finally.....

the first cover letter and resume was sent to the Girl Scouts of Utah. Heck Yeah!!!!

It looks awesome if I do say so myself.

Utah peeps...any suggestions on where to apply?

haiku

for Jana:

you know sometimes it's okay

to just simply write

about nothingness all day

have i ever mentioned how much i hate writing cover letters? well, i do. i hate them. i hate them with a passion. a passion of epic proportions. i loathe them. i detest them entirely.

yes, i may or may not, be having a bit of a hang up writing the dreaded cover letter. believe it or not, i don't do well talking wonderfully about myself. pblhh!! plus, how do you say in a wee paragraph, 'hey, i'm fan-flippin'-tastic, hire me!"?

o.v.e.r.w.h.e.l.m.e.d.

my pep talk to myself: "buck up Longhat. you got this!!"

40

including today, there's 40 left.

holy freakin' moley!!

thinking about oh so much these days. my mind is spinning out of control. literally. i wish i could temper the thoughts. but, change is coming. it makes me crazy. even good change. it just makes me CRAZY!! i get nervous in the unknown. but i'm learning to take steps of BIG fat faith.

Grrr!!

I've been trying to blog about what's going on in my head. As I've sat down the last week to tell the blogosphere what I'm feeling, all that I seemed to type was....

Grrr!!!

That's how I've been feeling the last couple of days. As I was talking to Jana today at lunch, we decided I need a "grrr" interpreter because I can't really place exactly what i'm feeling. It's not a

Grr!!

or a

grrr.

or even a

GRRR......

but rather just a,

Grrr!!!

So any 'grr' interpreters out there, feel free to let me know what's going on inside of my head these days.

In true Raelynn brilliance I burnt my neck while curling my hair this morning. This wee burn feels like my flesh is peeling off at a painstakingly slow speed. The things we women endure to feel pretty.





Yes I know this photo looks suspect. But I promise it's a burn and not a hickey. Actually when asked today if I was telling fibs about "the burn" and was it a hot date last night...my response was, "I wish!!"

Oh how I wish!!!


- Posted using BlogPress from my handy dandy super fun iPhone

Adventures with Eye Dilation

So, picture it: Kaiser Permanente Opthamalogy, 2011

Here I am, being a busy bee, getting all of my appointments done in the next 2 months. I decided to go to Kaiser for my eye appointment because its cheap. Just my regular ole $15 copay. I meet the lovely eye optician assistant--(please excuse my lack of knowing their official name). She takes me in, starts me on reading out the letters and then on to looking for the hot air balloon and then on to the oh so fun, eye puff while your head is in the eye doctor head gear thingamabob. After the eye puff we head to the room where the optician will do her thing. You know, the continued follow the hot air balloon, what's the clearest row you can read, etc. etc. When I was waiting for the optician, the eye assistant lady, (still don't know official name, but really wish I did at this point), decided to give me some wet drops because my eyes were so dry they were bothering me. I came in with them already dry because of the ever changing Colorado weather that makes my allergies run amok. She tells me to lean back and drops in the wet drops. I lean back and await the goodness of eye drops that will make my eyes not feel like I need to scratch them completely out. The she says, one more. I open my eyes again. As the drops fall into my eyes, within 1 second I scream: "sweet Baby Jesus". Yes, I did. Really. And then the burn intensifies. The eye assistant lady then says, "oh sorry, the eye dilation drops do burn." I'm pretty sure my response was, "Wait, what? I have to go back to work". Her response, "Oh, oops!"

She seriously said, "oops!"

I can tell you now, "oops" is never good. I know, I use it often. My eyes feel like they are burning out of their sockets because she put in a butt load of the dilation drops. She tells me that more than likely it will be a few hours for the dilation to go away. Okay, not bad. Not fun, but not too terribly bad. So, the Doctor comes in does the eye exam in which I basically repeat everything the eye assistant did. Except since my eyes were dilated we went ahead and did the super bright light into the core of my eyes to see if there's anything wrong. All is good, which I knew, no need for the dilation drops. With the exception of needing glasses to magnify my two focus points so I don't get headaches, I've got awesome eyes. And they are beautifully, exotically, natively brown. But I digress...the Doctor gives me a new prescription for my glasses and walks out of the room. I look down at the sheet and could not see a thing other than weird little scribbles. Literally I could not read thing. The Doctor walked back in and our conversation went a little like this...

me: "um, I can't read this at all. How long will this last? I do have to go back to work."

