Tragedy Strikes

Ever since I was a little, tiny kid, I have had the goal of donating blood. For some inexplicable reason, the idea draws me. I'm not scared of needles or blood, and I just want to.
As soon as I was 17 - finally old enough to donate - I signed up to do it in our high school blood drive. I talked about it all day, and was simply excited. Then they pricked my finger. Back then, they used old school technology to see if your blood had enough hemoglobin - best measured by iron content. Basically, they sucked my blood up into a little tube (micro-pipette) and dripped it into a special liquid. If it sunk, you were good - your blood was heavy enough = had enough iron. Mine floated. I was devastated. I went back to class, humiliated that I had talked it up. I cringed every time I saw someone with an arm band. Lucky.
Since then, I have tried 4 more times, sometimes waiting in line for hours, each time rejected. The latest was this Friday. I had them prick my finger first, aaaaand... fail. My iron levels were lower than they ever have been before. They even use nifty new technology that centrifuges your blood, or something like that that is pretty accurate. Lame. The computer didn't even register my iron level. The screen just said <10.5. :(
To make it worse, every time they try to make me eat the treats for the people that do donate and take a shirt saying "I donated", as if to mock me. Adding insult to injury (literally - those finger pricks bruise, and they double prick those that fail just make sure, mocking me again).
I am not defeated yet, American Red Cross! I will eat nails if I have to! Even if it takes 10 times!
(sulking in the corner, sniffing)

Personal Victory

Today I celebrated a personal victory.
I ran a mile in 9:47.
I know, I know. That really isn't that fast. But let me enlighten you on my history.
I hate running. I really do. Or maybe did. I think I am learning to like it. Anyway, the point is that I have never been a runner. In elementary school, I ran the Wellsville mile in somewhere around 9 minutes. Because I hated running so much, I didn't do it, and my attempts at running a mile in high school came in around 11-12 minutes. I haven't broken 10 minutes for so long I don't even remember the last time I did it.
This summer I have had a goal of getting in shape, so I have started running every morning. I started at a painfully slow pace, going only fractions of a mile at a time. Now I run around a mile and a half every morning. And today, gained a small victory. Woohoo!
Bring it on 5k. I will conquer you yet. :)

Reflections of a Grocery Store Cashier

As most of you know, I have been a grocery store cashier for a very long time. I only work summers, but I am starting my fourth summer working at a grocery store. What I didn't realize when I started working there was that 1) Everyone needs food, so 2) I could learn a lot about people in this job. I have made a little list of a few of those observations.

• the world is addicted to soda and gum
• anyone can be a parent, but not everyone should
• talking slower and in an accent doesn't mean that non-English speakers will understand me
• often people expect people ahead of them in line to be speedy, only to take their sweet time when they are in front of others
• kids love candy beyond comprehension
• the world encourages everyone to be healthy, eat deliciously, and spend wisely, which all often contradict
• too many married women/mothers lose their sense of self because they have to constantly think of others
• living with no windows can either make the whole world dark, or everything bright with imagination of what could be out there
• money is dirty. literally.
• if you are constantly longing for your current task to be over, you still won't be completely happy when it is
• people are naturally selfish, and only the truly awesome people overcome it
• the way your cashier treats you is very dependent on how you treat them - rude customers rarely find cashiers to be friendly people
• to every generalization there is some truth, and some lie. That is why they are called generalizations.
• people love to have someone to confide in who they won't ever see again - cashiers know many secrets
• children grow up to be a lot like their parents, which can definitely drive a parent crazy.
• verballized compliments are the only ones worth anything

I know it doesn't sound like anything you didn't already know, but I wish you could see what I am actually trying to say from the standpoint of a cashier. I wish you could all try it out for a day to see the world how we cashiers see it. It is really interesting.

New Glasses

Today I finally got my new glasses! They finally came in yesterday, but we couldn't pick them up until today. Apparently someone made a mistake, and so they had to fix it, so it took longer for my glasses to come in. Sad day. But now I have them. I quickly removed my contacts so that I could fully experience my new glasses. I put them on and was a little dizzy for a second. I haven't worn glasses in so long that I had forgotten how they bend the edges of my vision, and how things move a little when I move my head. But now I am adjusted. :) I still like contacts better, but it is exciting to have the option of glasses, and new things are always fun. :)

right. pictures.

What? You don't think I pull these off? I totally do!

Okay, fine. Here are my real glasses.

What? The beer mug glasses don't work for you either? Picky, picky.

...

tada!

The real thing. For reals. What do you think?

I hope you all like them! I am still adjusting, learning to love them, and learning how to see in glasses agan. I will mostly wear contacts, like I said, but still. I'm excited. :)

No Regrets

A philosophy of mine that I have developed over the years is living with no regrets. This means two things:

First, that I try to not do things that I will regret later. I like to say that I am constantly striving to do the right thing, and not act rashly or in the spur of the moment.
Second, when I do mess up (which happens frequently) I try to learn from it, fix it, and move on. Regretting the past does nothing for the future. I try to take the lesson I obviously needed to learn, and continue on my way.
From experience, regret does nothing but hurt. It is a sign that I haven't forgiven myself yet and really, that does no good at all. A person is made up up their experiences, and I wouldn't have learned some important lessons if I hadn't made some of the mistakes I have made. So sometimes I am grateful, not really for the mistake, but for what its role was in making me, me.
This whole train of thought came to mind when talking to my little brother. He's following me to BYU (or rather, he chose BYU, and it just happens to be the same school I chose), and I have tried to give him advice that will make his Freshman experience as fabulous as mine was. The thing is, I wasn't always wise then (or now), so there are some things I don't want him to do that I did, but I don't really know how to talk about it. I don't regret those decisions, but I want him to take a different path. I guess I just have to trust him to do the right thing. That isn't easy.

