I love you, Jim Halpert.

I used to be a busy-body.

If I went one day without something to do,  

(rehearsal, school, rehearsal, job, rehearsal)

I felt like a failure. And I became depressed, thinking I was lazy and worthless.

Well...

I am (not) ashamed to say that my favorite things to do now are:

eating.

watching netflix.

napping. 

I would say I am living the life. 

Sure, I miss my various social, acting, school-related families.

But my netflix families entertain me, and don't ask me to do stuff. 

I just finished The Office for the second time. 

And I can say that the laughing I do while watching that show, gives me as many endorphines as I would get doing exercise, and walking around and stuff... 

So, thank you, universe for FINALLY letting me just

take a break. 

That's all, I guess. 

If you want to be happy, be.

-May May 

Decision made.

I know I am just adding to the big world of LDS girls who are now changing their lives to go on a mission, but I just wanted to make it official that my papers are DONE, and are just waiting to get sent in until I am able to come back to Utah in a couple of weeks. 

I just want to say that for me, and I'm sure MANY others, this was a huge answer to prayer. I've been wondering what I was supposed to do with the next couple years of my life. 

Nursing school, 

Disney auditions, 

BYU Idaho, 

Weber State... 

they were all being tossed around, but now I am sure of what I am supposed to do. 

There has been a lot of derogatory conversation about girls leaving for the wrong reasons, or leaving simply because it's the "thing", or that they may have not been planning on going in the first place and now they are planning on going so that's bad...?

Well.

Forever, since girls have been able to go on missions, it's been a serious debatable issue in our minds. We've been taught that if we don't get married, we should serve a mission. 

So, we might have been planning to not plan. 

But now that the age has been lowered, and most of us are not getting married at 19, it just means that we can get the best of both worlds. 

So for those of you also preparing to go,

HOORAY! 

I am so excited for US, and all of those lucky people who are going to be taught the gospel because of the willingness of so many young women to serve. 

And young men, of course :) 

Basically, it just comes down to this.

When the Prophet asks, we respond. That's just what our church believes, and I think it's absolutely wonderful that so many of us are responding so quickly. It shows so much unity among the youth of the church.

If you didn't hear the announcement, you can watch it here:

And for those of you who may not be familiar with my religion or missionary work, you can learn more here:

www.lds.org

The church is true!

If you want to be happy, be.

-May May 

My ginger friend lives far away.

I love it when I'm studying and wishing I was dead, and Maddie sends me this:

To which I reply:

To which she replies:

And then:

Followed by:

AND THEN:

To which I reply:

And she says,

"Wow, one upper."

I don't think anyone understand our relationship, but I'm glad it exists.

Friends make college bearable. 

Even if they're ginger.

And they live 400 miles away.

If you want to be happy, be.

-May May 

One.

I made one new years resolution this year.

ONE.

To learn how to whistle. 

Well.

I still have not achieved it. 

It's HARD to whistle. I'm afraid it's a talent I will never possess. 

And I tried REALLY hard this year to set an easy new years resolution so that once, just once...

I could achieve it. 

Three more months, fools and I will be one of the fetching 7 dwarfs. 

Just you wait.

If you want to be happy, be.

-May May

My Mini Tribute to Acting Up.

Today is an "I miss Acting Up" day.

In AU, I learned many things.

If it's not yours, don't touch it.

Top of your intelligence.

Be cheerfully flexible.

Fake it 'til you make it.

Be a team builder

Leave it better than you found it.

Always auditioning.

Laurel is center. 

But, I'd say the one rule we pretty much kept all year round was:

Leave your ego at the door.

I know you're thinking, "That's not true"

BUT I will tell you. It wasn't until the senior banquet each year, that we realized that other people in the group actually owned normal clothing, and knew how to brush their hair.

It was impossible to have an ego when you looked and acted the way we did.

Anyways, I'm super missing my Acting Up family, and here are a few of my favorite photos from my three years in Acting Up, that I think exemplify our lack of ego :) 

And some that are just swell.

I miss this.

 Sophomore Girls (above)
Even though we obviously weren't all sophomores.. we always just referred to ourselves as the sophomore girls.

Airplane Buddies! (left)
Meg and Mare always flew next to each other.

 This is the time that we skipped World of Color and rode Tower of Terror 8+ times.

