Just a Little Squiggly

I've had a hard time coming up with something I wanted to blog about this glorious month of March. I say glorious because March is one of my favorite months of the year, soooo many great things happen..spring training starts (meaning baseball season is just around the corner, meaning that my life will once again revolve around baseball scores and Joe Mauer's batting average) winter is all but over, St. Patrick's Day (I'm one quarter Irish, and although we don't completely embrace our Irish heritage, I still feel a small connection with this holiday), Sunshine Tournament...I could go on but I think you get the picture.

So, like I said, I've had a hard time thinking of something to blog about, and since I'm sure my faithful blog followers are on the edge of their seats in anticipation of my once a month blog post, I had to think of something really good because I would never want to disappoint my 7 followers (love all of you btw)

All my life, and by no fault of my own (I'd like to blame it on genetics), I feel like I've stood out. But I'd like to see how you would blend into a crowd when you're in elementary school and you're at least a head taller then everyone else. My mom said she never had a hard time finding me when she was picking me up from school, she just had to look for the tall blonde girl. I've been 5'10" since the 9th grade, making it a little difficult to go unnoticed. It was seriously one the greatest days of my life when boys in high school finally started passing me up. I LOVE standing next to guys who are a lot taller then me, it makes me feel small, which doesn't happen very often. But my height is not the what I wanted to focus on, I don't hate being tall but it does make certain things in my life a little challenging, like buying jeans, it's nearly impossible to fit jeans that are the right length, 99% of the time the regular length is too short and the longs are too long, can't tell you how annoying that is, but if you ever need to get something on a high shelf, well I'm your girl.

I think it's interesting how we see ourselves and how others perceive us can be totally different. I've never thought myself as a terribly unique person, just your run-of-the-mill, 20 something Mormon girl living in Provo, but over the last couple of years (this last year especially) I've come to realize that I am completely unique. I think that most of my life I just assumed that most people had the same sort of thought process as I do, but come to find out, I could not have been more wrong. I'm a horse of a different color, dance to the beat of my own drummer, and any other cliche you can come up with, it's taken me approximately 25 years to actually embrace and accept that I was never meant to blend in and realize that life is way more fun when you're a little squiggly.

So in light of my recent realization, I'm going to share with you a few things that make me a little different then the rest.......

• My slight obsession with the color purple, baseball, hair products and Victoria's Secret
  
• I would choose ESPN or a game of some sort over most TV shows, with the exception of Vampire Diaries, that trumps ESPN any day
• I will buy almost anything that costs a dollar
• I can't stand the sound of people brushing their teeth
• I can't leave my room without making my bed
• I like things to smell nice, hence air fresheners in my car, bedroom and my collection of perfume
  
• Chocolate-mint-nuff said
  
• My ipod on shuffle will get you anything from musicals to some old-school Nelly to The Judds
  
• I have a tendency to speak in movie quotes and/or relate real life experiences to Friends episodes
• I sometimes remember too much of what people say, do or post on facebook and think I sometimes come off as a little stalkerish
  
• Silence drives me crazy
• I can watch the same movies over and over again
• I get scared and freak myself out all the time
• When I was younger my teachers use to say, she's really smart, but she sure talks a lot...let's just say, not much has changed
• I love game shows!! It is my dream to go on the Price is Right
• I typically won't participate in anything unless I think I have a good chance of winning, or at least not coming in last (that's why you'll never find me challenging anyone to a foot race)...to say I'm competitive would be a bit of an understatement
  
• I'm easily entertained and can find humor in nearly anything
• I have what I'd like to call "sports tourettes" you never know what's going to come out of my mouth at a sporting event

Ok, I think that's enough, I wouldn't want to reveal too much about myself. And now in conclusion, after writing that list I would just to thank everyone for putting up with me and quirks, but I think it makes life a little more fun :)

We have to...it's Tradition

Ok, by show of hands who is impressed that I have blogged two months in a row....I know ya'll can't see me but I've got both hands raised high in the sky because I am very proud of myself, and I gotta say that these improvements are much easier to keep up on then resolutions, I think I just might make it a TRADITION!! That's right, I've decided that for the month of Feburary I'm going to share with the blogging world some of my favorite TrADiTioNS!!

