Feeling blessed

Last Thanksgiving, I was kind of at a low point because a relationship had just ended very suddenly and so I was in no mood to be thankful about anything. I knew life would go on, but it kind of seemed like it wouldn't. And I knew I would be ok, but I felt like it would never happen. Oh how far, how very far, I've come in one year. So I'll start there.

I am so very grateful for how much a person can grow, and learn, and experience in a year (and throughout a lifetime), and where it takes them. It takes them to places, people, happiness, friendships, love, experiences, etc that you never could imagine happening before it does. Life is beautiful.

I'm thankful that when things seemingly go wrong, somewhere down the road, even if it's like 50 years later, you'll realize it was so everything could go just right.

I am thankful for my adorable fuzzy black Salem cat, who is laying on my lap purring right now.

I'm thankful for my family. That might be cliche, but at the same time, not everyone is as fortunate as me with family situations. I can't imagine not having them. Especially my mom, good grief. What would I do if I didn't feel comfortable talking to them about life? They're everything. Thanksgiving, Christmas, life's experiences, would be meaningless without loved ones to share them with.

I'm thankful for unexpected and completely perfect first kisses that leave a girl wondering where she is and what her name is and what in the world just happened.

I'm grateful for friends. I'm glad that my friend N asked me to be in her wedding and I got to drive down to Virginia to see her, and I'm glad my friend S spent one last summer in the area and we made up with H, and I'm glad my friend G reached out to me when I felt invisible and it changed the course of things, I'm glad I went with E to a drive-in movie. I'm glad for time spent with all of my friends A-Z. My family is stuck with me whether they like it or not, but my friends picked me.

I'm really grateful for music. This could become a category in itself. I'm really happy Itunes exists. And I'm super glad I went to the Chameleon on my birthday for one band and discovered several others. I'm grateful for singing and dancing and the joy it brings. I'm really thankful that God blessed Michael Buble with the voice of an angel and I went to his concert. I'm grateful for Christmas music because Christmas wouldn't feel half as warm and fuzzy and wonderful without it, I think.

I'm thankful for charity, for the moments when real, pure love flows through someone. It doesn't happen often in a world where everyone's looking out for themselves, but when it does happen, when someone doesn't even stop to think of what's in it for them, it's beautiful.

I love my job. I love working school hours, weekends off. I love the people I work with and how they make me laugh. I love the kids and how they make me laugh. I love my client. Of all the people I've ever met and had the fortune to spend time with, he's the coolest. 

I'm grateful that I spent the first 3 months of the year jobless, with countless bad interviews and ignored applications and then so easily and simply stumbled upon the place I am now, and I think that's where I was meant to be. It makes me appreciate what I have.

I really love food. I love to cook. And bake. And most especially eat. So I know it sounds like a silly thing that a 6-year-old might write on a hand-turkey, but I'm thankful for food. To quote my sister, "food is good". I'm really grateful and completely pumped for a yummy Thanksgiving meal. I'm thankful for turkey, stuffing, ham, sweet potato casserole, bread, dried corn, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, chocolate chip cookies, and the Smurf glasses we always use. I'm grateful that I'm dating a guy who's tried every kind of foreign cuisine ever and likes to take me out to the coolest places. (I'm such a guy, isn't the way to a guy's heart his stomach??) I'm grateful that I spent 4 years cooking in a restaurant. The mornings I woke up at 4:45AM to cook breakfast and the nites I spent at the broiler cooking 4726256 burgers and steaks for people (and thinking to myself that my face was melting off and I must look like the Nazis at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark) did not go to waste. I kind of know what I'm doing now. Maybe. I'm grateful for red bell peppers, mac and cheese, Five Guys Burgers and Fries, Panera Bread, and Sheetz smoothies. Most importantly, I'm grateful I don't weigh 400 lbs like I probably should, with all that I eat.

I'm thankful for Harry Potter. And all books like it that are so well written that you can just get lost in the world of the book, and grow up with the characters, and feel their joys and sorrows.

