Why I want a Goldfish

This year has been an excellent year.

I've been blessed with awesome roomies who have been my best friends.

And I've had not one but two of my siblings here in good old P-Town. Shauna lived with me, and Jason hung out with us at least once a week.

But in just two weeks, the winter semester ends, and all of these awesome people are leaving me!

I admit that I'm feeling a little bit down about this. I know I shouldn't... I lived in Provo alone (no family) for years and I was okay. I've lived with strangers before, and it always works out.

I'm sure it'll work out again, but I'm really going to miss everybody. And I'm going to have to push myself to be a lot more social than I have been lately... I've become a homebody who spends all her time with her roommates, which has been fun but won't work once all those roommates are gone.

Shauna knows I'm worried about this... We were at Walmart the other day, and she tried to talk me into getting a plant. You know, some little living thing to keep me company. We looked at lots of them, but... they all seemed to require lots of sunlight, and I'm not sure they can get that in my apartment. Also, the last plant we had died a horrible prolonged death. And then accidentally got abandoned on my grandma's porch.

So, naturally, I took it upon myself to wander over to the fish tanks! Because everyone knows fish are easier to take care of than plants!

I almost came home with one of these little guys:

Isn't he adorable?

I also spent a while considering the glofish... One of the world's only legal genetically modified pets! They had a little pink one... It was tempting.

But.... I know my housing contract specifies no pets, so I didn't bring home any critters. Also, I haven't had a pet fish since I was about 7. I think my mom did most of the work. I don't know anything about proper fish care! (And try googling it--it's apparently more complicated to keep a fish than I ever realized. Did you know each goldfish requires 10 gallons of water?!?!?)

Still... there's something nice about having a pet. I miss my dog like crazy out here. Someday I will live in a pro-pets apartment and get myself a gerbil or a guinea pig or something.

Maybe for now I should try a virtual pet? Whatever happened to those Tamagotchi things? :)

BFFs

This week my BFF Hayley came to visit me during her spring break. (She works as a speech therapist in a school district). We've been friends since I was 11 years old... More than half of our lives, now!

I wanted to give her the grant "Utah is awesome" tour, so we fit as many things in as we possibly could!

Wednesday:

• Dinner at the Brick Oven

Thursday:

• Golf cart tour of BYU
• Exhibits at the BYU Museum of Art
• At least an hour of watching Youtube videos (mostly Twilight parodies...)
• COMPLETE 4 hour BBC miniseries of Jane Austen's Emma

Friday (our marathon day!):

• A walk through the Provo Downtown
• Lunch at the Cannon Center
• A trip to the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point (a dinosaur museum!)
• BYU's Easter Conference
• A late night trip to see the Host movie (we both enjoyed it, but there were definitely points where the whole audience cracked up at how ridiculous the plot/dialogue were).

Today:

• City Creek Center
• Temple Square!

It was a quick visit but we packed a lot of fun in. I'm so glad Hayley came to visit! Come back again now, you hear? :)

Reasons Today was Awesome

1. I got to see my mom's family today! We went to my cousin Justin's mission farewell and he gave an amazing talk. He is definitely ready to be a missionary!
2. I got to skype with my friend Andy who moved to Washington DC.
3. I got to teach Family History to the boys in the ward, and I think it went well. I was actually able to help a couple guys find names. :)
4. Some of our best guy friends from last year stopped by (Chad, Ryan, and Matt). Come back and visit us more often boys!

New Blog Header

I would like to title this new blog header "I am relearning to use Photoshop for the first time since high school and it is actually more fun than I remembered."

Enjoy. :) Once I've become a bit more proficient, I'll come up with something a bit more... legit. But you can't deny that this header is very Shelece-like!

2012: Year in Review

This time last year I was nervous about 2012. I knew graduation was coming up, but I didn't know what was coming next.


Turned out to be one of the best years ever! Here's some of the highlights:

I graduated with my master's degree! And I got an awesome job at Healthy Relationships California.

We went to see Wicked!

We went to San Diego (and we stopped at Sea World :)

I got to present at the American Psychological Association's Annual Convention! And I published my first two research articles in real research journals.

Here's hoping 2013 will be even better than this year! :)

Family

My family and I have always been super tight. Growing up, we kids liked nothing better than to stay home on the weekends and play with each other. Since I moved off to college, we've been a bit more spread out, but we've stayed close through phone calls, IMs, and video chats (not on Skype... good old MSN! :) Now my brother and sister are here with me going to school. Shauna lives with me. Jason's over in the freshie dorms, but we have lunch with him every Friday. We've all agreed that that's our favorite part of the week.

This past week my parents and baby sister were in town to celebrate Thanksgiving with us. It was SO FUN seeing them all! We also got to see our grandparents and all of our mom's side of the family.

Me and some of my cousins

I'm really grateful for a loving supportive family in my life. I honestly don't know what I would do without them.

Monsters

I spent years of my childhood convinced that monsters were real. My parents assured me over and over that they weren't. But I didn't listen. What if grownups were wrong? Maybe they just didn't know!

I've come to realize that even in my adult life, this kind of thinking comes back to haunt me. Older people (my parents, former professors) tell me I don't need to worry about something, but I do anyway. I think, what if they don't know? But they usually do.

Only here's the thing. I'm old enough to know that adults don't always have the answers, no matter how old they are. A lot of life you just figure out on your own.

So the real trick is figuring out...which situation am I in now?