 Cong-a-Long-e-Bong wearing my ears. 

 

Acting Up always has the best boys.

Burning Love, 2010

My attractive best friend.
He's gonna be SUCH a good missionary with that face. 

This was when we performed The Three Little Pigs in Da' Hood.  

"INDIANS!"  

So there was this girl.

And she went to see her bishop.

She was wearing one of those suits that protects you from bees.

And the bishop said.

"I think you misunderstood when I called you to be the beehive president." 

Isn't that hysterical?

Oh, Aubs.  

 Tradition.

 Singing in the vans. Always a must.

Aren't we attractive? 

This is the time Maddie slapped me in the face with a tortilla.

And she yelled,

"TORTILLA!"

These are the days.

Strengthen our brother.

Help each other home.

I'd say that aside from leaving our egos at the door, being cheerfully flexible and faking it 'til we made it... the number one thing I learned in Acting Up was to help each other home. 

And we did  :) 

Yep.

If you want to be happy, be.

-May May 

Chalk.

This weekend, as previously mentioned, I paid a visit to Utah.

It was a swell time.

I saw ALMOST everyone I wanted to see.

And did ALMOST everything I wanted to do.

But time was short, as it always is.

One of the fun things I was able to do while in happy valley, was go to

Chalk the Block.

Boy, was I impressed. There are some really talented people out there. 

 Of course, this was my favorite:

And this too... A-MAZING:

And then there's MY chalk artwork, that I'm so good at...

YES, this is me. Can't you tell?

Okay, okay. You're right. Wrong hair color. 

You've got me there. 

Chalk the Block is (I think) still going on in Provo at the Riverwoods.

Unless it rained.

If you want to be happy, be.

-May May

College smells like coffee.

Those who know me, know I have three very unfortunate allergies. 

Well, two very unfortunate.

One, I'm indifferent to.

Chocolate, Food dye, and Coffee. 

(there's a WHOLE lotta other stuff I can't eat, but not necessarily allergic to)

So, here I am, trying to be a good lil' human being and go to college like I should.

And we all know, that when you start college it is of course

time for a makeover.

So I dyed my hair BROWN.

Those of you know who me as a blonde... all I have to say is times are a-changin'.

Actually, not really. I decided I hate brown hair so I won't be brunette for long.

WHOA. Too dark? I think so too.

This is my BFF Jayme and I, the day we said "So Long" and went away to college. 

I hate college.

Which gets me back to where I was trying to go with this post.

In my attempt to get a makeover for college, I also changed my skincare. 

I usually use Cetaphil. It's a simple skin cleanser with nothing fancy in it. I usually LOVE this stuff, but found it was drying out my face in Nevada.

(that's where I live now. surprise.)

So I actually decided to try something that was recommended to me by a friend. She recommended 

Acne Free

Which is basically Proactiv, but cheaper. 

But the last time I used that product, my face got really irritated and it just didn't do it for me, folks. 

So I decided to try again, but this time... I got the sensitive version.

Mmm Mmm.

It looks like this, you can buy it at Target, and

It works.

I've been blessed with relatively clear skin, never had a serious problem.

So this stuff is excellent if you are trying to maintain your clear skin. I love it. 

And it's nice to me and my pitiful face that turns red every time I try anything new :) 

So here I am: clear skin, new hair, some new clothes and new mascara.

I get to college, ready to conquer the world and attract all the gentlemen folk,

(oh JUST KIDDING, people. Calm down, seriously.)

And all of a sudden, about two weeks into college, I notice that I'm getting a really bad rash all over my body.

Arms.

Legs.

Back.

Shoulders.

Tummy. 

And I try EVERYTHING. 

So this has been going on for a few weeks now, and everyday I'd go to school, it just seemed to get worse.

Now, this weekend I went home to Utah, and I noticed it got BETTER.

Curiouser and curiouser...

I'm like Sherlock Holmes. 

Maren and the case of the mysterious body rash...

it's gonna be a hit.

ANYWAYS.

After much consideration, questioning, and of course, the scientific method,

I have uncovered the culprit.

It's the coffee shop in the commons of my school.

I pass it everyday, eat stuff from it, and study near it. 

When I DON'T sit next to the coffee shop, my itchiness goes away.

Well would ya look at that.

