How awful are these?

So...these are my new boots. How awful are these?? Seriously, they aren't attractive at all! I had to get these for school. The "joys" of Police Academy (and I haven't even started yet). They are totally manly, but I have to wear them. I know I need to start wearing them now to break them in, but I just can't bring myself to put them on and go out in public yet. And it gets worse...if that's possible. I figured that my pants would cover most of the boot so it wouldn't matter how bad they looked, but that is SO not the case. Not only do I have to wear these boots but I have tuck my manly looking pants into the boots and fluff them out (balloon them) around the top of the boot. I just keep reminding myself that I'm not the Police Academy to look pretty. It could be worse, right?

Some more about me.

I am exhausted, can't sleep, and blogging. That is NEVER a good combination! So here is a little "get to know me" I filled out on facebook and copied and pasted here. Enjoy!

1. If your doctor told you TODAY that you were pregnant, what would you say?
SO NOT possible! Trust me! :D

2. Do you trust all of your friends?
My best friends? Yes. All of my friends? No.

3. Would you move to another state or country to be with the one you love?
If I knew it was true and lasting love, Yes. I think it would be worth it.

4. Do you believe that everything happens for a reason?
Yes, but I usually wish I knew what the reason was.

5. Can you make a dollar in change right now?
You've got to be kidding me...I am a change ADDICT! I think I'm OCD, but I can't ever use
change. I just keep collecting it. (random, I know)

6. Which one of your friends do you think would make the best doctor?
Nicole. She is in nursing school but I think she would make an amazing doctor. The world could use more people like her!

7. Are you afraid of falling in love?
I'm not afraid. Falling in love and having it be one sided makes me a little nervous though.

8. What is your favorite part of being in love?
I have never really been in love. I think it would be amazing to have a permanent best friend who is there for you all the time though.

9. Is there someone who pops into your mind at random times?Yes. I sometimes worry about some of my friends and think about them often throughout the day.

10. What’s your most favorite scar?My pancreas scar. It goes most of the way across my stomach. It's a serious scar and I like it. It reminds me of what I've been through to be where I am today.

11. When was the longest flight you were on?
From Salt Lake to Phoenix and then Phoenix to Washington DC. It was about 7 hours of flying.

12. What did the last text message you sent say?
"I'm sorry. I'm here for you if you ever need anything. Even if you need to talk, I'm here!"

13. What features do you find most attractive in the preferred sex?
Honesty, charity, motivation, ethics, sincerity.

14. Fill in the blank.So long and thanks for all the _______.
Good times!

15.What is a goal you would like to accomplish in the near future?
Finish police academy and get a job at a PD (Orem being my preferred PD)

16. If you were to wake up from being in a coma for an extended time who would you call?
My dad and my grandma

17. How many kids do you want to have?
I think 3 is the perfect #, but I may change my opinion once I start having kids.

18. Would you make a good parent?
I think I would, but there are definitely things I need to work on before it happens.

19. Where was your blog header picture taken?
The wedding reception for my brother Russell and sister-in-law Marie (who I love...FYI!)

20. What’s your middle name?
Rae (same as my moms middle name, grandma Nielsens middle name and grandpa Whites first name)

21. Honestly, what’s on your mind right now?That I need to try harder to be a better friend and that I really should go to church tomorrow. Also that I feel so bad for my friend who I found out a sad situation about tonight.

22. If you could go back in time and change something, what would it be?
Some of the things I did/went through while being sick with my pancreas.

