30 Day Challenge...and Day 1 of that challenge!

I totally stole this from my friend, Kjell, but for some reason I loved the idea so I think I shall join her in this 30 Day Challenge! Here's how it goes:

Each day of the month, write a blog post according to these guidelines below:

Day 1-Recent picture of you and 15 interesting facts about yourself

Day 2-The meaning behind your Blog name

Day 3-A picture of you and your friends

Day 4-A habit that you wish you didn't have

Day 5-A picture of somewhere you've been to

Day 6-Favorite super hero and why

Day 7-A picture of someone/something that has the biggest impact on you

Day 8-Short term goals for this month and when you'll accomplish them

Day 9-Something you're proud of in the past few days

Day 10-Songs you listen to when you're bored, happy, sad, mad, hyped

Day 11-Another picture of you and your friends

Day 12-How you found out about blogger and why you have one

Day 13-A letter to someone who has hurt you recently

Day 14-'A picture of you and your family

Day 15-Put your ipod or shuffle on-first 10 songs that play

Day 16-Another picture of yourself

Day 17-Someone you would want to switch lives with for one day and why

Day 18-Plans/dreams/goals you have

Day 19-Nicknames you have and why you have them

Day 20-Someone you see yourself marrying or being with in the future

Day 21-A picture of something that makes you happy

Day 22-What makes you different from everyone else

Day 23-Something you crave for a lot

Day 24-A letter to your parents

Day 25-What I would find in your bag

Day 26-What do you think about your friends

Day 27-Why you are doing this 30 day challenge

Day 28-A picture of you from last year and now-how have you changed?

Day 29-In this past month, what have you learned?

Day 30-Your favorite song

A Recent Picture & 15 Random

Facts About Me!

1) My favorite animal is a dolphin. Growing up on boats with the fam bam, I saw dolphins a lot! I never get sick of them! They're incredible to me!

2) I'm not OCD about much, but when I do have OCD tendencies, this is what happens. I check my alarm at least 5 times before I can fall asleep.

3) From time to time I still get stuck in my teeny-bopper days. Like today for instance, I sat on YouTube for far too long today because I kept looking up old Nsync and Britney Spears music videos. (I'm talking Tearin' Up My Heart & Oops...I Did It Again! old)

4) I named my 4Runner after my favorite dancer on SYTYCD, Neil. And when I met him after the show, I told him. That's right...I did.

5) I want a clone of Justin Bieber for a child. That would make my life.

6) I was Valedictorian of my high school graduating class. It was only 52 people graduating, but hey...that's 51 that I had better grades than.

7) I was an extra in "The Legend of Bagger Vance" when I was 13 and I met Matt Damon on the set. My mother rummaged his Diet Coke can out of the trash can and yes...I still proudly display it on my shelf.

8) Hot dogs, chips and salsa, pb&j sandwiches, chicken, and watermelon are my top 5 favorite foods.

9) I am obsessed with the Atlanta Braves!

10) When I was little I would blackmail my sisters to play Barbies with me. As the baby of the food chain you have to learn tactics very young.

11) One Halloween I was Pocahontas (age 9 perhaps), but on Halloween I got super sick and since I had to go to the bathroom all the time my father ever so fondly called me "Poo-poohontas." I cried.

12) I know the Greek alphabet (in order).

13) I have a scar on my knee from when I ran into a stage light box in my parent's room...naked...with my dad (unbeknownst to me) in their bathroom...i wanted to die when he came out to see what happened...i went in the bathroom and cried that he saw all my 14 year old parts.

14) I listen to Christmas music in July.

15) I want to invent something that will be a hit for like 3 years and make me millions.

Dear Alex,

This post is for you.

I know that a few weeks ago I put you through a lot of pain when I told you that I was scared, confused, and knew you were more in love with me than I was with you.

I've never wanted to cry at someone's face more than that night.

You are so very much in love with me and I had punched your heart.

Your face said everything you were feeling inside and I felt like the most awful person in the world.

I know what it's like to feel heart ache.

I know what it's like to be in the more loving end.

I know what it's like to feel completely out of control of a situation you wish you could so badly control.

Since I know what that is like I never wanted to be the source of that pain...and I was.

I'm sorry for that.

That being said, however, I have never been more proud of you.

You took everything I said with love and care and then had a decision to make.

You decided not to be selfish, but to be selfless.

And it has made all the difference in the world.

That night I told you I was scared that I would pick the wrong guy...again, and that is something I do not want to go through for a second time.

(once was definitely enough.)

That night I told you I was confused because some days I wanted to be with you and others...not so much.

That night I told you it was hard having you around all the time now since I was so used to being able to just do my own thing and text you with the 4 hour distance between us...now you're just 5 blocks away.