Thanks, college for NOT considering that some of your students could be going through a serious fashion crisis over here because of your STUPID COFFEE SHOP! 

And to think, I recently applied for a job there...

silly mua. 

This post had no purpose.

Too much information, maybe?

Have a lovely evening. 

If you want to be happy, be.

-May May 

Guess what I did on May 24th.

Hello, long lost fellow human beings.

The last time I posted on this ridiculous blog of mine was in March of this year.

Now it is September. Not the worst length of time... but still, I could do better.

In my last post I shared my complete adoration for portraying a skeleton in the spring play at Provo High School. Well I'll tell you one thing, folks! Times are-a-changin' cause guess who's no longer a Provo High student! 

That's right.

Little Miss May, here. 

The long-anticipated and much dreamed-about day of Graduation has come and gone, and boy was it totally and completely

over-rated.

(is there supposed to be a hyphen in there?)

I'll tell you another thing, folks. Growin' up is hard to do.

HARD. to do.

No, like EXTREMELY DIFFICULT BEYOND REASON.

And so incredibly

dumb.

Anyhow. Graduation day was kind of a blur, and all I have to remember it are the poor-quality photos taken on various cell phones in the dark.

(since some dimwit decided to hold our ceremony in the evening, resulting in poopy photographs thereafter)

The evening started with the traditional family dinner at Osaka in old Provo. This is the only decent photo retrieved from that event, but Momma looks pretty :) 

The actual ceremony was boring beyond belief. You think I would've found enjoyment in my own graduation ceremony? Well, no offense, Band members, but when you play twice, one has the tendency to stare off into space and wish for immediate death. 

Walking across the stage was a little intimidating, and you'd think my years on stage would have prepared me for those 30 seconds of fame, but no, sir. I was terrified until the moment I sat down. 

(my baby picture was pretty cute though, if I do say so myself)

Classic baby Mare.

When we turned our tassels over, I noticed my adorable friend/mother MaryKate was getting a little emotional, and I realized how much I simply adore her. So she can forever feel honored that during my one and only moment of tassle-turning, I was thinking of her.

Anyways. I graduated. Woop-di-doo. 

I was gonna share some witty story about something funny that happened at graduation, but guess what. There were none. 

The traditional "WOW I GRADUATED" pose with the diploma. 

But really, folks. It quite honestly is a miracle that I am a High School graduate. Just two weeks before graduation, I was so rudely informed by my intelligent school counselor that I had

1 year

of electives left to do.

Ha.

HAHAHA.

Just one year. Well I resolved that issue by giving up my four free periods to TA for my drama teacher.  

And THAT was the difference between me being smart enough to earn a high school diploma or not.

Cool.

I hope my best friends won't be offended by me saying this, but it was quite frankly a miracle that all three of us were able to graduate. Jayme and Maddie both had their fair share of high school mishaps leading to an almost tragic ending. Yet, we were all so charming that they simply could not allow us to miss out on this much-needed life experience.

Me with the Parentals. Don't they look dashing.

And of course, Wesley and I bein' romantic or something.

'Cept, don't worry. It was a very sibling-ish kiss on the cheek. I assure you.

And PS. He is long gone to Houston, Texas on a mission. 

Miss him.

I will say this.

My four years at Provo High School will forever be dearly cherished in my memory.

I'm serious.

In my four years there, I developed some talents, skills and experiences that I would not have been able to develop anywhere else. I had some phenomenal teachers who taught me phenomenal things.

And of course, I owe a great deal of my high school enjoyment to the Provo High Drama Department. It was the greatest cause of stress in my life, but also the best cause of excitement and growth.

So, thanks :)

Seems like just yesterday I was eating a banana creamy outside on Freshman orientation day. The school seemed so big and scary and unmanageable then. But it was nothing compared to 

College

which you will read about at a future date. Cause college is actually big and scary and unmanageable.

Go Bulldog class of 2012!

If you want to be happy, be.

-May May 

Skelly.

Hi, people. I'm just here to tell you about my life as a skeleton.

(Or SKELLY, as Maddie and I call it)

It's a wonderful life full of morph suits, dancing and excessive make up.

Good thing that life is over. 

This is me. I look like Lady Gaga.

See?

