a few thoughts

I have five weddings within one week. Five.

I have officially been back in Provo for over one year. Crazzzzzy! My atttitude towards living back in "Cougartown" has flipped almost a total 180, in a positive way.

I think it's safe to say that I've grown up quite a bit in the last year since returning to the 801. For example...I have a check book, I occasionally enjoy a good sandwich and if you catch me on the right night I just might have a "This is how I feel..." talk with you. I know, look out! Baby steps. Baby steps.

Dear Provo People...I'm super sad for you that you have so much down time and get bored enough to the point where talking about my personal life becomes your priority! Instead of talking about why I may or may not be going on a mission might I give you some recommendations? Hike the Y, Stewart Falls, Bridal Veil Falls or even Timp. Go to 7 Peaks. Run through your sprinklers. Have a movie marathon. Live on the edge and wear a bikini to a BYU pool. Register for classes. Lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling. Anything! However, should you insist to continue to talk and give your opinions on my life, please take some extra time to make sure your texts are going to the right people.

Jake: I thought you just went to a wedding....

Me: I did. I go to a lot of them! I don't mind though cause I actually love weddings!

Jake: So when are you gonna have yours?

Me: I like weddings, I don't like marriages.

Tuesday=Law and Order SVU Marathon days. Never fail. I can honestly say that I look forward to this every single week and as die hard as I am for always going and being outside and doing stuff..you better believe that when Tuesday comes around, I'm on the couch in pajamas watching Elliot rough somebody up. Probably for 7 hours...

"I do NOT understand! How the ____ do you live in China for four months but you've never gone to a freakin garage sale?!" I laughed at this much harder than I should have.

I have been fortunate enought to have seen more people in concert this summer alone, than most people will in their lifetime.

Tanner/Channy vs. Ceej/Jon in volleyball? We dominated that game.

We floated the river last week. Let's be honest...I was a little nervous! I'd heard tons of horror stories as it was but throw in a fast moving river that's 100% full. Good news: we all lived. And we were CRACKING UP the whole way down.

When I was just 14, Julie Cornwell played a song for us that her brother wrote right before he went on his mission. It's adorable! He's essentially talking to his future wife, having no idea who she is but how he already loves her so much. I've had the CD for years but this week it's been on constant repeat in my car. If you've ridden with me for over 2 minutes, you've probably heard at least part of it. Or if you're Jess/Jon/Kirk you've probably had to circle the block with me while it finished playing...

The other night I helped Zach, Daniel (not to be mistaken with the other roommate Danny) and Adam move a coffee table down the road. Literally...everybody grabbed a corner and we walked down the middle of the road.

When I was at Wal-Mart the other night I saw that m&m's were on sale. $1.50 for a huge bag that's usually around $4.00 so naturally I bought nine. Not even a nice number like five or ten....NINE big bags of peanut butter m&ms.

Remember how I ate out so much in St. George (and it's a small town) that the guys at Panda Express and Cafe Rio knew my name/face/car/health conditions/major? Well...let's add the Provo Les Schwab guys to the list. So. help.me. if i have to buy any more tires!

Great news! Only THREE more hours until my dear little graveyard shift is over. Sad thing is there's a good chance I'll take a quick 2 hour nap and get back up. Hike the Y, float the river, bike ride in the canyon, laundry, pack....who has time to sleep.

I'm house sitting this week.

I still mess words up sometimes when I'm tired or super stressed or not paying attention or sometimes just because. A really funny one the other day was "For all makes and models...." "Don't you mean like intents and purposes?" ooops.

I am obsessed with change lately! Outfits, furniture arrangements, blog style, blog title, blog picture, perfume arrangement (???), nail color, toe nail color, apartment location and hair.

For lack of finding my "before" picture, this is essentially what my hair looked like in May...
...as of yesterday this is what it now looks like.
-7 inches, +some purple/red and a darker brown.
and I love it!

my China dears

August 13th and August 19th are big days. The 13th, Rachel Holt is marrying Mr. Utterback in the (Salt Lake?) temple for time and all eternity and on the 19th it'll be Miss Shelley Henricksen a the Mt. Timpanogas Temple marrying Landon Cook. I love both of these girls SO much! The irony in Shelley's date is that it's 2 years EXACTLY from when we left for China, which I where I met both Rachel and Shelley.