I'm thankful for the moments when really fun things happen and it's completely unexpected. Or you go to some event not expecting much and it turns out to be spectacular. For example, I once went with a friend to the Salvation Army store to look for parts for my Red Queen costume and discovered this super-amazing sparkly flamenco dress for cheap. My friend bought it, it's hanging on the back of my bedroom door, and everytime I look at it I smile. And another example, a couple weeks ago I went to Maryland with some friends to support a band from Lancaster, and ended up meeting some really nice guys in other bands (Rocky Loves Emily =) ) who make great music. It turned into a really memorable nite.

I'm really uber grateful for my wonderful little civic hybrid car. I've had her for a little over a year, and still haven't named her, though I've thought about it. I've considered giving her the name of a greek goddess, because she's that amazing. I think I blogged the story of how I got her on my xanga that I was using before I created this. It's a really great story, but lengthy. In short, I first considered buying her twin sister from a nice dealership and someone else bought it 2 hours after I looked at it. I was devastated, so I searched the make, model, color, year and found only one other in the entire state. I made my dad get up early the next day and check out that one, at some tiny used car place in Lancaster. And she was soooo much better. We looked at her, test drove her, and within 10 minutes, she was all mine. I lasted til age 21 without my own car, and it feels really good to know I'm paying for her entirely on my own.

I'm convinced I have thee most comfortable bed the world has ever known. When I curl up in it at nite, my problems melt away. I love that thing. And thus am grateful for it.

I love being a girl, and I'm thankful for it. Cuz girls have alllll the fun.

I'm grateful for my sense of smell. I don't think it's ever saved my life or anything like that, but I think it's pretty cool that a person's sense of smell can so strongly trigger memories (much stronger than the other senses) because of where it's located in the brain. And I love nostalgia.

I'm grateful for earth's beauty, (north) east coast weather and the changing seasons. For sunshine and blue skies, snow when you actually want it, the great outdoors and spending time in it, summer thunderstorms and downpours, the beach, driving with windows down and music turned up, the mountains, clear blue water, the color blue, trees with leaves that change color and snow-covered evergreens. And that bald eagle that swooped down right over my car on my way to work a month or two ago. I'd never seen one before and it was the last thing I expected to see.

I'm grateful for holidays, especially this one.

I'm thankful for facebook, because without it I would've lost contact with so many wonderful people, and they wouldn't be in my life anymore.

I'm grateful that God created laughing, because it's my favorite thing to do.

I'm grateful for my life, every part of it. For the things I've learned and experienced. For all the terrible things that happened to help me appreciate the good. And like I started with, for the ability to progress and change and learn from my mistakes; for the strength to keep going when it's difficult and to be able to look back and see how far I've journeyed and how great it's been.

All made up

Well, the Red Queen make-up look was tried, and here are the results.

I used ideas from the make-up artist Kandee, she has a tutorial on youtube. It involved glue sticks, white and black make up crayons, cheap halloween face paint, and some powder eye shadows.



My biggest fail was concealing my eyebrows haha. I didn't have the proper concealer to put over the glue and under the blue (I'm kind of awesome at rhyming, that was totally an accident), so you can still clearly see them. Maybe next time.

It was also a great big mess. For whatever reason I was burning hot, so my cheeks shown pink through all of it and the white kept getting all wet looking and brushing off if I accidently touched it. Perhaps if I would've had some baby powder, that would've matted the look a bit.

Annnd, I 've decided I hate having that much make-up on my face. It felt so disgusting and thick. Sooo.....

After taking a few pictures I scrubbed it all off, and here's me squeaky clean. Well, sort of. This involved lots of hot water and scrubbing and soap and eye make up remover and after all of that an astringent (which I don't often use because it's harsh and I don't need it). And my face still felt gross for awhile afterward.

It was super-fun however. I do love playing/experimenting with make-up. =)

Tuckahoe, and other stories

Some highlites of my fall season so far:

Me and a few of my friends went to FM97's birthday "barn" bash. It was in Penn State York's auditorium, so not sure of the reasoning behind the barn thing. I guess to make it sound more autumn-y? Anywho, this is my friend Brittni and I with Ryan, lead singer of one of my new favorite bands Runner Runner. I met him before, he's a really awesome kid, and tho you might not believe it from the pictures, one of the top 5 sexiest men I've ever met haha.

They like to take pictures of/with people, so they took one of us wearing their shirts, uploaded it on facebook, and it has their name in the corner which I thought was pretty fun.