It was pretty dang fun standing on a stool wearing a morph suit while someone painted a skeleton on my body. Actually, it was extremely cold and I felt miserable, NOT to mention the paint seeped through the morph suits, hence staining my favorite undies AND (gasp) Beatles shirt. And then it all became just PEACHY, when I put a hospital gown over my morph suit and pretended to have lung cancer.

Is all this making sense to you?

Me either.

I think my excessive coughing on stage is what ruined my voice. I JUST realized that.... I'm like a detective.

Well... good thing ya'll didn't come see Transfiguration. And if you did, will you fill me in on what it was about? Cause I STILL don't understand.

Okay okay, JK JK.

It was a good show...

For the most part...

Well, sorta.

I will say this. It was my LAST show at Provo High. Ever.

That's weird, ain't it?

Should I be happy or sad?

Am I just really moody today?

Thank you, Provo High drama for making my life... SO much better.

The end.

If you want to be happy, be.

-May May 

Invisible Children

We can make a difference.

You can join at www.Kony2012.com 

Who wants my other bracelet? ;) 

If you want to be happy, help others.

-May May 

I need rehab.

I just KNOW you've all been SO incredibly worried about where I've been.

But have no fear. I was only playing Tetris.

All day.

Everyday.

Every spare moment I have, I'm playing Tetris.

But I bring you good tidings of great joy!

I reached the second highest level!

I only have about a week more to go before I'll be good enough for the top level... and then a week more before I MASTER the top level... so if you're planning on seeing me in the next two weeks...

I'm sorry.

I'll be playing Tetris.

It's TERRIBLY addicting.

And the music is catchy.



If you want to be happy, play Tetris.

-May May

Auntie Again.

I know I just barely posted about my love for babies...

But you can deal with it.

I. Love. Babies.

And I have two brand new ones in my life. And what's even crazier... they're both GIRLS! I've had a life full of baby boys, and now I'm surrounded by bouncing baby girls! (okay, they're not exactly bouncin. More like sleepin and poopin).

My very good friend, Shannon (who also happens to be my adopted sister, because I said so) gave birth FINALLY to her beautiful baby girl. I'm. So. Excited.

(random thought.. I think I'm dyslexic, cause I just typed the word "excited" four times before I figured out that I had the C and the X mixed up.)

Macie Mae Maughan 

She is a tiny little thing. 5 lbs 8oz at birth, and I don't think she has gotten any bigger. She's adorable and I cannot wait to play with her and watch her grow.

(Wow, I sound like a mormon mom. I promise I just... really... like... babies)

Nicholas and Macie.

Now, not to undermine the excitement of baby Macie, but... this is pretty darn exciting.

I HAVE A NEW NIECE!

(if you recall my post from Thanksgiving about my lack of nieces... you will understand how exciting this is)

My big brother Jordan and his wife, Katie are now the parents of a seriously adorable baby girl. They chose to keep the gender a surprise, so it was super duper rad when we all found out it was a girl. Even though she seriously came into this world through a terribly horrible hollywood-esque experience, she is HERE, so big and so round and so pink and so perfect.

Leia Katherine Sebresos

Yes, just like Princess Leia on Star Wars. She's born to be a Jedi. I'm extremely envious, considering my history of desperately wanting a lightsaber at the age of 4.

(I never got the lightsaber... that's probably why I hate Christmas. Bah humbug.)

Baby Leia was born on February 9, 2012 and our WHOLE family is just so excited to have her. We have all been very baby hungry as a whole. Which means I'll never get a chance to hold her at family get-togethers.

(cough... Kami... selfish...)

I did get to hold her the other night for about two hours. Still not long enough. I love her so much, and I am so grateful to have her here.

It's been a crazy couple of weeks, and I think I'm on the verge of death. I have to post about like 500 other events that you all want to read about so badly... but I think I'll just have to make you wait.

Speaking of waiting.. I'm having a really hard time waiting for graduation to come so I can go become a nurse and take care of newborn babies on a daily basis.

I'm also waiting for The Hunger Games movie. I don't know which is harder to wait for.

Peace, Love and Babies to you all.

If you want to be happy, be.

-May May 

A tribute.

Today it's my best friend's birthday. 

Not just any birthday.

Her 18th birthday. So now we're BOTH big grown-up girlies. I like to think back to the days when we were 13, talking about going to high school and how scary that would be. 

HA.