I can't even explain to you what kinds of times I've had with these girls! Rachel was the first one that was a facebook add and we chatted for about an hour, 4 hours before we were flying out. When I actually got to the airport and was waiting to check my bags, Shelley and I got talking and realized that we were going to the same city. We've had cake fights and dance parties and shopping trips and sight seeing. Tears and laughs. We partied with philipilno rock stars in Beijing. We rode trains for over 52 hours at a time. We did house visits. We tried to choose tea from juice. We named kids and talked about friends at home. We made music videos and bed dances and lived through one of the craziest experiences that any of us have ever gone through.

(literally 10 minutes after meeting Shelley and about to go through security)

I couldn't be happier for both of you! After all of our "board talks" and what we wanted in guys and husbands and what's really important, I'm so excited that both of you are ending up with awesome guys that are worthy of you. And can't wait to get to be a part of your big day :)

real life Grey's

A few weeks ago, I got into a fairly intense arguement with one of my friends who insists that he hates the show Grey's Anatomy for the mere fact that: "People in medical jobs are too high stress to actually be friends like that! That's too fake..." Realizing (while at work on the graveyard) that today is exactly 1 year since working at Beehive, I couldn't disagree more. I had some great "work friends" in St. George too but here's a few of the Provo people that are more than just work buddies.

Brian...definetly not a friend actually but always good for a laugh! Stole narcotics and tried to blame it on others, fell asleep with the door propped open and my personal favorite...flooded the laundry room. Dear Brian, I wish you the best with "life" but do. not. miss.you.
So so so so so happy that the morning shift kicked their note writing habit.

Dearest Cherish! She was a blast to work with which was good because we worked together a LOT! We mainly bonded over boys. She was dating a douche bag and I've had my fair share of them so we loved to laugh over our stories. We were both in school and at about the same point, so it was good to have somebody on my level in that area.

Homegirl moved back to Nevada a few months ago but I still miss her

Lindsay Grimm! The friend that I do the most "activites" with outside of work. We have the same adventurous spirit and on snowy days in January and February we'd get super excited and make elaborate plans for all the fun things we'd do in the summer! Check. Moab, Causey, Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw...MANY good times with Linds! We also were the movie junkies.

Freakin Hil-Bug! SO much fun to work with, as the picture above so clearly demonstrates. We could turn anything into a laugh and a good time. Including the night I forgot about biscuits in the oven, burnt them, tossed one at her jokingly and she grabs 4 with a war cry and chases me into a residents room while chucking them at me. Or when she sprayed me with the hose. Or when we did ballet in the front room. Or when we explored the attic. Yes, it took us 40 minutes just to get the stairs down but we did it. Or when we tried to teach room 2 Marco/Polo. working with her was the best on bad days cause she easily made them better!

(Or the day she thought she threw a tube of eye drops away) hahaha

Ol' Kim! My sister trained me, but Kim was the first "real" employee I met here.

Kim is easily one of my very good friends. And she'll try to deny it but I'm her bestie! Kim is awesome and has been such a blessing in my life. We've talked about ironic wedding situations, calls to stake presidents, body functions, she's helped diagnose me, we've cried in the laundry room and the hallways and the dining room and the kitchen and the office. Kim's the first person I ever told that I was going on a mission and she was there when I opened my call. She helped me find STUPID Los Hermanos in Lindon even though it took 17 phone calls and she even saved me a seat and ordered for me. Kim is great for giving me perspective. Kim is motivated and one of the most focused and hard working people I know.

Ty I don't have pictures of, but he's AWESOME! One of our residents put it best when she said that we were like a really funny brother and sister. Ty is so easy going and mellow, which is a definete plus in a job that can bring nothing but crazy and chaos. Ty is a hard worker and he's honest. Ty is hilarious! Not as much as he thinks he is, but he is pretty funny. Like Kim, he always asks about life and when I say a name, he makes the connection. Ty is great at giving advice and the male perspective to my life which I have needed.

Long story short...I freakin love my job and the people I have been able to work with!

crazy.stupid.love

If you haven't seen this movie yet, it's a must! (You'll be proud to know that neither Brit or myself shed a single tear). There's one part in there where Steve Carroll is talking to his 13 year-old son. The boy is a romantic but had his heart broken so he's spouting off a bunch of negative things that Steve knows he doesn't believe so he calls him out on it. It made me think of what I would say to my own 13 year-old self, knowing what I know now....

