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