Our first day of high school.. we look like pros.

Now, we're finding new places to live, planning our senior trip and applying for scholarships. High school was NOTHING compared to this. 

When Jayme and I started to become best friends, we were awkward middle-schoolers with braces and too much foundation. We wore Aeropostale and American Eagle everyday. We said things like "Hey, Lovely!" and "That's so SMEXY!" 

(we were afraid to say "sexy")

We had english together with crazy Mrs. McPherron.... she taught me that she was a tree in her previous life and her husband was a squirrel that climbed her... or something poetic like that. 

Yeah, our lives were basically a joke.

Isn't every middle schooler's life a joke..?

(except for the home schooled ones....)

When we were freshmen, Jayme and I became obsessed with an album by Panic! At the Disco called

Pretty. Odd.

(it's bolded cause it literally ran our lives)

We quoted songs from that album um... probably 2,000 times a day.

If you KNOW this album, thank you. I automatically like you. 

Anywho. We branched off from our middle school friends a tad and started our "multitude". 

What the crap, right?

K, yeah.

We hung out with Greg and Lindsey pretty... much.... everyday.

We drove around in an old van.

We painted random things.

We played loud music.

We... tried to join the Jehovah's Witness. I think. Multiple times.

Yep. That was our freshman year.

As time passed, Jayme and I gained a little maturity and handled some tough situations together. I can honestly say that she was there for me when nobody else was, and probably when I didn't deserve her company. 

Jayme forgave me.

And forgave me again.

And again.

AND AGAIN.

And she is still forgiving me. On a daily basis. For my stupid acts of teenager-ness. 

This is my favorite picture of Jayme, of all time.

Jayme cures my boymagnetismitis with her girlnextdooritis. 

Jayme sends me inspirational quotes and scriptures.

Jayme answers my phone calls.

She reads my mind.

She brings me cupcakes and ice cream and brownies and hot chocolate.

She cuddles with me, and she slaps me when needed.

She listens to me, cries with me and cries TO me.

She handles my crazy driving, and she doesn't kill me with her crazy driving (yet)

She plays in the snow with me, goes on walks with me and attempts cooking with me.

We laugh at our moms together.

With laugh WITH our moms together.

She is the peace, I am the kissy.

She's allergic to peanut butter, I'm allergic to grape jelly.

(haha, Jame, this just reminded me of Cute Carl... you're the fork to my spoon, the windex to my paper towel...)

AND...

she makes 47 minute long webcam videos with me. 

I just want to say, in honor of Jayme and her 18 years...

she is HONESTLY, the most 

Kind

Sincere

Funny

Honest

Virtuous

Steadfast 

and

Loyal 

person I know. I can say that with 100% vigor. 

If any of you don't know Jayme, you should GET to know her.

(unless you're a creepy man with a mustache and a cigar)

Everyone loves Jayme.

Including me.

I know I'm not always the best friend to her, because I'm psycho and busy and confused and  boy-involved and bossy and jealous and all those disgusting adjectives...

but she is ALWAYS there for me. 

Peace and Kissing for life, yo.

Now, we listen to Taylor Swift, we go for drives, we dance and sing, we eat hardly anything, we talk about the future, we plan, we date, we make lists, we share toothbrushes and we look at vintage cars on the internet. 

And we're still the bestest friends ever :)

Thank you, Jayme, for being a person that has ONLY influenced my life for good.

I muchly love you. 

Love, Mare. 

Baby love.

I think I'm done being dead.

Hopefully.

These last two weeks have been the busiest of my life. They were called the weeks of homework and rehearsals and college application and worst of all...

My stupid tummy.

I hate my stupid tummy. Just putting it out there. I think I'm gonna sell it on the black market and see if I can get a decent amount of money for it. Cause honestly. I REALLY want the Sims 3 right now...

The good news is. I don't have a blood clot, a tumor or a baby in my tummy. The bad news is...

NO more happiness.

No milk.

No cheese.

No yogurt.

No ice cream. 

And in case you don't know me, you know that the end of cheese and milk and ice cream is literally the end of my life. CHOCOLATE MILK IS MY LIFE! Although, I think I may just have to sacrifice the life of my tummy for my love of chocolate milk. Cause seriously? Oh, and if you didn't already know this, I'm allergic to chocolate, so literally the only time I ever got to taste chocolate was when I was eating chocolate flavored ice cream or chocolate flavored MILK.