23. Who would be the maid of honor in your wedding?
My sister Jessie.

24. What are you wearing right now?
A tank top and PJ pants that are blue with penguins.

25. Righty or Lefty?
Both! No joke!

26. Best place to eat?
Red Robin or Cafe Rio

27. Favorite jeans?
Don't really have favorites, but don't really have time to wear alot of jeans.

28.Favorite animal?
Giraffe. There is one at Hogal Zoo who is named Kayla! :D

29. Favorite juice?
Probably apple, but depends on the day.

30. Have you had the chicken pox?
Yes and I gave them to my mom and Russell (when Russ was just a brand new baby)

31. Have you had a sore throat?
Unfortunately! My immune system kind of stinks...

32. Ever had a bar fight?
Nope, but I've searched (patted down) a girl who has been in one. She STUNK!

33. Who knows you the best?
My dad probably.

34. Shoe size?
I think 8 1/2

35. Do you wear contact lenses or glasses?
I got glasses when I was 4 years old, but then got lasik surgery 1 1/2 years ago and have been
free of contacts/glasses since then!

36. Ever been in a fight with your pet?
Nope

37. Been to Mexico?
No, but I would like to someday.

38. Did you buy something today?
No, I worked all day. No time to shop!

39. Did you get sick today?
Sick? No, unless a headache counts, and then Yes.

40. Do you miss someone today?
Yes, I do often.

41. Did you get in a fight with someone today?
No but I got mad at an officer at work for being kind of rude.

42. When is the last time you had a massage?
Never (well never a real massage...roommates are good for some things...)

43. Last person to lie in your bed?
I think Megan while we were using the computer.

44. Last person to see you cry?
I don't know. I usually don't cry in front of people.

45. Who made you cry?A stupid officer who was rude to me for no reason.

46. What was the last TV show you watched?
I am watching Law & Order: SVU right now.

47. What are your plans for the weekend?
Nothing! I have Sunday and Monday off and I plan to do nothing and just enjoy being able to relax!

48. Who do you think will repost this?
I don't know (or care) if anyone will.

49. Who was the last person you hung out with?
Trent, Marie and Juli...along with about 20 officers. Oh, the joys of work! :P

50. If your significant other asked you to marry them TODAY what would you say? I don't have a significant other, but if I had someone who I considered my one and only significant other, then I think I would say yes.

Want some answers?

Have you ever had a question you wanted to ask someone but the subject never came up or it never seemed like a good time? Have you ever just wondered something and wanted an answer?

WELL HERE IS YOUR CHANCE!!

I am going to let you ask me whatever you want! Seriously, anything is game. It can be about my job, my school, my person life, my family or anything else you can think about. I'm going to answer the questions every Sunday...until I decide the game is over. That gives you all plenty of time to think up whatever you can and ask me. Just post your question(s) (please feel free to ask as many as you want) in my comments and I'll answer them all. I promise. If you want to know, I'll tell you. And if it's something way too personal I'll still answer, but I may get creative...! :P

So go ahead, start brainstorming. Think up the best questions you can and get ready for some answers!

Seriously amazing!

For those of you who haven't seen this, you are missing out! The show Britians Got Talent is similar our American Idol. I saw this video and was amazed. I've watched it several times since and everytime it makes me happy. I have never seen Simon Cowell smile through a whole performance by anyone. I hope you all enjoy! (you'll have to click on the link and go to youtube website. for some reason the embedding was disabled so I couldn't post the actual video on here.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxPZh4AnWyk

So very difficult! I hate it!

I think I've posted about this before, but I'm posting about it again because it's on my mind and I can't seem to shake it. I love my job. There are so many good things that it has to offer, and even when it's stressful, difficult, boring, etc it is still worth it at the end of the day. Of course there are a few annoyances and it's not without it's bumps, but it's a good job.

I decided today that there is one thing I hate about my job. I never thought I would hate something about my job, but I do. And every time I think it's not as bad as I think, it comes up again and seems worse.

I hate that I find out things about people that I don't want to know. I know things about my friends and family and neighbors. You know all those dirty little secrets that people keep hidden? Well I know about them...

I hate that I know things about people. I hate that I find out these awful things and then have to go on pretending like I don't know about them. No matter what anyone tells you, it's not easy to treat a person "normal" when you know things about them. Whether there are the suspect, victim, involved party, etc it stinks! It is the one thing I hate most about my job.