Said good-bye (for 2 years) to this cool cat, who left on a mission for Bolivia.

Saw my sister Missy and nephew Shawn for the first time in THREE years (if you're thinking that's a long time, yes, I quite agree), and nephew Ethen for the first time ever. =)

LOVED having them around for a week.

Carved pumpkins with Mom.

Caught a cold from my kiddo at work and stayed home one weekend cuddling with my fuzzy black Salem kitty watching halloween movies.

Spent since mid-August creating this, the Red Queen from Alice.

Based it off of a few pictures online, including these 2, and also one that showed more of the gold overlay of the skirt.

My Halloween weekend:

Got called to be one of the new stake ysa reps a month ago, and I asked to be in charge of decorations and pumpkin-carving activities for Tuckahoe (weekend-long conference/gigantic halloween party). This was when we finally finished decorating for our dance, with everyone's jack-o-lanterns. I'm on the left. Survived my first (and probably biggest) event.

A few of the pumpkins, I carved another batman one. The one behind it (kitty cat) is mine also.

Yes, that is Cool Runnings in the background. =)

Group games...we had to race to put a scarecrow together.

me and my bff

more friends =)

One of these days I'll experiment and do the real make-up, ya know, insane eyebrows and uber white face (rather than slightly whitened) and all, and post pics.


So it's been a really exciting month or so. And I love this time of year because I get so pumped about life. It's now November, which brings the new Harry Potter movie, Michael Buble at the Giant Center, and Thanksgiving, one of my favorite holidays. And with Thanksgiving, the feel of the Christmas season. Which is part of the reason I love Thanksgiving so much, because it all starts to build. But mostly it's the food. And the family too, of course.



you're in the middle of the ride, everything will be alright

Ever reach a point in life where you just wish you could flash foward a couple months/years? Just to make sure you survived. Or because you're impatient and just wanna know what happens. Like when you're reading a book and get to a really suspenseful part and you just can't take it anymore so you flip ahead a little, just to check...did so-and-so really die, are they gonna make up, is the nice guy gonna get the girl, did the hero make it through all of that hardship, is everything gonna be ok? Ever wish you could do that with your own life? I do sometimes. Like now. More because I'm impatient and less not knowing if I can survive. I'm pretty certain of my survival at this point. Just dying to know what's gonna happen and how things will work out in their own perfect little way, despite my stumblings and screw-ups and sticky situations.

It's all here, in black and white and red

I think I didn't come across the way I wanted to in my last post...it was more a "hey, if it seems like I talk about this topic a lot, here's why" kinda thing. But it's my blog so I can do what I want with it. =)

Something's really bothering me and pressing on my mind, and just starting to type about it is making the tears well up. For the first time in my life, I'm the "heartbreaker" so to speak and not the heartbroken. But now that I've felt what that role is like, I gotta say, the one doing the breaking ends up broken too. And it really hurts. Maybe just as much. Although yes there are a few of them out there, not every heartbreaker is an evil heartless monster. Not always a clear cut good side and a bad side, right and wrong.

Ever lose someone near and dear to you because you couldn't be what they wanted you to be? Around Christmas last year, I started talking with a guy who has changed my life and always been there for me from day 1. Made me feel welcome and helped me find friends...put a little light at the end of the tunnel that went out for a couple months at the end of last year when I was going through a rough spot. He easily became one of my favorite people and one of my best friends. And I thank God for him every single day, for what he did for me. Obviously I care about him, he means a lot to me. But as a friend and nothing more. And for him that's not enough.

What do you do when your best guy friend falls in love with you? And the feeling's not mutual? For awhile it was fine...discussed between us, boundaries set, good to go. But now after a few months of that, with me oblivious thinking everything was great, the heartache is worse and the decision has been made to leave my life. At first, without telling me. Like I wouldn't notice. Wouldn't notice the lack of texts, hugs, conversation, random gossip, eye contact. And how I'm suddenly never invited and completely NOT in the know about anything.

