Earth to Shelby!!!

During the car ride to town Brock was giving me a politics lesson... He was able to not only name all the republican presidential candidtaes, but he knew where some were from and what some of them looked like. Did I menton he's 10?? I kid you not, my jaw was dropped.

He then asked me a simple question: Who do you like??

Talk about a wake up call.

Here I am, I can't even name a single candidate nor have I ever had any interest in politics. I'm 17. He's 10.

Sad, right??.

I am still in awe at his political knowledge. He was nonstop talking politics for about 20 minutes.

I have never had an inkling to know what's happening in the political world, but wow...

I know at 10, politics and who the next president was going to be was the last thing on my mind. Brock already has a mental note of the 'good' guys and the 'bad'. He knows what they believe and if they're the governor of some state or another..

In my 17 years the only thing I've figured about politics is the fact that politicians are liars. That's it.

I think I need to wake up and start paying attention to the world around me. I may not like everything I see, but that's life and ignorance doesn't solve anything. 



Yesterday Was... Priceless

By now I'm guessing a lot of you have read Breanna's blog...

If not, go read it.

Well, now that you've seen the video, let me assure you it was nothing like that :)

She calls it aggressive, I call it enjoying life...

See, let me tell you the REAL story. It went like this:

Coming out of the school parking lot, Breanna cut me off. Yes, I never would have thought her capable of such a thing... but lo and behold, it happened. I have a witness :D Anyway, making the turn onto 700 E I was stuck behind Bre..Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but yesterday I kinda wanted some fun. I decided to go a different way that still met up on Center, the road Bre had taken. Well, my way was faster.. or my driving.. and I made it in front of Bre... but I maybe cut her off... It was totally safe :)

'An eye for and eye, a tooth for a tooth'
'Do unto others as you would have them do to you'
Shall I quote some more :D 

I must say though, I laughed so hard during that video.. Why?? Because it really is us... We fight like sisters :D

Another high of my day...

Bailey and I decided to surprise our Dad for his birthday, which is tomorrow. We told him we couldn't come see him, but, well.. we lied :D

When we finally got to Elko it was kinda dark, dark enough for us to see inside the car in front of us. Guess what we saw?? They had Shrek playing on their TV!! Luckily, they were going the same way as us. I got to watch like, an entire 10 minutes :) I first noticed it when Shrek went to Farquad's kingdom, then he fought all the guards, then Farquad sent him on his journey to find Fiona... That's when we parted ways.

Once we got to Dad's we totally surprised them. Asia saw us first and her face was priceless. It was a look of confusion, disbelief, then amazement or something of the like. Next, we walked into the family room, where everybody else was. Amber was confused, the kids thought they were dreaming and Dad... he was on the phone with my mom asking where we were :D It was pretty great because Mom could hear us from the other line but Dad was still oblivious. He seemed pretty confused when he turned around and saw us. Again, priceless :D

Happy Birthday Dad!!

Last night, was a night spent on the tramp in a sleeping bag, under the stars. Amazing. Cold, but worth it. :D

Pure Coldness

Have you ever tasted spring water?? 

Well, let me just tell you. It's amazing. I've never had more pure, cold water before in my life!! It's kinda cool that water coming straight from the ground is so tasty and clean and cold :)

But seriously. There is nothing like it anywhere else. No water compares.

Now, I'm sure by now you're probably wondering if I've gone a little crazy... I mean, I'm talking about WATER for crying out loud!!

The reason for my peculiar topic lays with a discussion we had in my communications class. Well, more of my teacher randomly attempting to explain the goodness of fresh spring water to the class. It was quite entertaining, but also made me think.

We... I mean... I take for granted all the joys in life. Finding a spring in the mountain really is one of many joys. It's not something I come upon often, so when I do, I just must have a drink. 

Haha, this has happened all of 2 times that I can remember. One was on top of a hill, everything was green and then there was this source of fresh water, just oozing from a hole into a small pool of water then running down the hill... 

This is my favorite though.

After a hard couple hours herding cows on a horse in the blistering sun with no food or water, Dad took us to this huge rock. All I wanted was to ride back to the truck so we could go home, but here he was, showing us a mound of stone. But. It wasn't just a rock, it was a natural water source..  Oh. My. Heck. That rock is now my most favorite rock in the world! I kid you not, I love that thing. The water that comes from it... I've never tasted better. Hands down. I love it. 

Okay, so kinda silly. But I think when we have so much enthusiasm for something we love, it just makes us love it even more. Thinking about it, I know this is true, because it happens to me all the time. Whether it be churchy stuff, my dog, my blog, or whatever. Having an 

eagerness, 

passion, 

zeal, 

gusto,

 energy, 

fire, 

devotion 

or earnestness

 for something, makes that something the best thing in the world. 