Now you're all probably wondering what brought on this post. I can't share. It's confidential. And I promise you that you wouldn't want to know anyways. I wouldn't want anyone else to have to be in between because it's not a fun place to be. The situation tonight puts my friend in the victim shoes. I want him to know I'm praying for him. I offered to help in anyway I can. I'm sick to my stomach because I feel so bad for him and the situation, and yet I can't fix it. Another down side to this same curse of knowing things.

Trust me when I say this... Having knowledge isn't all it's cracked up to be. Sometimes being kept in the dark is the best place to be.

I also realized tonight that I get too emotionally attached. I care so much about my friends that when I hear a sad story I just don't stay on the outside and think "Wow, that's sad!" It gets to me. I feel so bad that I start to get emotional. I hope he makes it through this and comes out a better person.

Please just be grateful for what you have. Be grateful for your family and friends who really are there for you all the time and haven't ever wavered. Too many people waver.

(sorry there are no pictures. this post is more of a journal/thought process post than anything else.)

Winter...again?!?

It had rained the past few days, but yesterday the rain turned to snow. It snowed an inch or so and then stopped, and I thought it was done. I was so WRONG! I went to work last night at 9 pm and by about 10 pm it was a blizzard outside. It snowed upwards of 10 inches last night and at times we couldn’t see Smiths grocery store from our window at work. (For those of you who don’t know, Smiths is just right across a small parking lot and a street from us. We couldn’t even see the cars in the parking lot at times.

It was so busy at work. We had traffic accidents and slide offs. We had trees falling down in roadways and trees falling down on power lines and power lines falling down on roadways. We had to shut down Center Street both directions for awhile because vehicles were getting stuck at the bottom and were unable to make it up or were getting stuck on the hill and were unable to turn around. I think this was probably one of the worst (if not THE worst) snow storm we have had this whole year. When I left this morning, this is what I saw:
This is at my apartment. The tree straight ahead used to stand up tall and be so pretty with purple blossoms.

A view at our apartment.

The snow on the front of my car. It was almost a foot high.

Snow covered (and sagging) trees.

More snow on my car.

The trees at work.

What most people had to wake up to...I drove home from work in it.

Police Academy!

I am officially accepted into police academy and start June 9! I am so excited!! I have my acceptance letter and uniform/equipment sheet and I am ready to start!

I had been getting my paperwork ready for applying over the course of about 2 weeks. The night before I had to meet with the Director I decided to look through my whole application one more time. I am SO glad I did! I had forgotten to do an attachment of all the residences I’ve lived in over the past 10 years. I typed up the attachment and then added an extra half hour to my alarm clock for the next morning and tried to go to sleep. I was so excited about applying that I could hardly sleep.

I woke up the next morning a little tired, but very ready to get it over with. I showered and got all ready for the day and then headed up to my grandparents house to use their printer. I had so many issues getting my attachment to print but finally got it done. I then had to run to the copy store and make a copy of my whole application and all the additional sheets and attachments for my own copy. I felt so crunched on time, but made it to the college with enough time to find a parking spot, find the conference room we were meeting in, and sit for a few minutes to catch my breath before our meeting started. The Director came in and introduced himself to us and then we started. We all (18 of us) went through our applications together with the Director. He told us all the things we should have attached and should have notarized etc. He also told us things that would disqualify us like having committed a misdemeanor in the last year etc. Some of the people fell into the category of not having everything done or having had committed some type of crime or offense to keep them out, and about 6 people were weeded out. For all of the rest of us, after about an hour and a half of being in the hottest conference room ever, we were given our official letters of acceptance and equipment sheet and welcomed into the academy. It was such a RELIEF! I couldn’t believe that I was in.

I am so excited to start. I need to start running now (PT isn’t always the easiest in the academy) and get my uniforms ready and purchased (which look very manly FYI), but I’m in and I can take a break and check a huge thing off of my list of things to do in my life. I stress just a little every time I think of working full time and going to the academy and everything else I need to do, but I know it will be worth it and overall I am very excited. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. I definitely felt them!

