My Guilty Pleasure

Ok I have to admit, I watch way too much reality TV. In fact it is pretty much the only kind of TV I watch, I do not watch any sitcoms nor dramas (now that ER is gone, although I do occasionally catch an episode of House)

But seriously my list of reality shows I consistently watch season after season include.

Biggest Looser
Survivor
Amazing Race
Top Chef
American Idol
Chopped


I’ll admit I even watched the last season of the Bachelorette (but don’t worry, since they chose Jake as the next Bachelor I have no intention of watching another season). I watched one season of Project Runway, and a couple seasons of Hells Kitchen, which I replaced with Top Chef.

I’m thankful for my DVR that allows me to watch all this TV in an edited version; I usually fast forward through quite a bit of garbage. Reducing a 60 minute show into 30 minutes.

Most of these series just ended and therefore I have a bit more time on my hands, which fills itself up quickly. I think of all the reality shows I watch Top Chef is my favorite. Because it’s actually a real competition. People that are actually good at what they’re doing, competing for something they love.

I do have something to say about Survivor this year. By the end I could really care less who won, I was never really rooting for anyone. But what I did notice was that the recession seemed to hit CBS and the Survivor production as well. Did anyone else notice the rewards seemed a little skimpy? They almost always have a car as a reward challenge, not so this year. And they didn’t bring in any family members as a reward. They always do that. I felt like this Survivor Samoa series got the short end of the stick, between the rain and crappy rewards, with no privilege of seeing family members, I felt kind of bad for them all. Moral of the story, don’t sign up for Survivor during a recession.

I have my fair share of other guilty pleasures, but reality TV seems to be king. What are some of yours?

What's a Girl to do

When there's so much going on!

As I sit here on this Sunday night, I feel that horrible "the weekend's over, I'm dreading tomorrow," knot in my stomach. I don't normally feel this, because I have a job I love and keep a fairly regular schedule, that, while is pretty exhausting, is balanced enough for me to be happy. This next week, however, seriously looks to be one of the most busy weeks of the year for me, and I am sitting here trying to think about what I can cut out in order to balance my life and not get all wrapped up in stress and overwhelming pace of life.

I really wish I could just make a double of myself this week, I pretty much need to be in two places every night this next week. So what do I do, how do you all do it? I know a lot of you are just as busy.

Help me, I need balance. I already wake up at 5:15 everyday, so waking up earlier isn't much of an option.

Prayer, lots and lots of prayer, I think that's my answer for now.

Christmas Trees and Almonds?

Some of you may recall that last year, I explained a tradition that Adam started 4 years ago now, ever since he knew he'd be going to USC to get his MBA. But basically, to recap - every year, if the USC football team makes a bowl game, Adam has gotten me the item representing the bowl game - lucky for me the last 3 years have all been Rose Bowls, therefore my sweet husband comes home with a beautiful bouquet of roses for me to enjoy. Well, this year, as you might have heard, USC, at 8-4, is going to the Emerald Bowl, so, I have been enjoying my can of dry roasted almonds, which are delicious, but missing my roses. It's a fun tradition, that's sure to bring more roses in the future.


We got our Christmas decor up this weekend, and began the shopping as well. I love this time of year, and am so thankful for the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. I take after my mother when it comes to Christmas. She gave me the first pieces to my first nativity, a precious moments one, when I was just a young girl, probably 13 or so. Ever since then I have been collecting nativity sets and I always pick them up when traveling if I can find them. I've also been collecting ornaments for about just as long, therefore I have one of the most beautiful and sentimental collections, I just love it. I owe it to my mother for getting me started. Here are a few shots of the tree, decor and some of my favorite ornaments.

We picked this gem up in Barbados - if you look closely, you'll see these snowmen are made out of sand dollars!

Adam putting up the lights!

Whirlwind Thanksgiving and Wedding Weekend

Blink and you missed it. That's basically how the Thanksgiving weekend went for us this year. It was a jammed packed fun filled family time that included too much food, tons of fudge, singing dancing, gratitude, piano playing, babies laughing, and crying, adults laughing and crying, a dragon slide, a turkey, a stomach flu and a wedding. Among other things.

It was the first time we had all spent Thanksgiving together including significant others in a long time. The Thanksgiving feast fed 16 people - including all 5 grand kids. We had a great day, my mom always cooks up a grand feast filled with love. We played a round of catch phrase and turned on How the Grinch Stole Christmas for the kids to end the evening in style.

Then Friday was upon us, and with the wedding just one day away frantic movement ensued. The girls got up to go and get manicures and pedicures (thanks mom), well all but Monica, who ended getting a stomach bug and was sick most of the night. We needed Monica to get the rest she needed, she was deemed the wedding hair stylist. Friday continued with a quick trip to Atlantis Park, a brief bit of shopping, then a delicious dinner at Bucca de Bippo. After dinner came the wedding rehearsal, we headed over to Angelo's family's home and did the meet and greet with then proceeded to do a typical rehearsal. Then it was back to make last minute alterations to my dress, prepare a bouquet and all the center pieces and boutonnieres. While I stayed away from making any of the flower arrangements, as I do not have an artistic bone in my body, I was happy to help supervise kids and whatnot.

