I've been at home for a couple days for Christmas and it's been so cold. Yesterday was a whiteout so we couldn't really leave the house. I decided to pull out the old family photo albums and scan a bunch of pictures since I don't have any. Here are some good ones I found. They are hilarious!

The ward I live in has a tradition of doing a service auction at Thanksgiving time. Everyone in the ward can donate a service and the ward members can purchase the services. All the money gets donated to Sub for Santa Christmas gifts. Then, once the families in need have been picked, our ward has another activity where everyone does the shopping and wraps the gifts.

I found Sara Bareilles this year back in the spring. And no matter how many life videos I watch of her I am constantly blown away at how amazingly talented she is. Her voice is amazingly crystal clear and she makes me want to become a singer (I will need lots of help!). Next time she's anywhere near Utah I'm going to go for sure. I need to see her live. She's so awesome!

I have posted this song on my blog a couple different times, but it never ceases to make my eyes get teary when I hear it. She's amazing, and this song is really powerful. Here is a new video I found of Gravity. It is actually just someone's crappy concert video and even here I was blown away yet again. Here is a link to a more clear and even more amazing version. It had disabled the embedding so I just have to paste the link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IQZx1xvWUI&feature=related

Gravity



Here is another song of hers that I fell in love with.
Many the Miles.

For those of you who don't know what it looks like when a band aid decides to embed itself into your skin and then rip off your skin when you take it off. This is what it looks like. I'm pretty sure this part hurts worse than the stitches. It's like the whole surface of my skin is gone, and for a while I had to keep reattaching a band aid to it, and then rip it off every morning when I change the band aid. It's been a wonderful process and the stitches come out next Monday. I CAN'T WAIT!!!!

Enjoy the gross pictures. Notice how the glue is still attached in some places? It is in the process of becoming one with my skin. Om........

For those of you who don't know, my life is about to change. Nothing insanely drastic, just me becoming strictly a full time student for the first time since I entered the college world in the Fall of 2002. I have worked every semester and worked my schedule around my job. This has put a delay on my bachelor's degree because sometimes I could only take 2 or 3 classes due to financing, and time issues. I put my two weeks notice in this week at my job and am surprised that it's more of a bittersweet feeling. I'm sad to stop working. I have worked at a really nice company for the past year and half plus. I will miss these people, and my job. I know that is surprising to hear because usually you can find me hitting snooze every morning until 7:30 and then running out the door to make it by 8:00 without showering before work most days.

It is scary for me to step out onto shaky financial ground. I've always been the one to make sure I had money for whatever I did. I tend to develop a hernia of the brain or have a panic attack when I am not in control of my finances, therefore I always know how much money I have and when I will get more. For once I'm going to live off my savings and I don't know when I'll get more money. I will just look for a job when it starts to get low. Keep your fingers crossed for me. I'm taking 6 classes this next semester. This will leave me with 3 classes in Summer to finish my bachelor's degree. If everything is available for me in the summer, you will be looking at Ms. College Graduate August 2009!!!! Finally! You have no idea how much I think about how great that will be. (There's a possibility it could take until December if there are not 3 behavioral science electives available for me to take, but keep praying for me that this does NOT happen!)

When all is said and done it should be a 7 year process with a one year intermission, an Associate of Science degree in Paralegal Studies, and 4 major changes in between. And believe it or not, while I love my current major and eventually plan to get my Master's or my PhD in this field focusing on families and children, I secretly want to study art, mostly photography. I guess I'm not one to make up my mind ever on the matter of education! So... 8 months you guys. 8 months. Let's hope my anxiousness chills out so I can focus. I'm so excited to be done I have developed a serious case of homework ADD. At this very moment I'm writing in my blog instead of working on one of my 4 papers that are due this week. But I've been a good girl today. I stayed home on a Saturday night to do my homework. It's only 7:30, there is still a lot of time for me to write those papers!

You can make money or food donations to me at anytime, please just let me know. All are welcome to contribute! HAHA!


Oh and for those of you who want to see my nasty stitches from the dermatologist... Here you go! Still think having a tan is cool? Those red marks are from the band aids ripping off the top layer of my skin everytime I take them off which is 2 times a day. It's my favorite part of waking up.

My dermatologist used the M word again. This is the second time since I turned 20. The first time was when I was 21, the second time was yesterday. I know I shouldn't freak out because technically he's just saying, "if we hadn't caught this when we did, you may be getting treated for Melanoma". I still hate it though. An interesting part of this is how my mom was right. Did you hear that mom?! You were right!!!! I very much regret never wearing sunscreen as a kid. You warned me a billion times. I wish I'd listened!

It's kind of scary to know that if I'm not paying attention, or if I can't see something on me, one day I may in fact have Melanoma. I know I do most things right, I don't go to tanning salons anymore (I was never a frequent attender), I try to use sunscreen when I'm swimming, or half naked outside, and I always check my skin for anything abnormal or new. There's just all those "what-if" questions that run through my head. What if that horrible sunburn I got last April in California is the one that does me in? I mean my whole body peeled for over a month. And it wasn't just peeling, my back came off in inch-plus pieces. I was literally a snake! Five years from now will I be kicking myself for letting that happen? Those kind of questions can literally drive me crazy if I don't keep them in check. I may sound like an idiot on a soap box to some of you right now, but this is important to me so listen up. I don't care how safe you think tanning beds are, they tan or burn your skin in 10 minutes, which is what an hour in the sun can do for most people. There is nothing safe about that. Sure having a nice "healthy" glow is definitely pretty, but having little cut marks all over you because your skin has decided to morph into a potential killer cancer isn't as fun now is it?

I don't know if this story will make you uncomfortable, or if you'll think of it as an "overshare". I really don't care. I just don't want anyone dying from Melanoma they didn't know they had. My first experience with the M word was a year after a severe burn in a tanning bed. It was strange though. The burn never reached the surface of my skin. It was so bad it went deep into the tissue and stayed below the surface. The pain was so bad and annoying that I had to sleep on top of my arms, and I couldn't do anything to soothe it for the rest of the day. It went away over night, but a year later I grew an itchy mole. Gross huh? In 2-3 months it had shown up and grown into the shape of an ant. 3 little bumps connected to each other. It was also the size of a regular black ant you'd see out on the sidewalk. It itched very badly. I finally went to the doctor and he immediately was nervous. He was kind of firm with me and told me to never let something like this sit ever again.

I was immediately sent to a plastic surgeon. He wanted minimal scarring, due to the area it was in, and would be removing the surrounding tissue. So I now have a scar that reminds me of how stupid tanning is. I actually have close to 20 little scars all over me from abnormal things like this, not as severe as the first one, but still not good, being removed. I now will have another one on my shoulder this time like the first one. It will be much bigger than the others. For now I just have a nasty looking set of stitches and a constant dull pain as a reminder that being tan is overrated. Please do whatever you can to protect your skin. You'll thank yourself for it later when you still have pretty skin and your two best friends Little Miss Fake Bake and Miss Baby Oil Tan have more wrinkles than Sharpei puppies. (Probably a bad example... those puppies are adorable!)

There are a lot of helpful tips and great info on Skin Cancer and Prevention at these two websites:
American Cancer Society
Skin Cancer Foundation:

Thanks for reading this, and humoring me. I want you to also know that if you mention that you love tanning around me I will more than likely make a comment about skin cancer. It's just something I'm very serious about now.

Have a great day! :o)