Let's face it, I told you a lot of things that night that I'm sure you would rather not remember since it hurt you so much.

I asked for space. I asked for patience. I asked for respect. I asked for time. I asked for prayers.

You could have just walked away that night and thought I was horrible for asking such things and not done anything about it.

But you didn't.

You did the complete opposite.

You gave me all the space I needed, you've been patient with me and given me time, and you have constantly been praying for my nerves to calm down.

You've been everything I could've dreamed of, but were not sure if you were capable of it.

But in this last month I feel like I've seen you in a different light.

You've been working hard and learning what it means to have a job.

You've been reading your scriptures, giving talks in church, and doing your home teaching.

You took care of me when I felt like death had come upon me and revived me back to health.

You've been patient and kind and ever so loving.

I know that no other girl ever crosses your mind because you're too busy staring at me. (both figuratively and literally. :)

I'm really proud of you and the growth you have shown over the last few weeks.

It has made all the difference.

I think you're just great and I love spending time with you.

Speaking of, where are you? I want you to be sitting next to me right now.

I really do love you with all my heart.

I had forgotten for awhile, but now it is back and it is stronger than ever.

Thank you for being you and for being what I need.

You're such a good guy. Everyone knows it. Everyone loves you: friends, roommates, co-workers, etc.

But most importantly for you...I love you too.

Braves Girl

Braves Fans invading San Francisco!

So...as we all know the Braves went to the playoffs.

Oh my gracious how excited was I?! SO exciting! We have not made it to the playoffs since 2005! And what's even better is that it is Bobby Cox's last year as the manager and what better way to go out than go to the postseason?

Well, when we found out they were going to be playing their first 2 games in San Francisco my friends and I started scheming on how we could go. We searched for awhile (well, more like my dear friends searched) and we finally found 5 tickets on Craigslist. They ended up being $85 a person...not too bad. So we headed to San Francisco! We left Thurs night at 11:30pm and got into San Fran area around 9:30am. We ate breakfast and power napped at Ashley's aunt's house and then headed to the city because we wanted to go see the Golden Gate Bridge before the game. Twas SO cool! I seriously loved the bridge!

Outside AT&T Park

It was also awesome walking around all decked out in Braves gear! The looks on people's faces and the comments were pretty funny. We got to the park about 2 and a half hours early. AT&T Park is way cool! It is right on the bay and the stadium is just cool. We got there a little bit before batting practice. Ashley and I yelled at one of our fav pitchers (Jair Jurrgens) and told him we loved him and he waved at us. We kinda freaked. Then Derek Lowe (one of our starting pitchers) heard us Braves fans freaking out when they came out for BP and so he showed us the love by doing the sign for "I Love You." We were stoked on life...again. Then Ash and I ventured down by the outfield to say hi to the pitchers out there catching the fly balls. Jonny Venters (a closer) threw us each a ball! And once again...loving life. And the game hadn't even started!

San Fran Trolley

Then the game started. And wow. Giants fans are T.E.R.R.I.B.L.E. The most classLESS fans I have ever seen! Middle fingers directed at us, F You's at us, and the most vulgar signs and desecration of the tomahawk chop. Thankfully we had the 5 of us and 2 other Atlanta fans found us, so we stuck together, but if you saw little 1-3 souls in Braves gear they got popcorn and beer thrown at them. People would Boo in our ears. (right ear is still ringing.) Just seriously I can't even describe how awful it was. Especially since we were losing for the first 7 innings. It was slightly miserable. Then all of the sudden our boys really stepped it up and started playing baseball. We tied it up and it went into extra innings! Our closing pitcher got hurt so they had to pull in a pitcher who has sucked all season and somehow he pulled it out so no runs were scored for the Giants. And in the 11th inning our center-fielder, Rick Ankiel, bombed one out of the park and into the bay! Booyah! It was the greatest moment ever! It was literally the best game I have ever been to! It was so exciting, nerve-wracking, intense, glorious, and purely amazing. I loved seeing my boys play and was so proud of be a Braves fan.

Right after we won!

Let's just say Giants fans were pretty much silent as the game ended. You could hear us from any where in the stadium, I'm sure. We were definitely not quiet. We were so excited! It's one of those epic games that everyone wishes they could have been at and well....we were. Definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity. We were still getting cursed out and harassed as we were leaving, but oh well. I know that at Turner Field they would have been treated differently because our mamas raised us right in the South. You don't treat people like that. Ever. We were all on a high for quite sometime after the game. We headed back to Provo right after and arrived back around 12:30pm on Sat afternoon. Call us crazy. Call us insane. But we like to call it hardcore and awesome! The best road trip of my life.