Friday night, thankfully, Monica was feeling better, and we prayed she would continue to be on the mend. Sarah spent the night at our house, and we woke up to find Monica ready and willing to do hair. We're so thankful that even though we know she wasn't 100% better, she was happy to sit and do our hair for 2.5 hours, and let me tell you she did a spectacular job!

The big day was upon us, and there were some nerves on all sides, but everything went beautifully. Sarah was an absolutely stunning bride and Angelo was as happy as I've ever seen him. They had a nice ceremony where Sarah managed to make everyone cry with her beautiful vows. The reception was a success as well. The centerpieces were a hit and all the hard work paid off. My niece Mia sang Taylor Swift's "Love Story," accompanied by Angelo's sister Mandy on the guitar and it was amazing. She had all the words to all the verses memorized and sang loud and proud. She had us all crying. Then it was my turn, I think my toast turned out ok - I took notes with me, which I totally didn't use, but I was glad I had a safety net, and I cried several times through the speech, it's tough seeing the baby of the family get married off, let me tell you!

The food was excellent, people danced and had a great time. My 92 year old Grandfather, gave a beautiful prayer and we're just so thankful he was able to be there. In fact, all of my Mom's siblings came out, and my Dad's family came out in great support as well. It was so fun to have everyone there, looking so wonderful and happy.

Good times were had by all, and I just feel so blessed and thankful to have such a loving warm family who I know I will spend eternity with.


Congratulations to Sarah and Angelo! We love you!

I am too tired to put these pictures in proper order with corresponding paragraphs. My camera was left behind on most occasions - once Julie uploads her photos, there will be plenty more of all the weekend festivities, for now here are the few shots I got before the batteries in my camera died.

Reception Table with the Shong's and Billen's

Sarah's gorgeous hair - thanks to Monica!

My beautiful sister waiting to walk down the aisle

Waiting and waiting...

Billen kids and our spouses (minus Sarah and Angelo)

Monica (my younger brother Rhett's wife)and Me - I loved my hair!

My sister Julie and me

My mom is going to kill me for putting this one up, but it's the only picture I had of Sarah and Angelo together at the reception.

The centerpieces turned out great!

Celebrating Sarah

So, my one and only little sister Sarah is getting married in just a few days, and so we've been having some fun celebrating as of late. It's been busy, but a lot of fun. We had her "Kitchen Shower" on Tuesday night, and had a great turn out, special thanks to Tami Walk for hosting it and being so wonderful.



Guests enjoying the food!
Ashley and Krista with the Bride to Be
Sarah with the Mom's and me
Opening gifts
Playing a game - Sarah's chewing about 8 pieces of Bubbalicious gum for not getting all the questions I asked Angelo about correct.

Then on Saturday night we had a girls night out with about 10 of Sarah's closest friends at Kobe Japanese Steak House. Sarah's first time at a Teppanyaki place, and it was awesome, the Chef had a lot of fun with us, and pulled out all the tricks. The waiters even sang us a little Japanese song that the claimed had to do with bachelorettes. There was a little live entertainment as well, so of course dancing ensued. It was such a fun way to celebrate Sarah.





Family starts to roll in on Tuesday for Thanksgiving and the wedding, I can't wait to celebrate with everyone! We're so excited for Sarah and know she's going to be a beautiful bride!

Not so fashionable

Let's face it, I have absolutely zero fashion sense. Generally this doesn't bother me too much, but recently as I celebrated my 27th birthday I came to realize that I am tired of people thinking I'm in the age range of 18 - 21. I know I look young, but the fact that I am sometimes placed nearly a decade behind where I am in life is just plain sad. This is partially my fault, I don't dress nice, or do my hair or really put much effort into my daily appearance. Afterall, I work in non-profit, and sit behind a computer most of my days. Sure occasionally, I'll have a meeting I wear slacks for, but really, I'm in jeans everyday possible at work. And then there's the whole thing with my hair. It's in a pony tail about 95% of the time. I have my reasons for this - number one being that I already wake up at 5:15 every morning, I'm not about to wake up at 4:45 just so I can style my hair. My hair has to be styled if it's down, it's all wavy and frizzy when I wake up, not cute at all. I've never even learned how to use a curling iron, and the one time I tried I think I burned my hair. So basically I either straighten my hair or pull in back in a bun or pony tail, I almost always choose the latter. Plus I wash my hair everyday, because I really try to do some sort of physical exercise everyday, except Sunday, that makes me sweat, so if i do my hair, knowing it won't last more than 12 hours, seems just a waste of time.

