shorter after so many washer/dryer cycles (another woe of the ridiculously tall, yay), and it seems that things aren't even fitting me the right way any more, whether because they've lost elasticity over time, or have shrunk in the dryer. I absolutely know that I have so much more than others. I am truly grateful for what I do have. But a girl does like to feel extra pretty sometimes and I find that it's harder to accomplish that as of late. It's entirely possible that I am feeling like this more so now than other times simply because I haven't washed my hair in a few days. It always boosts my self esteem when I'm clean. (What a concept, right?) And I will take a shower and wash my clothes and put on a fresh face and all that. And I'll be just fine. I mean, there's nothing wrong with me. I'm just looking forward to a few months from now when I'm back in a better groove of taking care of myself. Happy Holidays, you're a bum! Lol. End rant. Now only joyful things!

So I Have These Hips

Most of the time they're good to me. They're curvy, and wide, in a good way, and I like them. But apparently my hips are also very temperamental. If I sit with one leg sort of crooked to one side, or lean on one foot for too long, they protest. Loudly. If I sleep on my side, my waist sloops all the way down and those hips rotate themselves into oblivion. If I sleep like that for too long, they stay rotated. I worked at a Chiropractic office for a while and once I had the doctor adjust me, as my hips had been giving me grief again. He informed me that my legs differed precisely two and a half inches in length because my hips were so wonky. He cranked me back and told me to sleep a certain way, sit a certain way, yada yada. And then I was back getting cranked again two weeks later. Tonight my hips are extra cantankerous. And I would like to sleep.
Dear hips, please be nice to me. Love, Danielle.

Robert Vavra

Has an enchanting talent.

Art School

For as long as I can remember I have desperately wanted only one thing: to be a mother. It seems that this is indeed a very likely thing for me to achieve in this life, although I am certainly not quite there yet. I thrill at the idea of becoming pregnant, at growing my own tiny little person inside of me. The long months we will have together, just the two of us before a little babe is brought into the world for me to hold and squeeze and cherish. That I will get to pick out an earthly name for this new person, and that he or she will be a little version of me (And the Mr. of course) and will grow and change every single day, always getting bigger and smarter. I anticipate days with little people running around my house, playing, laughing, learning. I look forward to giving advice, even discipline when needed, so that these children will know about the world, will know how to behave, will know the things that are the most important, and the things that are not. I do know that having children is bittersweet. That by creating these beings you are in essence allowing a portion of your heart to walk around outside of you. That they will get hurt, and that they can hurt you. But all these things combined, the happy and the sad, amount to an experience that I would not trade for my very life. I have been promised joy in my children, and I am so excited for that time in my life when I will bring children into this world and with the companionship of a loving husband raise them into grown people.

BUT.

I realized at some point in the past twenty-one years that even though motherhood will certainly be the position I hold for myself in the highest regard, it does not in fact equate to a career in the terms of the world. One does not receive a salary for raising children. And while I would love to have the luxury of focusing my time and energy on this one thing, I know that I can't sit idly by and just assume that the person I marry will automatically have the education and the career and the means to support me and our little brood without any financial contribution from me. That just wouldn't be fair at all. After coming to this decision I was faced with yet another dilemma. What is it that I can do to contribute that will allow me not only to still be available for my children when they come into the picture, but also that will fulfill me as a person and individual, not just solely as a mother. I've been thinking about this and contemplating my options for quite some time now. During high school I came to the solid conclusion that I was not about to waste my time and money on college right out of the gate when I wasn't even sure what I wanted my focus to be. And so I didn't. I graduated, and I worked. I made the money necessary to pay my bills by watching and teaching other people's children. This work is extremely fulfilling to me, but still I was unsettled at the thought of being a perpetual nanny. I love it now. There's nothing else I'd rather do as a job, that's for sure. But it's not a career. I know that some people make it work while raising their own children too, but for me it just doesn't sit quite right. There had to be something else. I tried out hair school. I like to make things pretty, like to make people feel good about themselves, this could work.. Nope. I hated it. I dropped out four months in. It just wasn't the right fit. I could let my ego be hurt, or feel ashamed at quitting something that maybe doesn't seem so hard, but really it was just something I tried and realized it wasn't for me. No harm, no foul. If I hadn't have tried it, I wouldn't have known that, and I'm grateful for that knowledge even if I don't appreciate the loan I'm still paying back..