When I get this feeling for something it makes me want to try harder to be good at it, whether it be art, photography or writing. I want to be proud of what I'm doing, and yet I just want to have fun...

I recently saw a picture of crayon art (melting crayons so they drip down a canvas in straight lines. Look it up, it's pretty cool). I've never seen this in my life, but I decided to try it. Yeah... it was an epic fail, but you know what? The 2 cardstock pages with my failed attempt at crayon art is hanging on my wall because I had fun and I made a memory. And who knows, maybe I'll try again :D

Attitude Is A Choice... Be Happy :D

I live in a swamp... okay not really, but it sure feels like it. Especially today.

7:45-2:15    School

2:15-3    chillin' time before work

3-6    work

6-7   dinner... haha, ice cream. That's what happens when mom's not home :)

7-8:30    mutual

now:   writing... duh!... then I'll probably read, after which I'm gonna crash.. go to sleep, just in case you didn't know that one for yourselves :D

Let's add to that list homework, which I'm procrastinating til tomorrow. Ha! Finally something I'm good at :D

Yeah, between school, work and mutual I'm dead on my feet..

Best thing about today??

In my photo class we made posters on good photography. Mine went something like this..

The Picture Your Picture Could Look Like

Hello Photographers! Look at your photo,    

now at mine, now back at yours, now back     

to my photo. Sadly, it isn't mine, but if you 

stopped using bad technique and switched

to good technique it could look like my photo.

Then we had 8 pictures in a square around these words... Haha, you know where they're from don't you?? The Old Spice commercial, we just messed with the wording :D Anyway, 8 photos surrounding with a black shadow line. Like, if it was the pic above the words, the top would have a black shadow, bottom right, the right side and bottom shaded. It was pretty cool.

The best part? 

The top picture was a pic of a lady falling off a horse.

We put the words "I'm on a horse." from the commercial onto the pic... You probably have to see it for it to be funny, but it made my day. Along with Kinsey's story...

The short version which takes place Saturday night during the storm:

A guy has a dog. A stupid dog. This particular dog runs into the road, gets struck by lightning then hit by a car... I started crying I was laughing so hard, but it gets better!!.... The next morning the guy walks into the street, grabs the dog's tail, and walks to his backyard, dragging the dog by his tail. So a neighbor goes over to make sure this dude is ok. He walks into the yard and the guy is muttering, "Stupid dog, idot, stupid dog!" while he proceeds to bury the dog. One problem. The dead dog is laying in the grass and this guy is shoveling dirt onto the dog. He's making a hole, but in the meantime, the dog is becoming a mound!!

This story is also much better with actions, but hey, now I have it forever :)

Okay, so I guess my day wasn't so terrible. But still. I feel like I had no time to myself...

Smile, be happy, say hi to people you don't know. It makes life better. It's true, I promise. I've been on the receiving end of all these actions and it has made my entire day :D

Cola

Diet Coke with Lime is a marvelous thing. You can't get better than that. At least I thought so.

This is my horse. Yep, I have a horse.. She's not even a year old.

I originally named her Coke, cuz you know, I just love Coke.. But then I got to thinking. Coke could be mistaken for Cocaine, especially because we recently started naming our horses after alcoholic beverages. Wine, Whiskey, Brandy.. and I'm sure the list will grow with time.

Anyway, I thought better of naming her Coke. Instead I chose Cola, like Coca Cola :D

I'm really loving her color, but honestly I hope she doesn't go white.. or full on gray. I know it seems kinda doubtful, but I hope she keeps some of her reddish tint. 

Besides name and color, I'm told by a very smart guy... cough cough, Dad... that she'll turn into a great horse. 

Back to the color thing...

Yeah, that's her mom. She's completely white, whereas the sire is a dark brown color.

At least Cola is a better name than Dog Face :)

Dog Face is, by the way, the name of our resident stud.

Not only is this a pretty good looking bull... Mr. 509, I'm pretty sure :)... I like how the birds are just chillin' on his back without a care in the world.

2 Weeks, 2 Words

What's up with all these lightning storms?!?!?!!

This is the 2nd one in the past 2 weeks... The last one was August 15th, so exactly 13 days ago I think. Weird how I know this right :)

Well, all I have to say is if we get one storm like this every 2 weeks for the next couple of weeks I'll be one happy girl :D

The best part of this storm? Easy.

I was standing in the middle of my culdesac with some friends and lightning was flashing all around us. One minute it would be in front, then to the side, then another side... and it just kept getting bigger and brighter. Amazing, truly amazing!!! My favorite was the strike that was right above us, it had 3 strands of lightning and was one of the brightest.. Yeah, we thought we were gonna die :)

Funny story.

Friday at work -I work at the library- this lady, total stranger, comes up to me and asks if I know how to write a resumé. I told her I've only written one in my life and that was last year in my Financial Lit class. She goes on to ask if I could help her write and upload her resumé onto an online application... Keep in mind, perfect stranger, in her late 20's to early 30's, I've never seen or met her in my life!!

