Masquerade!

Last week was a beast of a week. That doesn't mean that everything happened was negative, or that I didn't have fun, but it just means that I became very exhausted. In folk dance we had the great opportunity to learn a new Haitian piece. It was a wonderful experience, but it meant long hours of dance and a very sore back,

However, after a long and tiring week, Trenton and I had the lovely experience of going to THE MASQUERADE! The story of the masquerade went like this.

Once upon a time, Trenton and Breanna got married. They had their reception at a lovely venue called Castle Park which they were very happy with. As a result, Castle Park had Breanna's email address. Oh boy, did they have it. And they emailed Breanna to tell her that they had a Halloween masquerade event coming back. When Breanna read that this dance was a dinner and dance party with unlimited Italian sodas, carriage rides, a dark maze (which was actually very very dark) and more she thought in her brain, "that sounds fun, even!" and forwarded the link to Trenton, probably with a caption that read something like, "doesn't this look fun, even?"

Much to her surprise, Trenton quickly emailed back. Not saying, "Kind of." or "maybe next year". He said, "Ok! Let's make a reservation!" because that's just the kind of husband he is.

And so, Saturday night we went. And what a time we had.

The adventure began with the preparations. There were clothes to obtain (done before Saturday, mind you), hair to do, and masks to don. I had dressed myself in the lovely purple gown I'd bought at Savers for a winter ball in 9th grade. It costed a grand total of $8, and I was pleased that it would again be of use. I had done my hair, painted my nails, and even hot glue gunned a new ribbon onto my mask. The reason the mask needed a new ribbon, for those of you wondering which is maybe one of you, is that I for sure cut the ribbon off during SPAC tour when I realized I had no ribbon in the apartment to use so that I could put in my own fake braid. So yep. New ribbon was put on. Trenton however, couldn't find his mask. Randomly he thought, "well maybe I left it in the suitcases your parents so kindly let us store at your house." I thought that idea was sort of a long shot, but my house was on the way so we stopped by. Spoiler: the mask was in the suitcase. It was The. Only. Thing. In the suitcase.

In front of my beautiful garage after getting the mask. We decided to take the pic because the lighting was good.

Then we arrived at Castle Park. The dinner was delicious and the Italian sodas were undoubtedly the best Italian sodas to ever have been acquainted with my taste buds. Upon completing our meal we set forth to engage in activities like the carriage ride, aforementioned dark maze which made me realize I'm still a little more afraid of the dark than I'd realized, playing Just Dance in the castle, having a dance party where we pretended we knew how to dance at dance parties in the ballroom, having fun with the photobooth and getting a much needed massage from some rather excellent though random massage chairs.

We also found some random things. For example, there were seven dessert stations all throughout the park. Most were pretty deluxe, but one was these hanging bags of cotton candy. The sign in front read, "Spiders eggs. Delicious and nutritious." Yum. Nutritious spider egg cotton candy. We didn't actually eat any but I liked Trenton's pose. Enjoy.

There was also this random scrap metal knight. So there we are. Randomly with the random scrap metal knight because that's just how we do.

Unfortunately, the last thing I want to post on here is the best thing of all but it isn't incredibly high quality. You see, I lack a personal scanner and therefore this final image is in fact a cell phone picture of a printed out picture from our photo booth experience. I plan to get it actually scanned someday, but in the meantime this photo is too good for all you fine folks to miss out on.

My husband, ladies and gentleman. And I honestly couldn't be happier with my choice. :)

Waking Up With Songs In My Head

Getting up is never easy for me, as I've stated before on this very blog. However, it's getting to that point of year that not only am I tired when I wake up, I'm very cold. This makes getting out of bed even harder. Yesterday I told me husband  he was mean even though my refusal to get up made him like half an hour late to work. That is silliness and I should not be quite so whiny. It seems like this shouldn't be such a big deal anymore. I've had to get up every single day my whole life. The drama behind this issue should really have faded with almost 21 years of practice. But I digress. I didn't come here today to tell you all what we all already knew - that getting out of bed in the morning, especially when its cold, is a slow and most unfortunate process.