First and foremost, I love the traditions that my family has, some have been passed down from generations and some have been started with us. Probably my favorite tradition, and one that growing up all of my friends were a little jealous of, is PILLOWCASES!! What are pillowcases you ask, only the greatest Christmas tradition of all time!! To understand the pillowcase tradition I'll have to give you a brief history lesson...you see, in England (where my mom was born and my grandma was raised) during the war paper and other supplies were so scarce that instead of wrapping presents "Santa" would leave presents in a pillowcase that children would put at the bottom of their beds on Christmas Eve. Obviously the war is over, there is an endless supply of wrapping paper, ribbons and bows, but the pillowcase tradition is still going strong. But since my Dad is American we also get stockings, that's right, a pillowcase and stockings, needless to say between my pillowcase, stocking and presents under the tree, I've never had a bad Christmas.

Some other favorite traditions include.....

• Mother Goose, you leave out one shoe on New Year's Eve and she leaves you little presents this is a tradition from my Dad's family, sorry no great story to explain this one...we just do it, because it's tradition. It's also a tradition that my Mom forgets about Mother Goose has to run to the store to get something for our shoes.
  
• Easter egg hunts!! I don't care how old I get I will always love Easter egg hunts. I think it all started when I was younger when me and some of my cousins would go to my Grandma Mary's the night before Easter and stuff garbage bags full of colorful plastic eggs with candy (we all know that Easter candy is the best) and change that my Grandma would save all year. Candy and money? How could I not grow up loving Easter egg hunts? There would also be a larger egg with each of our names on it that would be stuffed with candy and always have either fifty-cent pieces or silver dollars, this was the most exciting part of the Easter egg hunt, trying to find YOUR egg. We also had kind of unspoken rule, well at least I did with my sisters, that if you found someone else's egg you couldn't tell them where it was. The worst part of our Easter egg hunts at Grandma's was being the oldest. Typically, being the oldest has it advantages, but this was not one of those times. In this particular case, being the oldest meant that every kid younger then you got a head start. That's right, I would have to sit and watch as Gus would go, then Emily, then Jake, then Sam, then Kody, then Brooke and then me...that's a long time when there are eggs full of candy AND money to be hunted. But there were always more then enough eggs to go around and I always ended up with enough candy to last me for weeks and money that I'm sure I wasted on something frivolous, like slap bracelets or pogs at the gas station. After we opened our eggs, counted our money, and of course stuffed a few chocolate eggs in our mouths we would have a traditional lunch of sloppy joes, potato salad (made with eggs that we had dyed making it nice and colorful), queso dip with Fritos, deviled eggs and baked beans, in my humble opinion, one of the best meals ever! The recipes for these foods have also been passed down and will hopefully be served on Easter for years to come. So now, I'm....pause for dramatic effect.....25, and still love love love Easter egg hunts, rain or shine (and springtime in Utah there could even be snow) my Dad plays Easter bunny and not only hids eggs but our baskets as well. The basket hiding is something that we've picked up from my cousins but it's become one of my favorites parts about Easter. My parents have since learned after a couple years of "mild" disagreements that it's best to have an even number of eggs so that some people who will not be name...Brooke....don't make a beeline and get all the eggs. I can't wait to pass this tradition down to my family and help my kids love Easter as much as I do....phew that was long, sorry, but clearly I have a lot of memories associated with Easter.
• Baseball. I know, baseball is a sport but I feel like growing up in Spanish Fork has made it a tradition. I grew up at the ball park, either playing or just hanging out. It was my dream to work at the snack shack (I know I dream big) which turned out to be the greatest summer jobs ever, and of course softball was my life. I even worked at Grand Slam Batting Cages, yep, you can go ahead and add that to the list of dream jobs. One of the best parts of being involved with Spanish Fork baseball was and still is Sunshine. Ask anyone who has lived in Spanish Fork longer then 5 years and they will most likely know that Sunshine is one of the best weekends of the year, where most Spanish Forkians will be found in St. George watching the baseball team participate, and more often then not, winning the Sunshine tournament. The softball team also heads down there for a tournament of their own, which was also something that growing up I couldn't wait to play in. Even though I've been graduated for nearly 10 years now, it is still one of my favorite weekends of the entire year and I start counting down the days mid-February, which means that the countdown is on as we speak. I just love seeing people that I've grown up, catching up with old friends and enjoying the warm weather, even though this is not always the case, my junior year we had to play in snow, not exactly what you expected when you head down to St. George. Last year I took Amanda and Andi down for Sunshine and this year Lindy gets to come and I can't wait!!
• The last tradition (since this has once again turned into another lengthy post) that I'm going to share is our Sunday before Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Dinner. Every year since I can remember, we've had a Thanksgiving Dinner at my Aunt Kathi's house the Sunday before Thanksgiving. I can't honestly say how this tradition started, and I think the reason for it doesn't exist anymore, but I love that we still do it. My Aunt Kathi always has something fun for us to take home, usually something Christmasy (sp?) and I look forward to seeing what she comes up with every year.
• Wait, I lied, I have one more...not sure if you would call this tradition or habit but if it's between 2 and 4 pm and I'm within a 5 mile radius of a Sonic, I will be getting a Route 44 Diet Dr. Pepper with Vanilla. One of my new favorite traditions!