On a more somber note...the Braves lost both of the games at home. Mostly due to bad calls and our bench 2nd baseman's awful errors, since Martin Prado got hurt right before the playoffs. Yes, I'm so sad. I really wanted to go all the way. But at the same time we had so many bench players out there starting. We lost Chipper. We lost Prado. We lost Jurrgens. We lost Medlen. We lost a lot of those key players that make a huge difference on the field! So for us to still make it to the playoffs and then do as well as we did, I'm proud. We gave a good fight. Every game was only within 1 run.

Another somber note is that this was Bobby's last season. Bobby is the man. I've never known any other manager. I love seeing him waddle/jog on out to the pitcher's mound. I love seeing him sitting there giving calls. I love seeing him get all heated. He will defend his players to the death, which is why everyone wants to play for him. He loves his players more than anything and they are number one to him. He has more managerial ejections than any other manager in history! I am proud of that. That means he fought for his players. He actually got ejected at the game we were at. So we were able to witness his last ejection and his last win. I feel pretty dang lucky.

Unlike Giants fans, Bobby Cox has class. I respect him and I love him. Bye Bobby. You will be sorely missed!

I want the Rays to go all the way now. I hate the Yankees. I hate the Phillies. And I hate the Giants. GO RAYS!

And now I will leave you with this video I took during the summer while at Turner Field. Until next season Braves. I love you! Good season.

today...

...was one of the hardest days I've ever had.

I was at New Haven today from 8am-9:45pm. I was heartbroken I had to miss Conference!

But, I had to go on a little mini-retreat with some of the girls. We got back from that around 5 and came home to chaos in the house.

One of our girls is having a SUPER hard time the last week.

Her name starts with a "K" so that's what I'll call her.

K is barely 14, has Asbergers, and is very into self-harm. i.e. cutting.

She's always been quiet since I've started, but has her moments where she freaks out and has to get put in a hold.

Normally her bad spells last anywhere between a day-2 hours.

However, this bad spell is b.a.d. and she will not snap out of it.

It started on Tues morning. She's been put in who knows how many holds, at least 6 every day. She's threatened to kill herself so that puts her on suicide watch. She grabbed bleach from a girl when she was doing her laundry and tried to drink it...thankfully staff is so close by she didn't. Yesterday she grabbed a knife from the cook while she was prepping food and put it to her stomach...again a staff nearby. She's bit THREE staff members and today she broke the skin on all of them and they had to go get shots at the doctor's office. Like seriously...K has gone crazy. The scary part is, is that she laughs about it in a weird way. You ever seen Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight? Not quite as creepy...but close.

I've never seen her like this and it's the scariest thing. She is now stuck in a room with 2 staff members with everything stripped from the room.

If she doesn't get better in the next few days I bet she'll be relocated because New Haven does not accept violent girls and we do not have the resources to deal with this much of suicide behavior.

Yes, I'm worried about K cause I do care about her. I'm not super close with her, but I've still worked with her and we've had some talks and I do care for her well being and am sad she's acting the way she is.

BUT, the hardest part of my day was seeing the other 15 girls in the house.

They are all having a super hard time with it.

Some of them feel betrayed. Some of them feel hurt. Some of them feel neglected since staff is always having to worry about K. Some of them feel angry that K is physically hurting staff. Some of them feel unsafe.

When I was gone most of the day on the retreat K had a pretty bad freakout so when I came back the house was very down trodden. Multiple girls coming up to me and melting in my arms and saying they can't handle it. Most of these girls are so sensitive or trigger very easily to stressful situations. Our house is a community and this has totally disrupted the "family."

So I spent the night talking individually with some of the girls and letting them express their feelings. All of these girls are in the recovery process and it is so hard for them to focus on why they're here when things in the house are so crazy. I love these girls so much. I seriously feel like they're my little sisters. Do they drive me up the wall sometimes? Oooohh yes...but wow. I feel such immense love for them! They're my babies.

When my supervisor came up to me to see how I was doing I kinda broke down. This week has been so draining, especially today. I do not like seeing my girls hurting. Well, some of them hurt all the time as it is because that's what they're working on, but I hate to see them hurt more than what they need to be. I do love that the girls are so defensive of the staff and get upset the K is hurting us. So to help them we took them out to get ColdStone to let them get out of the house, dance in the car, have some fun, and try to stop thinking about everything for a bit.

I know this post is kinda depressing, but I just have so much energy pent up inside I had to write it out...

I hurt for K. I really do. I wish I understood what she was going through.

But mostly I hurt for the girls that are left with her aftermath. They have so much strength, they don't even know. That's where I come in. I help them realize that inner strength. I love my job! I really do.

Tomorrow my supervisor asked me to come in from 3-5 to help out with K watch. I'm going to wear long sleeves, long pants, and possibly some football pads...:)