Dr.: "oh it can take 4 to 6 hours!"

me: "hmmm, okay. Should I be driving? I can't read this at all"

Dr.: "Do you have to go far? You should be fine."

me: "uh, okay!"

Then I said to myself, "self, this is going to be interesting!" So I head on out of Kaiser with the fun little shades--very sexy, not--they give you to protect your eyes because I left my sunglasses in the car. And as I'm driving back to work I start to become uncomfortable. I can see to drive just fine, but as I'm driving I notice I can't read the road and store signs along the way. It was a weird feeling to not see clearly. I made it back to the Y and proceeded to have to wear my sunglasses for the next 3.5 hours...indoors. I felt ridiculous. Of course, I had the Raelynn dramatics when I walked in to Cassie and Jana's office and shouted, "I'm blind!" They laughed, hard. So supportive those 2!! I managed to go about the rest of my day by not doing any work that I needed to get done and stuffed envelopes for Ellyn. I had to do something to earn my paycheck for that afternoon.

For some reason, as I was not able to read a thing, I felt the need to shout when speaking. I don't know. I felt like my other senses were in overdrive since I couldn't see as clearly as I normally do. Random I know. But, random I am. I'm a feeler. An expresser of emotions. This is just me. So when my eyes finally did come back in full force, you shouldn't be shocked that I screamed, "It's a miracle!" I'm not going to lie, I was a bit worried that nothing would be clear again. I did not enjoy it at all. Dilation of the eyes is a big fat negative for me. In a moment of non existent theatrics, I did realize how blessed I was to have good vision. And took a moment to thank God for the blessings in my life that I overlook on a daily basis.

After my little adventure of the eye dilation, Ellyn and I were talking about it and how I got upset that I did not have control over the situation and that's what freaked me out most of all. Then she posed the question...

"If you had to choose between your vision and hearing, what would you want to lose of the two?"

Obviously I had reasons why I would want/need both. I can't imagine not hearing music or seeing a sunset. I came to the conclusion that I would not want to choose because...for obvious reasons...I want to keep everything.

All of this randomness is to say...because of my moment of not having clear vision, it was a little reminder that I am truly blessed and I need to not be blind to the fact that there is so much...so much...to be thankful for in my life. Even when I don't see it clearly, it's there and slowly, in time, with patience and less theatrics, everything becomes visible and clear.

Like how I threw a little Jesucristo in there on you out of nowhere in this nonsensical post??!!! In a way...I just Jesus Juked you. Booya!!!

that's the 2nd time I've said Booya in a post. Who am I?!

jump in

"The character* has to jump into the story,

into the discomfort and the fear,

otherwise the story will never happen."

From Donald Miller's A Million Miles in a Thousand Years




* the character = Raelynn

bedtime ADD

really tired. but can not sleep...AT ALL!!!

the most random thoughts are floating around my head and, unfortunately, keeping me wide awake. i wish there was some sort of order to them, but my mind is in ADD mode right now. It looks a little like this:

....i don't want to go to work tomorrow...

...how many more days until i have a new niece?...

...sheesh, you need to go to sleep...

{insert quiet mind for maybe 3.2 seconds here, then the beat begins in my head}

...the scars of your love remind me of us, they keep me thinking that we almost had it all, the scars of your love, they leave me breathless, i can't help feeling we could have had it all...

...stop, go to sleep...

...i think i really want to write a book...

{insert rhythmic drum beat sounds floating around my head right about now}

...i wonder if there are any powwows coming up soon?...

...don't forget to write the pro's and con's for your future plans...

...Really, really?! Go to sleep...

...how do I become the main character in my story, rather than the quirky sidekick? more importantly, how do i make my story more meaningful?...

{insert frustrated sigh here}

...latte in the morning? yes, please! ooo, i'll get one for Janet too...

...okay, this is ridiculous, you need to sleep...

{silence for about 10 seconds}

...maybe i'll blog....

and so on, and so on!!!!!

funnily enough those really are only some of the thoughts, lyrics and sounds floating around in my head.

frustrating.

so here i am. awake. blogging. not sleeping. thinking. of complete utter ridiculousness. mixed in with a song that i can't seem to escape. add a dash of overwhelming thoughts--good, bad, happy, sad--about the joy ride i like to refer to as an emotional rollercoaster regarding the next season of my life. if i were to be completely honest, i would say that its more the "dash" that's keeping me awake, and avoiding, and in overdrive with bedtime ADD as i'm still not 100% how to process the next season yet.

???