As you can tell I love these traditions and the memories that are associtated with them. I look forward to them ever year and hope to continue to do so for years to come.

Improvements and Highlights

Ok, for many of you in blogger land you could probably say that my blog has been somewhat...lacking (which could quite possibly be the biggest understatement of the century) but as part of my New Year's improvements (I decided not to make resolutions this year, I just want to make improvements on things I'm already trying to be better at but that isn't really the point of this blog, well it does have a little something to do with it since my blog is actually part of my improvements) and yes I did just use two sets of parenthesis in less then one sentence, but I will never claim to have excellent grammar skills, it happened, get over it. So what have we learned so far...I suck at updating my blog and grammar...BUT, I'm going to be better at updating my blog but I make not promises that my grammar skills will improve because for the most part I just don't care if I use a semicolon correctly, I have way more important things to worry about...like what's going to happen on Vampire Diaries or what we are going to do on Friday night...as you can see waaayy more important then silly semicolon.

I decided that blogging at least once a month would be a good improvement on my current blogging habits, well, I guess once a YEAR would be an improvement on my current blogging habits, but I'm going to stick once a month. And staying true to the procrastination skills that I perfected in college, I am writing my January blog, on the 31st.

One of my friends has a fun tradition that at the beginning of each year they write down the highlights from the past year and then make predictions for the next year, so instead of trying to write about everything that has happened since I last blogged, which let's be honest, would be pretty boring to read and not so much fun for me to write, I decided that a few highlights would be the best way to start my blogging improvements.