"i should have fought for you"

I think I'd tell her she doesn't date as much as she thought she would in high school, but she has a blast anyways and doesn't regret a minute of it. I'd warn her that she has a terrible night with somebody she should have trusted that scars her for many years. But she'd be happy to know that she uses it for good later. I'd tell her to always keep thinking things are "cute" even when her friends laugh about it. I'd relieve her favorite date to her over and over and over again. Beaming, every single time. I wouldn't tell her how to kiss, but tell her that she laughs trying to learn. I'd tell her she gets to know some amazing people! She doesn't know that some of them turn out to be not-so-great as we thought they were, but that we learn a lot about life and ourself through them, so they're important anyways. I'd tell her to be grateful everyday that her parents never let her grow up too fast. I'd sit and cry with her on the bathroom of her apartment, the night of her first honest heart break. I'd even hold her hair when she starts to throw up. She'd laugh when I tell her about her first kiss. Really really laugh.

I'd tell her that she has a few too many sad wake up calls that life isn't a fairytale, but that she loves it all the same. I don't think she'd be too surprised to hear that she has trust issues. She'd be glad to know that once people are in, they're in! And that they probably mean the world to her. I'd tell her that she'll doubt it for a while, but she still wants to be a wife and mom more than anything in the world. She still believes in true love. She has crazy, sappy day dreams sometimes about finding a boy that sends her flowers and comes over to surprise her when he knows she's having a bad day. She still hopes for a boy that opens her door and call sher for no reason at all. She'll laugh when she tears up when a boy calls her beautfiul instead of 'hot' or 'sexy'. She'll still believe in the boy that makes her laugh and loves to travel. The boy that likes to take walks but still go for drives.

Dont' worry 13 year-old Chantel...life has some crazy curveballs headed your way and even though there are MANY times you don't believe it, you'll realize one day that you still believe in that Crazy, Stupid, LOVE

a few funny stories

Despite all of my apparently depressed posts lately, life really has been great overall! To say that I've been busy would be a huuuuuge understatement. I don't even remember the days where I was home longer than 20 minutes or slept more than 4 hours a night. I was printing out some pictures tonight and found a few that made me laugh and sum of "life as of late" a little bit....

I went to leave work one night and it was DOWNPOURING rain! I found this little guy cuddled up under my car, whimpering like crazy. Naturally....I couldn't leave him there so he got to come have a sleepover for the night.
Saw a new temple that I think is GORGEOUS! And now get to cross Washington off of my "states to visit list."

Kodiak, is a massive dog that I'm sometime scared of. But I was scared FOR HIM this night when we lit off aerial fireworks and he felt the need to charge them.

Lenzie and I went hiking in AF canyon which was an adventure on it's own. We were not only in a 4-wheel drive vehicle, but in her little Ford Focus. As you can see...we not only had a hilarious drive and relaxing walk around the lake, but caught 4 fish.

Yogurtland....a great new favorite :)

Boating for Andy (or Andel?)'s birthday! It was great fun....for what I remember of it.

Not a funny story...but said goodbye to this girl. Tonight is a night where I tried to call her and it made me miss her lots. Take care of her for us Czech Republic!

I not only hiked the Y, but hiked it alone. Right as I was about to turn around, I came around the corner and tehre it was! With everything that's going on in life right now, a million and one analogies were running through my mind and it made it that much better that I didn't quit. I'm still obsessed with how green Utah is this year.

SUPER last minute trip to not only see Harry Potter P.2 but we got to see it with no lines, and at 8:30....before the midnight showing! It was SO much fun to walk out and see how excited everybody about to go in for the midnight showing was. And all of the CRAZY CREATIVE costumes out there!

Rodeos have definetly been a BIG part of this summer! This night was a night that I was mature and was able to truly see past being hurt and move on. It was awesome.

Like I said...rodeos have been a huge part!

(My friend called me and my sister rodeo whores after our latest one...it made me laugh!)

power of music

July 10th there was a mix up at work that made me and another girl double scheduled. Essentially we had 4 girls when only 2 had to be there. I was quick enough to be the first to dibs going home. I was having a crazy week (nothing unusual) and the last place I wanted to be was work. I decided to run by my mom's for dinner and on the way there I got a text about Sherrie Dew speaking for our stake relief society that night. As much as I wanted to just hit the sweats and couch with finally a night off, I booked it back to my apartment to change after dinner, picked up my mom and sister and headed to the church.

