Tuesday, December 31, 2013

It's That Time of Year!!

Once Upon a Time...

    Whenever a year draws close to it's end, it seems like that's when reflecting begins! New Years Eve is when people usually start thinking about what they did or what happened to them that made a mark on their lives. I mean, you see it all over social media and all that good stuff. To me, it's really weird when a year comes to a close. Have you ever thought about how the year only happens once? There will never be another 2013 and there will never be another 2014 after this next year! In my opinion, that puts a whole heck of a lot of pressure on us! If you only have one year to do something, it seems like you are forced to do something AMAZING and impactful!!! That's kind of scary...
Soooo I started thinking of what I did in 2013 and I came up with some that were "important" or fun... I did more, I just don't remember :P haha

THINGS I DID IN 2013:
  • Graduated High School: Let's be real, this is a major accomplishment :)
  • Went to Odyssey of the Mind World Finals and came in 6th place: This was SO much fun. If you don't know what OotM is, it's basically a theater thing where you prepare a 7 minute skit and perform it in front of judges at Regional, State, and World level competitions. My team was awesome and they're like my best friends!! We placed 6th- which is a HUGE deal!!
  • Worked at a summer camp: I was every kid's favorite person, so that's cool...
  • Began "real" college: Come on, this is huge, too :D
  • Watched a ton of amazing movies: This is just fun, not really a big deal :) haha


And They All Lived Happily Ever After...

Friday, December 20, 2013

My Favorite Christmas Tradition!

Once Upon a Time...

    Although we have many more traditions, I'm going to stop at this one (which is probably my favorite).
     We have this Nativity set, right? It's this cute little plastic sculpture of just Mary, Joseph, Jesus and his manger. Now most Nativity sets have baby Jesus attached to his manger, but this one doesn't. He's removable. Ever since I was little, this was my favorite part. I LOVED that little Nativity set! We would pull the set out of the Christmas stuff and play with it. There was just one thing: baby Jesus was always missing! But, we were excited anyways. We'd make little stables out of shoeboxes and bring little sheep toys from LEGOs and stuff and set up the scene. On Christmas day, the baby Jesus would appear!! That was my favorite part of Christmas. My mom would said that I would run downstairs past all the presents and just go to the Nativity set, let out this excited squeal, and say "Baby Jesus is here!". It always amazed me as a kid, seeing Baby Jesus appear on Christmas. I'd carry him with me all day and, sometimes, I'd even put him on my pillow at night and tuck him in. Of course, now that I'm older, I know my mom hid him each year and made him appear, but still, it was the magic that came with Christmas. Through this small thing, my parents taught us to see what Christmas was really about. I mean, the gifts were always cool, but I never really remember what I got for Christmas... but I always will remember the excitement of seeing Baby Jesus in His little manger. This little toy represented the greatest gift of all. It represented Jesus Christ who was born in a manger and would end up sacrificing Himself so we could live eternally with God. I mean, what's a better gift than that!? No matter how many or how little presents we receive this year, next year, or any years to come, there is a greater gift out there- one that trumps any gift we could ever get in stores and that is the gift God gave us.

And They All Lived Happily Ever After...

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

The Tasty Part of Our Christmas Traditions!

Once Upon a Time...

     Here's another tradition! CINNAMON ROLLS!!!!

     Every year, on Christmas, my mom makes cinnamon rolls for breakfast. We would typically wake up on Christmas, open stockings, then go eat breakfast before diving in to the rest of the gifts. This is like the only day we'd ever get cinnamon rolls and (I'll let you in on a secret...) I LOVE CINNAMON ROLLS. My mom would stay up the night before and make them so they would've risen and be ready to bake the next morning. However, she would try recipe after recipe and they never tasted super super good (and she'll admit it, too, so it's not like I'm bashing on her cooking). We even used to get the ready-to-bake ones from the freezer section. UNTIL last year. Oh dear me. My mother got a recipe, decided to try it, made it, and it. Was. HEAVENLY. We all now will freely say that my mom is the cinnamon roll queen and has achieved perfection. I love this tradition because (1) I love my mom's cooking and the fact she mastered cinnamon rolls makes it sooooo amazing and (2) I LOVE CINNAMON ROLLS!!! :)


And They All Lived Happily Ever After...

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Movie Traditions of Christmas

Once Upon a Time...

     OK, so my family loves movies. So daggone much. Christmas movies, although we can often get sick of them, are classics and we watch these movies quite often!!!
  1. Miracle on 34th Street. Although there are a couple versions, we prefer the 1994 version. The whole video-tape "you forgot to sew up the turkey's bottom!" part is quoted a bit in our house :)
  2. Christmas in Connecticut. This is a great movie. Though it is black and white, which can be a turnoff for some people, it is really "hunky-dunky!"
  3. It's a Wonderful Life. Once again, another black and white classic. I like this movie. You should watch it.
  4. The obvious Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and the other animated classics.
  5. White Christmas. Good movie. Haven't seen it as much as the others, but it's still good.
  6. Home Alone and Home Alone 2. Come on now, who HASN'T watched these!! "Merry Christmas you filthy animal..." haha they're so funny!!!
There are others, but those are the main ones we watch. :) You should check 'em out!!