2010 Highlights

#1- I went through the temple and received my endowment!
This was hands down the best decision I have ever made, I known I have said this about laser hair removal and permanent make-up but those don't even compare. Many people have asked why I decided to go through the temple even though I wasn't getting married or going on a mission, and it hasn't been the easiest question to answer because I wasn't exactly sure how to put it in words, so I'm going to try and explain this without getting all churchy (sp?), wish me luck. For the most part, and I emphasize, the most part, I have tried to live my life according to gospel standards. I was lucky enough to be raised by amazing parents and have had great friends who have helped make living those standards a little easier. That being said... there I was, about to turn 24 (which is Utah County, I might as well be picking out the names of my future cats) graduated from college, no prospects in sight ( I hate the word "prospects" but it fits well in this situation) ready to take the next step in my life. I just had no idea what that next step would be....I'm sure I'm the only person who has ever had this problem but try to imagine what it is like when your life doesn't quite turn out exactly how you had planned...so I toyed with the idea of a mission but that never has felt right and I didn't want to go just because I wasn't married, and the idea of going through the temple kept creeping into my head. But I always just pushed it away, mainly because it was so unconventional and I was a little nervous that I wouldn't be able to take on the responsibility that comes with receiving your endowment on my own. But the thoughts never went away and I started looking at the examples I have of strong single women in my life and knew that I wouldn't be alone if I ever did make the decision to go and they would always be there to support me. I go home every Sunday to spend time with the family and eat an actual home cooked meal and entire time at church that day I had been thinking about the temple and how I felt like I was ready, and the only thing holding me back was the fact that I hadn't found, and for lack of a better word "Mr. Right", so I come home that particular Sunday and what do I see, the Ensign, completely dedicated to Temples, with a picture of the St. George Temple (my all time favorite temple) on the front. I couldn't ignore the thoughts any longer and the next Sunday I talked to my bishop about a temple prep class and got the ball rolling. My grandma was more then thrilled for my decision, and my parents were nothing but supportive. Long story short, everything worked out perfectly, I had amazing friends and family who traveled all the way down to St. George to show their support and my niece Anya was blessed on the same day. It was a slightly stressful weekend but I still feel like it's been the best thing I have ever done.Wow, that was a lot longer then I intended...on to highlight #2

#2- Florida!!!
My sister Brooke, my cousin Emily and myself ( I could spend time trying to decided if that the right way to say all of those names, but like I've said before I have more important things to worry about besides grammar) went to Florida for Spring Training!! It was so much fun, we went to 7 baseball games in 10 days, saw Joe Mauer nearly everyday, got to go to Clearwater Beach and went to DisneyWorld! It was pretty much the best vacation ever! We aren't able to go this year due to undesirable money situations but we are definitely going to try and do this again#3 Summer
Summer 2010 was one that will go down in infamy! Kelsi, Amanda and I spend nearly everyday at the pool where we met lots of amazing people. We camped out for the parade, watched fireworks, went to rodeo's and a demolition derby! There was also a couple of road trips in there to St. George and even one to San Diego. I can't put into words how much I love the summer! It's by far my favorite season, summer memories are the only thing that get me through the freezing cold Utah winters....and I have a feeling that summer 2011 is going to kick summer 2010's butt, and I can't wait!#4 Moved into a house with Lindy, Andi and Amanda!!
The majority of my best friends from high school got married young. I, obviously, did not. In high school we spent nearly everyday together and got to be very close, but then they got busy with their married lives and I've been busy with my single one, and I have missed the bond that comes with having close friends. Don't get me wrong, I've been very fortunate to have found great friends since high schools, some that I'll hopefully have forever, but we have gone our separate ways, as sometimes happens in life and lost that close bond of seeing someone everyday and being involved in each others lives. I've also been lucky enough to have a lot of close guy friends as well, but I've that life isn't the same without close girl friends.

That being said, I have once again been extremely blessed to live with 3 girls that I absolutely LOVE and couldn't imagine my life without. Sometimes I think that we couldn't be more different, and in all reality we should get a long at all, but some how it works. We can spend hours just sitting around talking and laughing about nothing and give each other advice and we aren't afraid to tell it like it is. Between the boys and parties our lives rarely have a dull moment and I wouldn't want it any other way. Even though they don't quite understand my slight obsession with sports, they seem to tolerate it. I foresee having these girls in my life for years to come and I couldn't be more excited about it. Enjoy a couple of my favorite pictures of us chicas....let's be honest, who wouldn't want to hang out with us, we're pretty great ;)

Demolition Derby

So I attended my first ever demolition derby and it was AWESOME!!!! A little redneck, but awesome none the less. Here are a few pictures, but it doesn't really do the damage justice. Some of those drivers were crazy. A guy named Gus won so my brother thought that was pretty cool. I will definitely be attending more demolition derby's in the future and you too. After the derby we went to check out Fair, oh my, I forgot how white trash carnivals can be. But it was late and they were trying to get rid of most of here stuff so we got a lot of 2 for 1's so that was pretty cool. And in case anyone is keeping track this is like 2 post in less than a week, which is really good for me. The school year is about it start so hopefully there will be more exciting things to come!

