"Tips" from Pinterest Part 1

*I haven't written a blog post in such a long time. I apologize for this from the few people who follow me and my random thoughts.

Since it's already finals week in our 8 week class schedule, naturally I'm on Pinterest. I love Pinterest. I've found great recipes to try, cute clothes, home things I'm never going to afford because of the field of work I'm going in to, cleaning tips... and other random things. Today I thought I would share a piece of advice that I found on this wonderful website.

I decided that I was going to go through the home decor section and see if there were any random things I would like to have in my dream house. I stumbled across a cleaning tip pin. This pin said "who knew. a window squeegee removes pet hair from carpet."

Amazing! So what this is saying that all you have to do is crawl around on your hands and knees scraping a squeegee along the carpet. The pet hair will come up and you won't have to worry about having hairy carpet anymore. What a relief. 

Here is the example of what an amazing job this does.

Okay, seriously now. You know what else removes hair from carpet? A vacuum. You know what else can also remove dirt and dander that a squeegee won't get off the carpet? A vacuum.

Here is my cleaning tip for removing hair from carpet. Invest in a vacuum that will last. Plug in the vacuum. Vacuum your floor. Unplug the vacuum. Empty the canister. Put away vacuum.

Even a smiling vacuum can do this job.

This takes a lot less effort and is way more effective than scraping a tiny squeegee throughout your entire carpet. No matter how hilarious it would be to see someone attempt to do this, I would suggest just taking the time to just vacuum your carpet. Practicality wins with this one.

There's a tip from Pinterest that isn't so practical. Hopefully I can start a series of these :D.

It's a New Year

Band currently listening to: Safetysuit

I am quite aware I haven't written a blog post in a very long time. Last session was incredibly tiring. I had so many papers and such due, I had not time to do anything except eat, work, and sleep. I suppose I showered a few times in there as well :P

This post doesn't really have a specific topic, nor will it be hilarious or anything. I just thought I'd update everyone on my life.

Christmas break was a fantastic time. Going home after such a stressful session of school was amazing. I ate a ton of food, hung out with my family (including the dog) and just relaxed. Even my body felt better after sleeping at home for a while. I was less tense and felt so much better. Making the journey back to college was the last thing I wanted to do after such an amazing break. 

Transitioning back in to college wasn't difficult, it almost feels like I never left. Unfortunately, some of the stress decided to wait for me when I got back, so I'm already a little bit stressed out.

College is full of some really good experiences, though. For example, I went to the Winter Jam in Fort Wayne on Sunday, and it was absolutely amazing. Concerts are one of those places that make me so incredibly happy. I'm one of those people who would drive for hours and stand in line for hours to go see a band perform. I absolutely adore concerts.

There were three times at the concert yesterday that had me crying with happiness. The first time was during a random band I had never really listened to before, but I was just so happy to be back at a concert that I didn't care. The second time was when a couple old Newsboys songs were played, and it just reminded me of sitting at the back of the bus in the seventh grade, singing with Brandon and a few others at the top of our lungs. The third time, though, was when I teared up the most. Skillet performed a couple of my favorite songs by them, and I just started crying because one: I was glad to hear it and two: I really wanted Brandon to be there in flesh and blood to experience it with me. I went for him though. I'm pretty sure I told him I would go to the Winter Jam with him someday, so yesterday I went for him. I'm so glad I did.

Today I got the CDs I ordered. I heard of a band called Safetysuit, listened to a couple of their songs, and decided to buy both of their albums. It was a gamble, but I'm glad I made that choice. They make me happy. :). 

I must go now, I've become addicted to Pinterest, and I must find more pins! :)

Stress and Laughter

Song I'm Currently Listening To: A Whisper & A Clamor - Anberlin

I'm blogging because my cool suite-mate blogged not too long ago, and it reminded me that I haven't blogged since September.