And They All Lived Happily Ever After...

Monday, December 16, 2013

Christmas traditions

Once Upon a Time...

     I'm baaaaaack!!! At least, I hope I am. Well, here I am on Christmas break with one college semester over with! Kind of exciting :) My first semester was good, but I'm hoping next semester will be better!
     SO today, in the spirit of the Christmas season, I am going to tell you all about some of my family's Christmas traditions each day!! A new tradition each day! We don't really have a ton- what we do usually varies year to year- but we do have some that we love to keep, and I'd love to share some with you.
     Today's tradition is our Christmas Eve tradition! For as long as I can remember we have this Christmas Eve tradition of opening the presents aunts/uncles/grandparents/friends sent us. This is also the time my brother and I open presents we got each other. This was always a good tradition because my brother HATES waiting to open presents :) We always loved opening presents- I mean who doesn't?- and it was fun to have a little excitement before Christmas. My dad also would read the Christmas story (can be found: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+2%3A1-20&version=NIV ), which was nice, and then the kids were sent off to bed. Let's be real, though, and say we never slept. I mean, eventually we did, but we were always so excited it was hard to sleep!! One time, to "fix" this problem, my mom put on the Kenny G Christmas album... to this day, I hate hearing that. For starters, it kept me up instead of putting me to sleep. Secondly, because I was awake, I swear I listened to it ON REPEAT like 7 times. I was ready to chuck that CD player out the window.... Needless to say, the next morning I looked like a zombie and had a new hatred for saxophones...
    BUT ANYWAYS, that is basically our Christmas eve tradition. Tune in probably tomorrow where I share another!! I promise it won't be my story on why I hate tubas or something :)


And They All Lived Happily Ever After...

Sunday, November 3, 2013

I'm back!! (Hopefully): Some Cover Songs

Once Upon a Time...

     Well hello all you lovely people!! So I'm back!! Hopefully, at least. I have been so busy with all this college stuff!!! Ok, not really. I've had a LOT of Netflixing time, but let's forget that and continue with the fact that I will hopefully be back to blogging!! :)
     SO today I'd love to talk to ya'll about cover songs!! Many people don't know what that means, so I'll quickly explain. Famous people make songs. "Normal" people sing the songs and that is called "covering" them. So when you go on YouTube and see a song, if it says "cover" after it, that means someone else is singing it.
I would like to share with you a couple of amazing covers I found and love! So I'm gonna give you 5 of them to listen to!

#5: Titanium (by David Guetta Ft. Sia)
sung by Christina Grimmie

 
Why I like it: I love this song. I love Christina Grimmie! So.. it's good. I like this song because it has a good theme of how you can withstand everything life throws at you. 
 
#4: Roar (by Katy Perry)
sung by Alex G.
 
 
Why I like it: Katy Perry gave me another song I love! I love this song because it basically states how you can be your own person and not care what other people think or not be dragged down by other people.
 
#3: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons)
sung by Pentatonix ft. Lindsey Stirling
 
 
Why I like it: I like Pentatonix. I like Lindsey Stirling. Combine the two and you have perfection. Well, close to it. I love them. Pentatonix (for those of you that don't know) is an acapella group that is super good! And Lindsey Stirling is a awesome violinist!
 
#2: As Long as You Love Me (by Justin Beiber)
sung by Anthem Lights
 
Why I like it: I already posted a while back about how I LOVE Anthem Lights. They are awesome. No debate :) haha!! But I love this song because it's really cute! And they sing it so wonderfully. I don't know. I just like it?
 
#1: Wrecking Ball (by Miley Cyrus)
sung by Megan Nicole
 

Why I like it: Now I know not many people like Miley Cyrus anymore. But this song, when sung by other people, can sound gorgeous!! I LOVE this cover. It's really nice!! Another great Wrecking Ball cover is by Eli Lieb. Check it out here, too!!
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Comment back to tell me which of these covers was your favorite!!! :)
 
 
And They All Lived Happily Ever After...

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

'Ello!


Once Upon a Time...