3 car pile up

Ok, so I'm still trying to get the hang of this whole blogging thing and to say the very least I've been doing a HORRIBLE job, so I'm taking a vow to try and do a little better. Yeah, I know that's what I said last time but this time I'm going to take it a little more seriously.

So since I wrote last time, like 5 months ago, quite a bit has happened. I did go to Las Cruces and stayed with Jordan and Alyssa, and it was a total blast just to relax in some nice weather and not have to worry about work, then a couple weeks later I headed to Phoenix and got to see Kelda, Levi and Carter. I was there for a whole week and it was amazing. I love the Phoenix area and could totally live there one day! I watched baseball and layed out nearly the whole time, talk about my dream vacation
And then in May I got to go to COSTA RICA!! Courtney just graduated from BYU and wanted to celebrate and who could pass up a week in Costa Rica. It was beautiful, we stayed in a timeshare right by the beach, it was amazing!



We went on a zipline through the rainforest, I watched Courtney and Caitlin boogy board, I have issuse with swimming in the ocean, something about now knowing what might be swimming below me, I just can't do it, but I enjoyed watching and getting some sun. We went to a national park and saw monkeys and sloths, basically it was a once in a lifetime experience and I loved it!

Remember how I thought I was going to be done working in Caliente at the end of March, well that turned into the end of June and then the end of July. I think I could have stayed longer if I had wanted to, but I was ready to be done with small town life and move on to bigger and better things, like stores staying open passed 6, movie theatres, malls, traffic lights, etc. Don't get me wrong, I loved working at Grover C Dils Medical Center, but I was in desperate need of a social life and being around people my own age. So I packed up my tiny apartment, realized I have a ridiculous amount of stuff, and FINALLY moved home! It was all a little bittersweet, I met and got to know some really cool people while I was there and it was hard to leave but I was so excited to move home and get on with my life.

Now I live in Provo with Courtney, and even though it's been a little boring because I don't exactly have a job yet, I'm so glad to be back. I still work for the hospital, I just consult, so I only have to go once a month, which works out really great.

I'm excited for this next year, I have no idea what's going to happen, which kinda freaks me out, but I'm just gonna try and make the best of whatever happens.