I came here to tell you that for the past few days I have woken up with very random things in my head. For example, earlier this week I woke up with a Christmas poem my family reads every year in my head. I opened my eyes and all the sudden my brain's like, "I did want crackers, and I did want candy. I know a box of chocolates would come in handy. I do like oranges, and I do like nuts...I haven't got a pocket knife...not one that cuts! And oh Father Christmas, if you'd loved me at all, you'd have brought me a bright red India rubber ball." And then it stayed in my head FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL HOURS.

Me - sitting in Conditioning for Injury Prevention Class which for some unholy reason begins at 7 am: Wow. Dieting is bad for you and leads to eating - I DID WANT CRACKERS, AND I DID WANT CANDY.

Luckily, that was all just in my head. I didn't have a crazy manic outburst. Not that that's totally unrealistic with me, but whatever.

Both yesterday and this morning as I laid in bed and reluctantly opened my eyes the first coherent thought to pop up in my brain was "Iiiiiiiiiiiiii gotta make this riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight, make it the way it's supposed to be! That's my OCD!"

Here's a link to that song so you can all understand exactly how exciting this experience was.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnzz-eFmKaw

Then, naturally, on my way to school I told Trenton that the OCD song was stuck in my head. So, being the psychology major that he is he decided to redo the song in a more accurate way. Something like "Iiiiiiiiiiii have an obsession with things being neat! And then I have a compulsion to fix them! It's a disorder!" That wasn't it exactly but it was pretty great.

Anyway. It's a strange experience I've been having lately but that's alright. Many worse things could happen.

Prayers Being Answered

I have a lot of other things I could and maybe should be doing right now. I could be making flashcards for Chapter 5 and 6 of the Patterson textbook for Poli Sci. I mean, its the least I can do since after the second week of school I decided reading the full text just wasn't going to happen and instead decided that making flashcards of all the bolded terms and taking the end of chapter 10 question quiz counted as studying the chapter. Or I could be writing an essay about Moses chapter 6 for my Pearl of Great Price class. This would be great, because honestly this has been the absolute without contention best religion class I have ever had. I leave class every day feeling spiritually bouyed and like hey maybe I can actually make it through this maelstrom that is mortality.

Lots of people have commented that my blog makes them smile. That makes me feel good. I've been told many times that I write the way I talk and that its amusing. I intend to keep doing this and hopefully a couple serious posts won't turn you all away from this blog. See, the reason the blog sounds like its me talking is because I just write what I want to say. If I'm in a silly mood, the writing comes out silly. That's just going to be what it is.

Lately I haven't been feeling quite so silly. I know some of you would beg to differ who have seen me in different classes where I seem really goofy or whatever. That isn't a false side of me or a facade. I laugh all the time, I love laughing, and I love being happy. Despite that, there have been a lot of moments in the past month or so where I have felt really really down. Typically when this happens during the school year I chalk it up to stress. However, largely thanks to my wonderful husband, I'm not really that stressed this year. I have been on top of my school work, gotten plenty of sleep, and found the time I need to complete various assignments.

I am beyond grateful for all the good things in my life. I am crazy blessed and I know it. There are still hard times though when I know I should feel happy and I don't. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort to pull myself together and not show the whole world how unsure of myself I feel.

The only answer I have to combat this is that I have the gospel. General Conference this past weekend was amazing. I felt the spirit more strongly than I have during any other conference, probably because I needed it more. I approached General Conference with a lot of questions and a lot of pleas for answers and I was hit over and over again with the assurance that I'm not alone.

The Gospel doesn't make everything easy, but it makes it easier. I hope you all know I love you. If I come across as distant one day or seem off it isn't because I'm mad at you. It could be because I'm deep in thought or struggling or maybe just tired. However, I hope you all know that you're not alone and that no matter what you are loved. Anyway, there are my thoughts. Going to make those flash cards now. :)