He thought, to use the earlier metaphor, that now I've gotten out of that tunnel and I've reached the light, he could slip away unnoticed. Silly of him. Of course I noticed. Immediately. So things were discussed again. And now I'm trying to be understanding, or pretending to be...that's a better word. Because yes, I've selfishly been expecting him to be in my life on my terms, without thinking how difficult that is. And even though life continues, he hasn't moved, so he needs distance from me for awhile, to start a new chapter and move on. I get that. So now I have to pretend to be ok with never getting invited and not talking to the one person I always went to and feeling SO left out. Not just left out...I feel like a loser while my friends go out and have a good time doing fun things and I'd love to be there with them. I feel like I'm being punished; like I've done something wrong. "Oh let's all go out and see Sheridan's favorite band, don't tell her though, she's not invited." That's what this feels like. And I'm pretending to be ok with it. But it's not really ok. And I don't understand. I do but I don't, if that makes any sense at all. I know there's not really any malicious intent. It just feels like it.

Not a win-win situation in sight. For awhile I was winning, he was losing. I had a really great friend, but he was suffering because of me. Now the tables have turned. He wants distance to be able to move on and is off having the time of his life without me, and I just lost one of my closest friends. I lose. But for his sake, I guess it should stay that way.


I might have been the one to break the heart, but it broke mine too.

I'm the new Bridget Jones

So, I'm still trying to find my place in the world of blogging; to have some point to all the ramblings and random posts. It's supposed to be a 'glimpse of my life' after all, but I'm not sure how well I depict that. Some people like to tell silly anecdotes about their life. Some just explain special events. Or did you ever notice, along with the anecdotes thing, how lots of people take whatever part of their life is a mess and discuss that, like their job or their in-laws or training a new pet? Like a comedian's stand-up routine...making the mundane everyday things hilarious. If I had it my way, I would spend hours and pages upon pages of this blog telling great stories about all the things that happen at work. Occasionally I'll say a few things, but for the most part confidentiality prevents me from discussing that. So it's out of the picture. What is my "theme" right now?

I've been thinking about it, and have started to form an idea, thanks to the stage of life I'm in (22, college grad, steady job, and the dreaded word, single). My blog should/will probably become a dating/relationships blog. Only because, unfortunately for myself, that is currently the part of my life that is in complete and total disarray, and often takes up my time and energy and brain space. And however awful and terrifying it might be for me, it would probably be amusing for some reading. And amusing to me also, at some future point in time, whether or not anyone gets a good laugh from it now.

It's a thought. One problem I'm already imagining is that the people being discussed on the blog might read this...and that would just be awkward and it would keep me from being completely honest. I suppose I should talk about situations rather than people.

*sigh*...who knew being single would bring more drama and hurt feelings and confusion and drain me of more emotional energy than being in a serious relationship would? It's insane. Insane. Like really, how much I talk about it is how much I don't wanna be talking about it. But hey, sometimes all you can do is laugh about things, and make light of situations. Otherwise if you don't laugh, you'll just cry. What a weird/awful/awkward part of life. I've said it before, I'm saying it now, and I'll more than likely say it again in the future: the whole single but dating thing is NOT FUN. And I can't wait for it to be over. Then my blog's theme can change to the next thing that will terrorize my life.

One weird and unexpected reason why I wanna get married

Ugh. Sometimes a situation is so messy and awful, and decisions are so difficult, I wish I could just flash forward a little into the future to know what I'm supposed to do, or just to know that everything will work out and be ok. Story of my life. Story of everyone's life I guess. Decisions hurt.

I'm so tired of people making me feel guilty for things that I don't deserve to feel bad about. Or that are beyond my control. I just want everyone to be happy and not be hurting. I want my friend back. To normal. I'm tired of getting on facebook and seeing posts of lyrics and videos about awful heartbreaking girls and wondering if it's directed towards me. Because seeing that is like a knife to my heart also. I never meant to hurt anyone. What did I do that even brought all of this on? I don't understand.


Can I let you all in on a little secret? I cannot wait to be married. And it's not for any normal reason. Here's why, and it's going to make me sound really lame and self-centered: I just wanna worry about one guy. Cuz when you're single, and there's all these guys that either think they have a piece of you or want a piece of you, you have to worry about hurt feelings and closure or lack there of, and drama and awkward situations and ruining friendships, etc etc etc. And it is THE WORST THING EVERRRRR. I wanna pick one, and make it official, get that decision out of the way so that I can just move forward and not look back. And so everyone knows that no, they do not have a piece of me, because that guy has all of me.