I think I will crawl into a hole with some Doritos right now and die a painful death full... well NOT full of chocolate milk.

Dag nabbit. 

Allergies suck. They are literally the worst. Ask my two best friends. They would know. 

Am I boring you? Sorry.

Well let's address a much better topic. The birth of Shannon's new baby girl! 

(who... is yet to have a name...)

Literally she is the cutest tiniest baby I have ever seen, and I'm REALLY in the mood to just have a newborn baby in my arms. Hopefully I will be doing that soon, when I go back to the hospital to pay a visit to my new niece-ish. 

Here's what I love about babies:

They are pink.

They have really rapid hearts.

They snuggle.

They smell nice.

They have soft hair.

When they purse their lips.

When their mouths make the 'O' shape. 

You can dress them in whatever you want and they ALWAYS look cute.

They only eat milk, therefore they only poop milk and puke milk and smell like milk.

When their diapers are half their body size.

Their eyes are always so glossy and bright.

Their eyebrows are white.

They make little baby noises.

They just don't know what's going on.

All of our big-people body parts are itty bitty and squished to be their little-people body parts.

Their wrinkly feet.

They are here straight from heaven.

There is NOTHING not to love about babies. 

I think I can literally say I love babies more than anything else in this entire world and I am highly offended by Justin Bieber's blasphoumous use of the word "baby"! Should I sue him?

Ps. I know a guy who sued YouTube because he thought that all of the videos were about him....

CRRAZY.

Have a nice day, everyone and here's to hoping everyone gets pregnant and has a baby! 

(actually that was a really foolish wish indeed)

If you want to be happy, be.

-May May 

Never grow up, Not me.

Well, I've made a decision.

I'm not going to grow up. Peter Pan has led me to this decision, and I'm sticking to it. One of my all-time favorite quotes that I have been recently reminded of goes a little like this...

If growing up means it would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree, I'll NEVER GROW UP, Never grow up, never grow uuUUP! Not me! 

And since I turned eighteen, it's like the whole world has all of a sudden realized that I'm now a grown-up. Just the other day, I climbed a tree and a hobo yelled at me to stop acting like a child.

Just kidding. That totally did not happen, but I'm feeling like all of these colleges are looking at me and saying,

"Umm... get out of that high school. Stop acting like a baby."

or

"Stop driving your super cute, fun car. Cute, fun teenagers drive cars like that, not grown-ups like you!"

or, worst of all...

"Put that blankie away."

This is my blankie. It's my best friend, so unless you wanna get jumped, don't make fun of it.

It has a few minor bumps and bruises.

Well, as you can see, I'm having withdrawals. Childhood withdrawals. I turned eighteen ten days ago. I'm now in the double-digit days of adulthood. I hate the double-digit days of adulthood. However, my birthday was rather fun. My friends surprised me with...

Zupas

Power Tumbling

A surprise party in the auditorium... sorta

Pedicures

A dance party

A trip to the movies

Zupas...again

and

A pink cake containing no gluten, food coloring, chocolate, soy, or anything yummy. 

(that's cause between the three of us, Maddie and Jayme and I cannot eat any of the same foods... except for that nasty... I mean delicious... cake.)

Phew.

Did I tell you I'm a grown-up??

WAAAH!!! 

That was me being a baby. Do you remember the days of babyhood? Weren't they splendid? 

Moving on.

It's really late, I'm really tired and basically what I wanted to say was...

I'm having a really difficult time deciding where to go, what to do, when to do it and why my childhood has so suddenly flashed before my eyes. I thought I was going to go to Weber, but I took a tour of BYU Idaho the other day....

K. Stop. I know what you're thinking about BYU Idaho. I think it also.

But, I just got this really EXTREMELY loud voice in my head, screaming at me and telling me that I should consider going to BYU Idaho. I think I will call that voice the spirit (unless I'm schizophrenic) and I think I will apply to BYU Idaho. Which I actually already did. Today. 

So if any of you out there are going to BYU Idaho anytime soon and are looking for a roommate who sleeps with a blankie and only requires chocolate milk to function, gimme a call. 

I think that's all I have to say at this moment in time.

If you want to be happy, be.

-May May