Just yesterday I watched The IT Crowd episode where the boss, who is unfortunately dressed like this:

is talking about how stress is constantly killing people. Which of course then he's the major cause of most of the stress in the building anyway because he's threatening to fire anyone who's stressed at the end of the day, which of course means they're all going to be stressed about the thought of being fired because they're stressed...

The point of the matter is, over the past month and a half or so, I've become extremely stressed out. My workload has quadrupled from the workload I had last session, plus a string of a thousand other things. It's just like stress decided to punch me in the face and steal my lunch money. For those who need a visual, here's an example:

Stress does not wear a blue coat. I am also not a small Asian boy.

You get the point. I'm very tired and overworked, and it's not a fun place to be in. I also learned something very interesting this past week. I was on the phone ranting to a friend, and they noted how that even though I was so tired, upset, and stressed about certain things, I kept laughing about whatever the subject was. That statement made me realize that whenever I don't feel like I can handle something, I laugh. It's like a built in defense mechanism. Laughing makes me feel better, so I automatically do it when things are going wrong. 

I don't think it's a bad thing all the time. If it'll ease up the stress a little bit or help me see what's making me stressed in a clearer light, even for a moment, I don't see how it's bad. If it helps me realize that it's not something that is going to control my life and never go away, I think it's fine. If it starts making me not take things seriously, that would be a problem. But I'm not doing that. 

All I know is, an overload of stress isn't good for anyone. Avoiding it at all costs would be awesome, but I know that isn't possible. All I have to say is... I know I'll live. And if anyone else is extremely stressed out, you'll live and make it through, too. Life isn't always fine and dandy. Take advantage of the moments that are, and kick the butt of the ones that are not.

This Is A Blog Post About...

Song(s) I'm Currently Listening To: Random bits of the Queen Discography

* I'm drinking a particularly good cup of coffee today. It makes me happy.

I did not, however, specifically arrange coffee beans so I felt like I was drinking a picture.

* My dorm room feels like I'm sitting in a bathtub full of ice cubes in Antarctica. 

I decided googling "bathtub" wouldn't be a smart idea. So here's Antarctica!

* Yesterday my room mate, my suite-mates, and I randomly ordered a large pizza from Pizza Hut and devoured and then proceeded to devour it at the hour of 10:45 pm.

Behold, grease!

* I have 5 empty plastic water bottles on my desk.

This is more than 5.

* I get to go play with wolves soon. Yes, real live wolves.

"I love you!!!"

* At the beginning of the week, a fake ladybug failed to perform a stealth attack on me by sitting on my pillow and sneaking up on me. It then was flicked out of the room by yours truly.

"Fear me, I'm kamikaze beetle."

* I'm sitting here pouting because Freddie Mercury's falsetto is a million times better than my regular voice.

He's even gloating about it. :P

* My exam today in Abnormal Psych was okay until we got to the case studies. Those were hard.

I made this exact face while reading them.

This is my day/week so far. I'm pretty sure the rest of it is going to be great :-). Have a great week, everyone!

Mosquitos

Song I'm Listening to - Little Lion Man - Mumford & Sons

I have 16 mosquito bites on my legs. I covered them all up with band-aids so I would stop scratching them. 

I'm never going outside in shorts again after dark. I used to do it all the time with no problem. Not anymore.

I hate mosquitoes. They're evil things sent specifically to bother humans and leave their legs an itchy mess, while they buzz off with a belly full of blood and laugh maniacally.

 This one in particular enjoys pretending it's a non-sparkly vampire.

I learned from the ever trustworthy Wikipedia, mosquitoes living in nature (apparently some live in captivity?) usually don't live longer than a couple weeks. That makes it even worse. They hatch, they grow, they bite as many humans and animals as they can, and then they die. But there's like, a bazillion (that is not a trustworthy statistic from Wiki) of them out there. How do they manage this?!

I do, however, feel like I helped assist many families of mosquitoes in to breeding more little monsters. I may have assisted in the building of a giant army of mosquitoes considering the state of my bitten legs. Or maybe they just really like my blood.