    Hey everyone! So I greatly apologize for not being on in FOREVER!! I've been super busy with school and getting in the groove of things, I haven't really had time to post things!! Well, I just ended my 3rd week of school and I'm loving it!! Most of it, at least. There's a 1 credit course I'm taking that is going to be a pain in my behind- and it stinks because it's only 1 CREDIT!! Anyways, I'm having a ton of fun- I love all my classes (minus the one mentioned above), I love the freedom, and I love meeting people!! However, I hate the late nights (I haven't gone to bed before 12 in sooo long), I hate waking up early, I hate making time to eat (because I have NO breaks for lunch so I'm sooo hungry all the time!), and I hate how rude people can be.
Just a tip for everyone out there: be nice to people!! Even if you don't want to be friends with them, STILL be nice to people!! There are some girls on my hall and I walked by their room and heard them playing a song I really liked. So me, being friendly and wanting to make friends, paused and complimented them by saying, "Hey! I love this song! I'm glad someone else knows this band!" and they replied by glaring at me, getting up, and slamming the door in my face. I mean, I was being NICE!!! So please, just remember, if you do something like that, you make the people feel like crap and that's rude. If you're nice, people will more than likely LIKE you! No duh.
There are many girls on campus that are like that, unfortunately, and it actually put me in quite a funk the other day. We girls are very sensitive (most of us) and we can make mountains out of molehills quite easily. I had to vent to my friends about how rude girls were being was and how I feel like I'm inadequate and it was awful! I know a lot of people- girls especially- that feel that way.  We feel like we're getting judged no matter where we go, whether it's how we look, what we eat, how we talk, who we hang out with, etc. Every day after I vented this week, however, something came up regarding this topic. Here are a few things I learned and I'd love to share with you guys- especially if you feel this way, too!

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~Love yourself. This sounds kind of weird. You're probably like "She wants me... to LOVE myself? Whaaat?" But seriously! This is good advice!! I found a quote by Mark Sterling that goes a little like this: "If you want to soar in life, you must first learn to F.L.Y. (First Love Yourself)". DANG! That's poetic right there!! Basically, if you want people to love and accept you for you, you have to first choose if YOU want to love and accept you for you!! If you tell yourself, "I'm too fat!", "I'm too skinny!", "I'm too ugly!", "I'm stupid!", "No one could love me!", etcetera, then you'll not only believe it, but others around you will, too! People see you as you see yourself. Lucille Ball once said, "Love yourself first, and everything else falls into line."

~You are unique. Dr. Seuss is known for his quote that says "Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” The last sentence of that is amazing. We're all different, so if no one likes you for who you are, then they're missing out on a one-of-a-kind experience! NO ONE alive is "Youer than You". There's only one of you and you should be proud of it.

~You are not alone. People go around wearing masks that protect them from getting hurt. What we don't see is what's underneath- the pain that goes on under those beautiful, confident masks. Whatever you're going through, KNOW you are never alone. Someone else is experiencing or has experienced exactly what you have.
Plus, you have a Friend that is walking by you always and will comfort you when necessary and never leave you. Deuteronomy 31:6 says to "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” (NIV). God promised that- and when He promises something, He never breaks it.

~Sometimes you have to open yourself up. I personally have a hard time with this. I used to keep everything bottled in and it felt like I'd just explode at any moment!! Sometimes you have to tell people what's going on and let someone else help you! It feels great to talk to someone about what's going on. Don't think about it being a sign of weakness or something- that's what I felt! I think, now, it's actually more mature when you can talk to people about your problems! Make sure it's someone you trust, though, and someone that cares about you! You don't want the person going and talking behind your back about your problems because that causes problems in itself!!

~Dare to be DIFFERENT!! You were born to be you!! You were born unique!! You have talents and characteristics no one else does. Don't try to fit in with the world- dare to be different!! One of my favorite Dr. Seuss quotes is "Why fit in when you were born to stand out?". This is so true. We WERE born to stand out- not fit in. Why should it matter what other people think of you- they're just people and YOU'RE YOUR OWN PERSON. Be proud of that!!

~Remember that you are beautiful; you are precious; you are worth something!! We are all beautiful creations of God. Now I know that not all of the people that read this believe in God. But here's the thing: whether we believe in God or not, He believes in us and sent His Son to DIE for us- His creation! He bought us with a price- obviously we're worth SOO much to Him!

~God created us just the way we are. Genesis 1:27 says that "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created them..." (NIV). According to this verse, we, as humans, automatically have a connection to God- we are created to be like Him, in HIS image! We are precious to Him whether we choose to believe that or not.

Now just because I'm saying these things, doesn't mean I'm perfect. Heck, I'm FAR from perfect!! I am just as insecure as the next girl, but I'm trying to work on that. I struggle with these same things. I have to realize these truths and be my own person!! Stay confident. Be you. I'll be working on this, too, so YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
I hope you were able to take a lot of this away and apply it to your life!! I also hope it helped and encouraged you like it did me!! Stay strong, everyone!!

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Guys, I'm a Christian. You probably know that. Just because I'm a Christian doesn't mean I'm perfect. I'm not perfect. None of us are. This week I realized that, despite feeling inadequate and like a loser, I have someone I can turn to for everything. He IS perfect and can and will help you through anything. The world might look at me with hatred, but God never does! Girls might judge me based on what I wear, but God sees what's in my heart and loves me for me! If you don't know God, I highly suggest you find out who He is!! Here's a video I was shown the other day and it's long, I know, but really impactful: http://myhopewithbillygraham.org/defining-moments/ I highly recommend this!! You are also very welcome to email me with anything: aprincessfromfaraway@gmail.com.


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And They All Lived Happily Ever After...