I go back to the computer she's at and she shows me where it says upload resumé. I asked if she already had one written, and in response she pulls up a blank Word document and writes her name.

"Now, does this go in the middle??"

I again ask if she already has one saved somewhere, and she says yes, in her email. I have her pull it out while I run find "Your First Resumé" a book on how to write a resumé, and we start tweaking things. At one point this lady asks if I could find an address of a place she worked at. I run to my boss to ask permission to use the computers up front and say

"So I'm helping this lady write her resumé"

at which point she starting laughing... like, full on laughing!! My guess is she knew that I've never written a resumé before, seeing as this is my first job and I didn't have to when I applied... I started laughing, too, after which April (my boss) says sure, then goes on to say, but you could do it the old fashioned way, a phonebook. Okay, honestly, I didn't even know we had a phone book at the library!!! No worries though, I got to use the internet :)

I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but I kid you not, I helped this lady for an hour and a half at least!! Any neatness that went into her resumé were things I suggested.

I just thought it was one of the oddest things I've ever had to do while at work. Don't get me wrong, I had fun, but it was weird all the same.

By doing this, I learned the value of

*education*

being organized

having computer skills

knowing how to read a how-to book

*education*

At the very beginning, before she asked for my help I was organizing the movies. Out of the corner of my eye I saw this lady walking toward me, but then she was intercepted by one of the clerks. 

"Can I help you with something?" 

Lady: "Oh, I just need help with my resumé, and I need to upload it to a site." 

Clerk: "Hmm, I'm not sure how to do that."

Lady: " I was going to ask her, would she know?"

They were talking about me, but I was pretending not to hear...

Clerk: "I'm not sure, but you can ask."

Lady: "I think I will."

I have no idea as to why she thought I could help her, but you know what?? I could have turned her down. I could have said, No, I don't know how to write a resumé. I could have said, I need to do my work. 

But I helped her.

I helped this lady do something that was difficult for her and pretty easy for me. 

I gave her my time and my patience.

I gave her my suggestions and opinions.

You know what she gave me?

She gave me an understanding of what's important in the long run.

She gave me the realization of the value of education.

She gave me an appreciation for what I have.

She gave me her gratitude for my time.

She gave me 2 words.

She said thank you.

Thank you has never meant so much to me. I felt like this lady was seriously grateful. Yeah, it was odd and my boss thought it was funny. But I felt like I made a difference in her life. Somehow.

It made me feel good, like I'd done something meaningful.

The power of 2 words.

Who knew???

I sure didn't.

Chillin' at Deer Creek

Yesterday for mutual we went boating.

Pretty great, I know :)

About 20 of the young women showed up, which was a lot less than I expected. But get this, we only had 2 boats... I went once, but some of the other girls went a couple of times. I'm not complaining by the way...

I went tubing with Bailey and Annika. We told the boat driver, aka Annika's dad, to do his worst, and let me tell you, he did pretty good. I fell halfway in but pulled myself back onto the tube once... yes I am very proud of myself :) Then I don't know what happened, I think the edge of our tube hit a wave and we all flew, but I distinctly remember looking down at the water then plunging in feet first. Haha, I'm pretty sure I was parallel to the water for a couple of moments. All I know is it felt like I was flying :)

We went back to shore a little bit later. Annika stayed to help out her dad and my other friends got on the boat, which left me with a whole bunch of younger kids... yeah me!! Hahaha :)

Being the prepared person that I am, I brought a water gun.. you know, the kind that is like a stick. You put the end under the water, pull the handle to load it, then push the handle to squirt the water. Haha, I started a water fight with one of my leaders and one of the younger girls, Jenna :D 

Jenna totally had it coming though, so no worries.. 

This is the part that really made me happy though. As we were cleaning up and getting ready to leave, one of the mom's that came up with us walked up to me and the previously mentioned leader... Sis. Conder, the one I started my surprise water fight against... and started saying how she loves my personality. Now, I can't remember it exactly, but she said that she loves

my fun personality, I'm not afraid to be different and have a little fun, and that I'm a little trouble :D

Yeah, something along those lines. But let me tell you, it really made me feel good. The whole time we were there... and any other time I'm having fun, aka chasing someone with a cup/bottle/bucket full of water... I figured I was just another face in the crowd. And when I was dousing Sis. Conder then later Jenna, well, I can't say I thought I was invisible, but it just seems that nobody pays much attention. 

I don't know where I'm going with this, but to realize that someone.. and an adult at that... actually thinks of me, not as the immature 17 year old chasing her friends, some leaders and a few of the little kids, but as having a unique and fun personality... I just really love that.

It was, hands down, the best part of my day!!  :D