I apologize to you all for unknowingly helping the mosquito population get fed. 

"Life Changing" Test

Song I'm Listening To: Typical - MuteMath

I did not intentionally switch the song I was listening to from Justin Bieber's "Eeenie Meenie" to something else so I could write what song I was listening to at the top. Nope, I didn't do that at all.

:-D

Anyway... my blog today is going to be about...

*Drumroll*

My room mate's obsession with Portal! I'm kidding haha.

I want to talk about my Abnormal Psychology class. Today the professor discussed anxiety disorders and how many people concentrate on the "what if's" in life. And it really got me thinking...

I do this ALL of the time. Last year I was afraid I wasn't going to pass this test in my awful music appreciation class... and this is how it played out in my head.

"What if I don't pass this test?! If I don't pass the test, I won't pass the class! If I don't pass the class... I'll lose my scholarship and I'll have to retake the whole thing. Then I'll look stupid and have no money to go to college. If I don't have any money to go to college, I won't be able to stay in college and get my degree. If i don't get my degree, I won't be able to get enough money... well, unless I marry a rich guy, but who'd want to marry a girl who couldn't pass Music Appreciation?! Ah, if I don't pass this class, I'll never get married!!!"

Yeah, it went on to "I'll never move out of the house" and such, but I think going from not being able to pass a test to not getting married was hilarious enough. I then passed the test and class with a higher grade than I expected.

Why did I waste my time with unnecessary worrying? Well, I mean on the plus side it got me to study a little harder, but other than that, all it brought was so much anxiety and lack of sleep... which didn't help with my mood whatsoever.

A little bit of worrying doesn't really hurt anything. It's normal and probably healthy, considering if you didn't worry about anything or have any foresight... then things would end up really badly. However, worrying so much about something that you can't think of anything else or come to irrational consequences if you don't complete something... well, that's just a bit silly.

I'm just saying... taking a breather, relax, and dive in to the task again :)

Wedding Day

Song I'm Listening To: Marchin On/Good Life - OneRepublic

I haven't written in a very long time because of one thing... WEDDING!!!

I've been working on stuff for my sister's wedding for a while now. It seemed so far away at the beginning of the summer. But soon enough, August 13th rolled around...

And honestly, I couldn't have had a better day. Everything was perfect, and my sister and brother in law most definitely deserved it.

I had to wake up at 5:00 am to get in to the church to have my hair done. I packed up everything I could have possibly needed the night before because I don't function in the morning period, especially 5 in the morning...

All of the bridesmaids, moms, and Bethany got their hair done and got dressed in the nursery of the church. It was kind of funny, looking back on it now, but whatever :). I also signed the marriage license (as a witness) on an ironing board sitting in there. :P

Once Bethany was in her dress with her hair up and makeup on... I almost started tearing up then. She looked absolutely beautiful. Seriously. Absolutely beautiful :).

Picture taking was a lot of fun... Bethany and Dustin looked so cute and happy together :)

The ceremony was beautiful. I couldn't stop smiling as I was walking in to the sanctuary at the beginning. The music was amazing (live band, oh yeah :D). Bethany and Dustin looked so unbelievably happy together. When Bethany was walking down the aisle, she had the biggest smile I've ever seen. I was bawling my eyes out by the end of the ceremony, and right before Dustin and Bethany were announced as husband and wife, my sister turned around and gave me a big hug. We were both crying because we were so happy. Apparently we made over half the church cry then...

The reception was also perfect. Relaxed, yet it still had an air of formality to it. People actually danced, which made me happy. I danced with my Uncle Dan! And my theatre directors kids haha.

Honestly the best part was looking around and seeing how happy everyone was. Of course Bethany and Dustin were happy, but everyone else around was about as happy as they were. It was truly a day full of joy, and it couldn't have gone any better, in my opinion.

This isn't really detailed or anything, it's just what's going through my brain right now... It was just an amazing day.