Then a year or so ago I had the opportunity to work with a wonderful woman I met through church who has a business she runs out of her home making wedding invitations and matching favors and other stationary. For the most part my job consisted of applying adhesive to the backs of hundreds of identical pieces of cardstock and sticking them to hundreds more pieces of cardstock, assembling these great little invitations, some more involved than others. I tied ribbons, stuck labels on water bottles and boxes of candy, stuffed envelopes, and various other detail oriented tasks. After a few months of doing this I realized how much I really liked it, and even more so the level of my fascination with the invitations themselves. There was nothing more exciting than seeing an eight part, five dollar wedding invitation all completed, feeling the smooth crisp papers with bumpy embossed glossy ink, the matching name cards for tables, favors tied with corresponding ribbons. It was then that I decided I would very very much like to do something similar with my life. I thought about what that would mean for me on a day to day basis, thought about what I would need to do to get there, and what I really wanted there to actually be. What if I didn't just design and create wedding invitations, what if I designed and created all sorts of things! (I'm really getting excited now.) I could have the potential to work from home, make my own hours, own my own business, create beauty, make other people happy, and be totally happy with myself too. Jackpot. This feels right.

And that's where school comes in. I'm not the kind of person to just jump into any given task blind. Oh no, never. I'm one who truly appreciates rules and instructions. I will follow a specific list down to the very last detail and wouldn't dream of trying to do something I didn't actually know how to do. If there isn't an instruction manual or "proper way" of doing something, I think about it and plan it out and prepare to do it until I'm sure I can accomplish the task in a satisfactory way. So when it comes to the thing that I am going to be doing for the majority of my adult life to contribute to and support my family, this surely isn't a step I'm going to skip. Do it the right way, or don't do it at all. Anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I very much so operate by this mantra. I'll admit, I didn't do a whole ton of looking around at different schools and programs.. Shame on me, I know. I've had my eye on The Art Institute of Salt Lake City since I decided I was going to go to art school, and I think that even if I had found a program somewhere else I just wouldn't have felt like it was the best. I have a problem with this, always wanting the "best" things. But what can I say, I'm not ashamed of it. So what if I picked the most expensive art school I could find. Details? I spoke with an admissions advisor for about two and a half hours last week, sent in my high school transcripts, admissions essay, and some other paperwork and have now been officially accepted into the Graphic Design program. I am THRILLED.

School starts on January 10th. It's a 21 month program if I go full time (which I intend to do, yes.) and from the looks of it I will be working my butt off with 20 hours of school per week, just about that much on homework, as well as working a part time job to continue paying current bills and also whatever is leftover from pesky loans that I will be taking out by the bushelfull.. I am trying to stay positive and remind myself that I am in this 100% for the education and experience, and that if I truly felt like it wasn't worth the price I shouldn't and wouldn't be doing it. But I am. The program includes some really exciting classes like Color Theory, Typography (I get to design my own font! Cool!), Illustration, Marketing Design, Print Production, and even a Photography class that I'm pretty excited about since I've been hankering to take one of those since junior high. I am feeling a significant amount of anxiety about starting this whole thing, because it is going to be a big change for me. I'll be much busier than I have been probably since high school, and that was two and a half years ago. I'm going to have to relearn how to time budget so that I don't get stressed out of my mind and so that I can remember why I'm doing this in the first place. Aside from the anxiety though, I am pure excitement! One and three-quarters of a year really isn't that long at all, and when I'm finished I'll come out with a legitimate degree in Graphic Design and the tools I need to do something I'm really kicking to do.

Art School (life), here I come!

(Is it totally unattractive if I feel forty-seven times more awesome for being someone who is going/goes/went to art school? I'm just tooting my own horn this once, and then I promise to be totally humble from here on out. Yay art school!)