This is getting off track of my original inspiration behind this blog though. So in an effort to look more my age, and be more fashionable, I recently bought a pair of boots that I thought were cute in the store and when I looked down at them. Alas, when I got home and tried to wear them in the latest trend of tucking my jeans into them, I looked at myself and just laughed. I couldn't do it, I couldn't bring myself to go out of the house looking like that. It was simply silly, I can't pull this kind of thing off. The same thing goes for many fashion trends, I have no idea how to accessorize properly. I have a couple scarfs, and when I put them on I just see a massive amount of material engulfing my upper half. And again, I laugh, nope, not doing that one either. Cute little vests - not so cute when they're on me. Jewelry, nope, I don't wear it well, and when I do try to put something on, it comes off by mid-day because it starts to get in my way. Oh and skinny jeans! HAHAHAHA, let's just say my body is not made for those.

Part of my problem may be that I don't buy nice clothes, I shop pretty much only at Ross and Marshalls, or some little Forever 21 type store. Spending more than $30 on a pair of jeans is out of the question for me, so I have to make do with whatever they have on the racks at Ross, flattering or not, I generally end up with the oh so fashionable Paris Blues brand. As for shoes, the only expensive shoes I buy are my running shoes, because I need to take care of my feet while exercising, so I splurge and spend $60 on those, all my other shoes come from payless, during their Bogo sales, so I end up paying about $12 a pair.

I think I just have to accept I'll always be in jeans, a plain shirt and some pair of flip-flops or sandals with a pony tail. But I really would like to look a little closer to my age, so if you have any advice, please don't hesitate to offer it up.

Moments to remember...

It's no secret that I love my job. I love just about everything about it, except perhaps that it takes me 45 to 60 minutes each way to work here. Aside from that the last 4 years and 3 months have been a total life changing experience for me. I have met some of the most amazing people and work with people I call friends everyday. As I was sitting at my desk, I began to recall some of my favorite moments of working at Free Wheelchair Mission that I never want to forget, so here's a few to remember.

* The day I was going through a cabinet in my office and found a book entitled; God Loves You My Muslim Friend. Laughter ensued between my office mate and I, only at Free Wheelchair Mission would you find a book like that.

* The day that I was told by a co-worker, in the most polite way ever, I might add, that I am going to go to hell for my beliefs, of which I responded, I am certainly glad I don't believe that, and offered up a Book of Mormon, this person did not accept it, but we hugged it out.

* The day everyone in the office put on a fake mustache to suprise our President, who has an iconic mustache with a birthday cake.

* The day a well respected pastor and Christian from Sri Lanka asked me all about Mormons, as they do not have any in Sri Lanka and he wanted to know all there was to know.

* The time we painted the walls in the office without the landlords approval, only for him to be royally pissed off and make us paint it back to white.

*The day I was supervising our office move and had hired Starving Students Moving Company to move some of the more expensive items, we didn't want to move ourselves, only to watch them drop the donated glass conference table (Valued at a couple thousand dollars)and have it shatter to pieces. (Never hire Starving Students to do a move)

* The number of times I've been addressed as Mr. Whitney Blaesser (people in the developing wold have a hard time understanding how a woman could have a title like International Operations Manager)

* The number of times I've mistakenly used improper gender identify as well... I mean c'mon, would you know if Shenaaz El-Halabi from Botswana was a male or female if they had just sent you an email?

*The days we get mail with stamps on them from foreign countries, we have a bulletin board collection going.

* The IT guy that leave trails of animal crackers around the office.

* The opportunities I've had to read talks from church authorities as a staff devotional and then have staff members ask me to send them the link to the talks afterwards.

*The fact that whenever there is a phone call into the office from someone with a heavy accent it is transferred to me to decipher.

*The time when I had a broken leg, and my wonderful co-workers all took such good care of me, from getting me to work, to bringing me my lunch, and everything in between.

*The time we had to work at the Huntington Beach Marathon in the pouring rain, and we did it all with a smile. Here's picture proof, my co-worker Tony and I setting up tables, it's dark because it's 5 am.


* The office pot lucks and the fact that if you ever bring in a plate of goodies it's gone by 11 am.

* The fact that everyday when I get to work, the first thing I do is read a story from one of our parnters in the field, about someone who's life was changed forever.

There are so many more moments, I hope to remember forever, but what I've come to realize is that having a job is the best thing in the world, as long as you love what you do and are actively engaged and work with others that are too. It makes coming home from vacation easy, and Sunday nights, not so hard. It makes all the difference in the world really.

Lastly, I'll never forget the first time I saw this video in 2007... seriously it's remained one of my favorites to this day, and we have a lot of videos. We didn't even create this one, but one of the partners I work with did! Happy day. Enjoy!