Behind...

I’ve gotten behind on blogging, but I promise I had a good excuse…my sister has been sick and I’ve been her babysitter. We have had a few sleepless nights and rough days. I feel so bad for her and wish there were something I could do, but there isn’t. My parents came and picked her up today and took her home to their house for the weekend to babysit her and hopefully nurse her back to health. My babysitting/nursing career ended when I had to go back to work this week and work graves and swings. I hope she’s ok and gets better soon! We need to celebrate her half birthday (which is today) as soon as she is feeling up to it. My lack of blogging doesn’t mean I don’t have things to blog about…I’ve been stockpiling things to blog about. So I hope you are patient as I add several posts all tonight!

Easter

I was supposed to work Easter, but my friend Susan at work said they don’t really do anything on Easter and so she would work for me. I was so excited to have the day off to spend with my family! I slept for the first part of the day (I had worked a late shift the night before) and then I woke up when Jessie and Jamie came home from church. We loaded up all of our stuff and headed out to my moms house. Once we got to my moms, the 3 of us (me, Jessie and Jamie) went into the spare bedroom and filled Easter eggs with candy. That was our contribution to Easter. We had SO MANY eggs! We had 10 each for all 9 of us (so that’s 90…) and then we had another 30 or so extra for later in the day. After our eggs were filled we went and helped my mom finish dinner and set the table. We then just visited until the rest of the family got there.

After everyone (Dad, Mom, Rickey, Mari, Russell, Mari, Jessie, Jamie and I) were all there, we sat down for dinner. We had such a delicious dinner! Mom had made ham and cheesy potatoes, homemade rolls, deviled eggs, salad etc. It was fabulous! We just took our time eating dinner and visiting with each other. Right as dinner ended dad got an ambulance call and had to leave. Some of us took that opportunity to take a short nap while the others cleaned up dinner. After dinner was all cleaned up, we decided it was time for our Easter egg hunt.

My parent’s house is pretty small, and we figured it would be pretty difficult to hide 90 eggs in the kitchen/living room area, so we came up with a plan. We decided to do our hunt in groups and to time us (we figured we had to make it exciting since we’re all adults). We hid 20 eggs and Rickey and Mari went first. Mari found her 10 first and was the winner of the group. We then hid 20 more for Russell and Marie. Marie had never had an Easter egg hunt before (I guess they don’t really do that in Guatamala) so she had a great time! Russell found his 10 eggs first, and then after a few hints Marie found all of hers. Us girls (Jamie, Jessie and I) went next. Jessie found her 10, with me just a few seconds behind, and then Jamie just a minute behind that. (And…the 3 of us were faster than any other group even though we had more people and more eggs!) While we were hunting our eggs dad came back home, and as soon as we finished we had him and mom go in the other room while all of us kids hid their eggs. We chose VERY difficult hiding places, but they still did a good job. Mom found her 10 eggs first (with the help of several people) and then dad was shortly behind her. It was such a fun day and such a fun thing to do even though we’re all grown ups! :P

After we were done with the Easter egg hunt we chatted for a few more minutes and then headed out. The 3 of us girls had big plans for Easter evening! We went to grandpa and grandmas house. We visited with them for a few minutes and then we got down to business. We gave grandpa the 30 extra eggs we had and told him to go outside and hide them for us. (He knew it was coming, we had asked him a few days before and he was very excited about it!) He told us he had also hid 11 REAL eggs which we were very excited about as well. While he hid our eggs we went next door to Lori’s house (my aunt) and visited. We also picked up Meriam who was joining us in our egg hunt. Grandpa finally came back and got us and we started our hunt.

Grandpa is a FABULOUS egg hider! He had some very good, very tricky and very hard hiding places! There were about 40 eggs total and 4 of us, but we searched his backyard for probably a half hour or more before we found them all. Jamie ended up finding the most real eggs and the most eggs overall, but we were all very close behind. We had such a fun time and had so much fun visiting with grandma and grandpa.