Update

I guess I haven't been very good at keeping this thing updated but I'm going to try and do better, not only because people will be so interested in what is going on in my life, mainly because it will give me something to do. That will make a little more sense a little later, I promise. So this is what has been happening since I last posted. I did apply to that job at Utah County, but they were on a hiring freeze so as I waiting to hear back on that I was just substitute teaching for Nebo, junior high kids are just so much fun by the way .......I swear if I acted like that when I was that age, I would want to go back and profusely apologize to anyone I came in contact with. Any way, to tell the rest of this story I have to give ya'll a bit if Blaire History 101 and it may get complicated, if I lose anyone I'm sorry, so hear it goes........many years ago, about 5 to be exact, I had good friend named Jamie Hulse, she was from a small town in Nevada called Pioche, (never heard of it, don't worry I hadn't either) and when I say small town I mean no stop lights, one gas station and everything except the bars close around 7 kinda of small. We went there to visit one weekend and I seriously couldn't believe that people actually lived there, and could never picture myself living somewhere like that. Well, years have come and gone, I moved to Logan, Jamie went on a mission but we have still stayed good friends, well on Oct. 27th I get a phone call from Jamie's mom Sandy telling me that Jamie had told her I just passed my RD exam and that the hospital she worked at in Caliente (it's about 25 miles away from Pioche) was in desperate need for a full-time dietitian and was wondering if I would be interested. My first thought was heck no, move to Caliente are you kidding me, but I decided to go down there and just check it out and then make a final decision. So I drove down the next day, had an interview, got a job offer, accepted the job and started that next Monday. Pretty crazy, huh? I decided to take the job because it was supposed to be until the end of January, I could work 4, 10's and have long weekends, they would find me an apartment and pay half of my rent, plus it would be a great resume builder. So that's what I've been doing for the past 3 months, living in Caliente 4 days a week and driving home or to St. George every weekend. It's been a really good experience for the most part, I'm the dietary manager and the dietitian, so I'm in charge of kitchen and everything clinical which was very overwhelming at first but I'm getting the hang of things. I'm a boss and most of my employees are a lot older then me so that's kinda weird, my apartment it super small, but it works and I'm slowly getting used to small town life. They just asked me to stay longer and I agreed to stay until the end of March and then go from there. I like the job but I don't love living in Caliente, it's super boring and I've almost put 10,000 miles on my car. It's been an interesting 3 months to say the least, I used to think Netflix was dumb, now I love it, I do puzzles to past the time, and I recently got a key board from my grandma so I'm working on my piano skills. It's kinda hard being so far away from family and friends, but it's only temporary and I'm making some amazing connections having this job and it will look great on my resume one day. 

So that's what I'm going to do for next couple of months. I have some trips coming up that I'm pretty excited about. At the end of Feb, I'm going to Las Cruses, NM to visit Jordan and Alyssa and then going down to Arizona for Spring Training and possibly Florida at the end of March. So that'll be something to look forward to. Sorry this is so long but I had 3 months to make up for. 

The First

I'm not sure if I qualify for this whole blogging thing, since most people I know who have these are married, which I currently am not, but I figure I shouldn't be kept out of the loop just because I don't have a ring on my finger, so here it goes. (Just realized that whole statement makes me kinda sound bitter that I'm not married, trust me, I'm not. I am completely enjoying single life.)
I finally graduated from school in May with a BA in Dietetics, yeah !! It was probably one of the greatest days of my life.....so far. Being done with school is the greatest feeling ever, all that hard work finally paying off, totally fabulous. I decided to celebrate by spending the summer in Florida installing security systems with my good friend Jordan Webb. I met some amazing people and some not so amazing people, well really person (you know who you are), but all in all the greatest summer ever! I even got to go to a Red Sox game. Even though Ortiz or Crisp didn't play and Tampa came back in the 9th to win, it was still fun to be there and make my little brother insanly jealous.
So my summer of fun was not over when the office closed, oh no, to top off my summer job/vaction, I got to go on my very first cruise. I say job/vaction because I was living in Florida for the summer, layed out as much as possible, and got to spend some quaility time at the beach but I really did work hard. But the cruise was amazing, defitantly the best way to vacation in my opinion. Maybe I'll wait to write a little more details on the cruise until after I figure out how to put pictures on this thing, because pictures usually can say it better than words. I'll also wait to tell all about how my car decided to die on me right before my treck across the US and caused everyone I was with to sit in a parking lot for hours.
Well the good news is 5 hours and $400 later we got my car fixed and I drove across the country, making a few stops, first in New Mexico to visit my good friends Alyssa and Holly and then in Arizona to visit Kelda, and Levi and Carter. Breaking up a 2000 mile trip is defitantly the way to go. Then, after 40+ hours of driving I finally arrived in good ole Spanish Fork. It's always good to come home.
I've been home for about a month now, I'm still living at home, I know sounds kinda pathetic but free rent is good for me right now because I don't really have a job. (Yes, I know making me sound even more pathetic) Well, I guess I am subing for Nebo School District but I didn't become a teacher for a reason so I'll only be able to do that for so long, but I'm apply for job tomorrow at Utah County Health Deptarment.......wish me luck!