Along similar thought lines, today I watched a couple of very recent videos of myself. I'll admit, I was surprised at what I saw. I guess I don't get an outside view of myself very often.
And I'll admit, I didn't see what I wanted to see. I didn't dislike myself, but I didn't see the girl/woman that I want to be. It's humbling. I guess I have a lot of growing up and deepening to do. Because that is what I saw - the image I portrayed was that of a shallowly minded (not shallow, but shallowly minded - a ditz, almost) girl. Not intelligent, not well thought out. Not what I want to be.
So here we get into what I am striving to become: I want to be classy, well thought out, a deep thinker, intelligent, kind, fun, easily brought to laughter, but also easily brought to serious thought and discussion; a person who can think outside of the box, on all sides of an issue, and really understand; a person whose actions are consciously made and acted out skillfully; a person that is observant and is always aware of other's feelings and how best to protect them; a person who always choses the right thing; a happy person; a person who is trustworthy, easy to talk to, and friendly; a person who isn't a pushover, but isn't too prideful to change her mind when appropriate; and above all, to be myself.
I know that is a long list, but if I don't have goals, a distination, then how would I get there? I am going to try to not mess up too much, but if a few little slips are necessary in the plan to make me that woman I want to be, then so be it. I am not afraid. well, I am, but I am willing to face it. So here we go.

My Best Friend's Wedding

Melinda Hall married Joshua William Pinson
April 30, 2010.

First there was a bachelorette party.

Mindy and I are silly.

I got to sit at the book for the majority of the reception.

The cake after the cutting - sadly without the cake topper. Mindy's mom made the cake herself!

I gave a toast at the reception. It was a little scary, because I didn't even know what I was supposed to say, but with my sister Annie's help, I was fine.

Some of my personal favorites from my own pictures during Mindy's bridals.

And there you have it. She is married, and everything went smoothly. I wish I had some of the pictures from the temple, but these will have to do. She is happily married, and is now honeymooning in California. Congrats Mindy!

To my sweet corner friend

And to her chosen sweet -

to the paths that you'll walk

and the friends that you'll meet -

to the home that you'll build and the gardens you'll grow -

Our love travels with you, wherever you go.

Style and Fashion (Especially of the Eyewear Variety)

No blog would be complete without a post about fashion. So I straighten my back, pop my knuckles (only figuratively of course. Popping your knuckles is bad form) and take a deep breath. Here I go. Fingers to keyboard. And...
Today I went to the eye doctor.
("Wait," you say, "what does that have to do with fashion? where is this crazy lady going?" "Be patient," I respond, "Give me time." Enough distractions.)
Ahem. Today I went to the eye doctor. It isn't really my favorite thing. I even suffered the pain of having air puffed into my eyes in a shocking way, and then the horribly uncomfortable eye drops that make your pupils dilate. Then I suffered the embarrassment of quickly wiping mascara off of the bajillion dollar equipment that he made me stick my face into soon after getting my eyes all wet. Good thing he left the room for a minute.
After all that, we discovered that, hey surprise! My eyes are still horrible, but they aren't any more horrible than last time we checked. That is good news.
Then comes the fashion part. Ordering contacts and glasses. Yep. I'm lucky - it's time to get both. Contacts are easy - I'm sticking with the kind I already have - but glasses are harder. So many options. And inability to make long term decisions. Even silly ones like a pair of glasses.
It threw me back all the years to fourth grade when my teacher ratted me out to my parents, making me go get glasses. And what did I pick? Pink and purple ones. With gold. (*sigh*) I still remember them. The next two pairs I got were unobtrusive and brown.
That in turn reminded me of my sense of fashion in sixth grade (I still had the pink and purple glasses), which immediately brings a smile combined with a grimace to my face. I had the strangest fear in sixth grade of two things (which, combined, have a horrible presence in pictures):
1) Appearing like a trend follower.
2) Standing out and being noticeable.
The only way to avoid both fears is to wear completely unfashionable, boring, ugly, potato sack clothing. Great choice April. I refused to wear anything but straight leg jeans for years, and only listened to the oldies station on the radio. I was a rebel. Ha.
Part of the problem was growing up in the nineties. I remember growing up with people making fun of the eighties all the time. The young me realized that in their time, what those silly people wore in the eighties was fashionable and cool. I figured that if I wore fashionable stuff now, that someday someone would make fun of what I wore. I never wanted my kids to make fun of the stuff I used to think was cool. So I didn't wear the cool stuff. A perfect solution with an unfortunate result: I looked dumb in the present and the future. Not only would my kids think I looked dumb, but my friends did, too.
It took a long time to grow out of that unfortunate phase of my life. Till about ninth grade. So three-ish years of my life are marked by painfully awkward pictures. Some would say that I was lucky, that some people have even longer awkward stages. I would say that some people don't have awkward stages. Why didn't my parents stop me?! I'm still recovering.
All of these reflections wrapped around back to the present. Glasses shopping.
Partially to prove that I am over my fears, I bought (*gasp*) slightly stylish glasses.
Lucky me, glasses take a week to come back in. So I get my first cliffhanger. Will April's choice be reminiscent of sixth grade? Will she finally emerge from her fashion-less hole? Or will she suddenly turn hippy or gangsta on us with no warning?
To Be Continued....