You know those times where after you leave, you understand why you were supposed to go? This was one of those times. I'd kept walls up all day and even that night but at the end there was a musical number that melted my insides, so to speak. Beautiful song+emotions on edge+violin playing along made for a small melt down. I stepped out into the hall and half listened to it, half tried to regain composure. I looked it up after I got home though and I love it! I strongly reccomend you take a listen. I don't know how to upload the video on this so if it doesn't work check "Daughter of a King" on youtube.

http://youtu.be/fUSIZ_EjLm8

Jenn Youd

It has become apparent to me very quickly why Jenn came into my life when she did. Like others, she is one of my roommates that has blessed my life and made an impact on me. I love this girl! She's been there for me through all of my chaos this last little while and I doubt she knows how needed and appreciated it was. When I couldn't stop crying and nobody knew what to say, she just came and sat on my floor so I wasn't alone. She didn't feed me the "it'll get better" "for the best" "I'm so sorry" stuff that she knew I didn't want to hear, she was just there. She's somebody that's been in similar situations as me. She's somebody easy to talk to. She's somebody I trust. She's somebody that I am incredibly grateful for :)

Elder Olsen

Remember this boy?

He's still doing a great job on his mission! I love to hear from him and it's obviously a given that our whole family is anxious for mom to forward his emails on to us each Monday afternoon. The last few weeks I've been lucky enought to get fairly longer, personal emails from him and it has me missing him pretty bad!

I can't believe how grown up he is! (And DARK!) It's amazing to me that he's only been gone since January because already you can hear how he's changed and grown up and had great experiences I'm sure! It's exciting to think of just how far he'll go by the time he comes home.

He's admitted several times that he is more like his sisters than he thought with his sudden love in taking pictures! And even requested that we need to send more..."this is a one way road and i feel like it shouldn't be."

I found myself at USANA last week and it brought back a lot of memories from when the two of us went to Mr. Tim McGraw last year. With some instances since there, I hear his voice in my head occasionaly and just laugh. "Your mom!" "Are you kidding me?!" and whenever I'm on UVU campus I literally laugh out loud sometimes thinking of all his "guy chats" he gave me and advice on how to develope a "gay-dar" and to keep the jerks away.

But even with missing him lately, I couldn't be more proud or happy for him! I know that he's being blessed in countless ways. He never ceases to amaze me. The last two weeks he's had me in tears with some of the things he says (not like that's been hard) and I've been reminded how even though I'm older, I'm so grateful for his amazing example and the incredible person that he is! I think in most ways, he really is the older sibling and I'm happy I have someone so great to look up to! Love him to death and I'm glad he reminded me that "at least now we'll still get to talk at Christmas"

graveyard

I'm pretty stoked to say that depression stage is officially over :) Halle-freakin-lujah! (Or however you spell it) Tough tough tough times there for awhile but I think it's safe to say that the worst is over for now. I realized this week that there's a lot of things I LOVE that I'd kinda forgotten about in my self-pity, wallowing phase of the summer. I had a couple REALLY good wake up calls that were good for getting my life back on track a little bit and me back to being me.

These are a few of my favorite things:

back rubs

sunsets

hiking (especially by myself)

new music on itunes

driving really fast

being inside wearing sweats during the rain

Tanner bringing over Magelby's breakfast

concerts

cowboys at the rodeos

dressing up

reading conference talks

laughing so hard I spit my frosty everywhere

funny texts

random road trip with Drew

almost all the missionary's coming home

watching my friends do well

Mt. Dew never fails me

boating with the Logan Ladies

waking up and being so comfortable I don't move

sunglasses and windows down

Jaxon when he laughs really hard

I have a TON to catch up on with everything that's happened lately. Life is moving faster than ever before and it's nearly impossible to stay caught up on everything. Right now I'm just taking everything in the best I can and am working at getting back on track in life. For now...life is good :)

for those who have asked....

I found a really good quote from (my favorite) Elder Holland. It pretty much sums up my life right now...

If you are lonely, please know you can find comfort.

If you are discouraged, please know you can find hope.

If you are poor in spirit, please know you can be strengthened.

If you feel you are broken, please know you can be mended.

I still cry almost everyday. I tune out for at least 80% of what people say when they talk to me, cause it's impossible to focus on anything. I'm caught in an awful limbo between not wanting to see anybody but not wanting to be alone. I blast music and sing ALL the time to try and drown out the voices in my head. I wish I could pay somebody to turn my mind off at night. And even during the day. I'm sick of people asking what I'm going to do next. "Try to find the second best option for life? Yeah..I'll probably do that."

I know I'll be back to myself eventually. Depressed right now? Yep. But sometimes that's just a part of life. I feel 90x better than I did a week ago so it's just kinda a waiting game.

Turns out chopping my hair off didn't help me feel much better either...