After all of our Easter fun, we were tired (especially poor Jamie who worked all night and only slept an hour before getting up to go to church)! We went home and all laid down to take a nap. Jamie and I slept through ward prayer (which everyone else went to) and then we woke up to visit with our roommates and eventually watch a movie before going to bed. It was a LONG day, but such a fun day. I’m glad I was able to spend the whole day with my family. I miss out on holidays a lot because of my job, which I’m ok with and accept, but it’s still nice to have one off every once in awhile! Here are ALOT of pictures in no specific order...

Dad and Jessie. I love dads serious face! :P

And now it's Jessie with the serious face.

Jamie is just one of the fam!

Mom and Muffins...at least muff isn't wearing any clothes in this picture.

Just chilling after the egg hunt.

Mom and dad just finishing up their turn.

Russell and Marie watching mom and dad look for eggs.

Dad searching for eggs in the laundry room.

Mom searching for eggs.

The parents searching for eggs in the laundry room...Yes, they did find SOME in there.

Jessie and Jamie pretending to look for eggs.

Marie doing her very first Easter egg hunt ever!

The girls (and grandpas shadow) after our egg hunt.

The girls with all of our goods!

Counting our eggs. We had so much fun!

Seriously worth it!

I was Walgreens yesterday chillin for about 15 minutes while I waited for my passport picture. I was just looking around at random items and I saw the SmoothAway product. I had seen several commercials on TV about it and wondered if it was worth it, but I'm not a big fan of buying things off of TV. So when I found it in the store I thought "Why not?" and so I picked it up and bought it.

Last night I thought I would put it to the test. I LOVED IT! First of all, it works. Second of all, it made my legs smoother than anything I've tried before. It was so simple and so amazing! I would seriously suggest it to anyone who hates shaving their legs! It only cost me $9.99 at Walgreens and I would pay even more than that for it now that I've used it. Seriously, try it. You won't be disappointed! :D

Still have stuff to do...

There are still things I need to do before I'm officially ready to start Police Academy.

* I need to go see my new doctor who specializes in pancreas diseases. I need to get on a good and healthy plan to not have problems while I am in the academy.

* I need to call my hand doctor. If we are going to do surgery on my arm we need to do it soon. I need to be able to heal and have physical therapy before academy begins.

* I need to start running. In the academy you run 3 nights a week...starting at 1 1/2 miles at a time and ending at 7 miles at a time. I need to get in the habit of running several times a week.

* I need to start slowly lifting weights. It will have to be slow becuase of my arm problems, but I've got to do it. I also need to brush up on my other workout stuff. I need to get back in the routine of doing pushups and situps every day. I'm not concerned about pushups and situps when it comes to testing, but I should get used to doing them regularly again.

* I need to start getting use to sleeping 6 hours a night. Right now I am still getting 8 hours a night. And this may not seem like a big deal, but for me, with my medications and illness, it takes time to get used to sleeping less than 8 hours. I am going to work weeknights from 22 (10 pm) to 08 (8 am) and then sleep 6 1/2-ish hours and then have to get ready for school. School will start at 17 (5 pm) and end at 22 (10 pm) and then I'll go straight from school to work and start all over.

It is going to be a big change and alot to get used to, but I am so very excied about doing it. I have waited awhile for this to happen, and have put it off several times for several different reasons. But I'm doing it now and I feel good about it. YAY!

I am so close!

I am so close. I finished all my Police Academy requirements and got all of my print outs. I have this weekend to make sure it is all perfect and theb Monday is the big day. I can't wait to meet with the Director and officially be moving on to this next step in life. I could use your thoughts and prayers as I prepare to meet and interview on Monday. I have mixed feelings. Some days I feel confident and other days I feel nervous. But bottom line is, I feel good about my choice to go through the academy at this time in my life. I'll let you all know how it turns out as soon as I know! Thanks for your support.