the time has come...

to end my adventures here.

See....this blog has finished it's purpose. (at least, in my eyes it has....)  I started this blog as a way to document my adventures through college, my adventures in dating, my frustrations and joys with ballet at BYU and really....all the cool kids (read: the writers/readers of the 100 Hour Board at BYU) were doing it, so I decided to jump on that bandwagon.

And you know what? I've moved on from all of those worlds. I'm not in school anymore (thank goodness!), I'm engaged and don't have crazy dating stories anymore (hurrah!), I'm not dancing as much these days and I no longer read the 100 Hour Board. Like ever. So...this is the end of love and war...at least it's the end of a battle. On to better and brighter things!

I will always be grateful to the 100 Hour Board and many of their writers for influencing me to start this here blog. It has brought about many GREAT friendships, killed at least one relationship, and in the end helped me to find a voice in writing.

I don't want to completely give up blogging, and while my new blog is NOT private, I'm not going to post a link to it here. If you want to keep following just shoot me an email, leave a comment, or look for the links that happen to show up on my Facebook account.

I really hope you'll want to keep following me, but if you're trying to weed out people from your Google Reader (is anybody else's as ridiculous as mine?! sheesh!) then now would be the time and I won't even notice.

Thanks again for a great 7+ years guys. You're awesome!

2 months of happiness plus an adventure in the mountains

Hey guys! How are all y'all?!

Last night Soldier Boy and I celebrated 2 months of happiness. I love being his girlfriend. It makes me so happy to do girlfriend-like things for him. I make dinner for us several nights a week and it is one of my favorite things to be able to do that. Soldier Boy loves it (what boy wouldn't?!) and is so appreciative it just makes me want to keep on doing it! sigh. Life is good in our little world.

So on Friday night this last weekend I told Soldier Boy that I wanted to go on an adventure. Well, his suggestion was that we go up Spanish Fork canyon and try out the natural hot springs that are up there. We've tried the ones in Saratoga Springs and the ones in Ogden, but not these particular ones. We'd heard good things about them and decided to give it a go. After looking up some information we decided to head on down. Now, we prepared to go on a little hike - but also knew that there would be close to a full moon so we thought we could do this hike without a flashlight. This was not a brilliant idea. Luckily, some kind samaritans saw our plight as they were hiking OUT of the canyon and gave us their almost dead flashlight. It gave us just enough light to get to the hot pots and back completely dying out right as we got to our car.

Now, we knew from our little googling before hand that this hike wouldn't be super strenuous and would be about 2.25 miles one way....well, what we didn't really think about is the fact that hiking at night takes longer because it is dark and even with a flashlight it's hard to see. So....our little adventure of hiking and soaking in the hot pots and the hiking back took WAY longer than either of us anticipated BUT it was a TOTAL success and was SO MUCH FUN.

One thing to note if you ever go these hot springs - the sulfur content is higher than any other hot springs Soldier Boy and I have been to in Utah. It turned my sterling silver CTR ring black. Granted, cleaning said ring with jewelry cleaner or silver cleaner will clean it right up. For now I'm leaving it because my ring looks SUPER awesome black. But I wouldn't wear any other jewelry in the future.

Just as a side note, Soldier Boy and I decided that our favorite hot springs are the ones in Ogden. I don't know if we'll ever go to the ones in Spanish Fork again. That long of a hike sort of defeats the purpose of relaxing...but it was absolutely beautiful up there. The view of the night sky was absolutely incredible. :o) 

Thursday thingies

I'm uber swamped, running on 4 hours of sleep and hoping that I can get everything done that needs to get done. ha. but...here we go.

• I have the best boyfriend ever. We might have stayed up too late last night, but it was because we were having the best conversation. I love talking with him.

• dancing. tonight. be there or be boring.

• i'm hoping all ten members of my company are in class tonight. We only have 8 weeks until the show...we need to get crackin' on choreography!

• we got badges/swipe cards for our new security system at work. I love them. 

• I'm spending time with the boyfriend and his daughter this weekend....I'm REALLY nervous about it.

• Seriously, I'm ridiculously nervous.

• Although Solider Boy did say the sweetest thing when I was telling him about this fear. He said, "Alishka, you have nothing to worry about. Honsetly, [daughter] is not going to remember a time when you weren't a part of her life."

• See? sweetest boyfriend ever. Totally put me at ease.

• BUT it's still a new facet to our relationship. guess we'll see what happens.....

• It's going to be SO SO SO pretty this weekend. I'm stoked to play outside and stuff.

• ALSO my Beckybob is in town AS WE SPEAK and we're playing tomorrow and i am just OH SO EXCITED. Truly. EXCITED!!

that's about it. :o) Have a great weekend!

craziness

Hi guys. So....I started a post on Friday, but then I didn't ever get around to finishing it and posting it. Then I stayed away from the internets (for the most part) this weekend. See...it was show weekend. That meant I spent all afternoon/evening Friday and Saturday at the Covey Center for the Arts. It was fun and exhausting all in one. Also - I realize I didn't finish the 10-day challenge. My life blew up with the show (some crazy stuff hit the fan late Thursday) and I really couldn't think of something to do PLUS the one thing I did think of possibly doing, I couldn't do because I wasn't allowed to wear jeans to work on Friday due to the board of directors meeting that happened. Oh well. C'est la vie.

The silver lining though to this weekend was that Solider Boy stuck around on Friday. We went to lunch together and then he came and suppported me and my ballet company at the performance that night. It was SO NICE to have him with me. We followed up the show with dinner w/a good friend of mine and then went back to my place to talk and just chill. He ended up staying another (unplanned, but still good) night in UT county and we got to spend a bit of time together Saturday morning before he left on his week long trip to California. sigh. I miss him.

Also, I've realized that I haven't really blogged about a lot of what happened last weekend (the 28/29 of January) or what not...and I'm pretty sure I don't want to go into all of the details about it all. It's a VERY long story and pretty personal, but the jist of it is this: we're not really dating right now and we're going to be that way for a little while. It's a complicated mess, but Solider Boy is my future boyfriend. One of my friends described it as us being "engaged to be in a relationship." We don't have a timeline for when we will be officially dating, but in the meantime we are good friends strengthening our friendship. We hang out and talk to each other because we both need that support. I honestly really like where we are in our relationship and I'm so grateful for this time to learn more about him and grow closer together without all the other emotional/physical aspects of a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship getting in the way. We both really like each other and we're excited to see where things go, when they can go. So...Soldier Boy isn't disappearing completely, I just don't get to kiss him or hold his hand right now. :'(

Anywho...there's the reader's digest version of where things are for us right now. :o) Have a great Monday y'all!

"it's busy season!"

that is our  go-to phrase here at work these days. My coworker is super cute when she says it to justify our three-week lead time on our product. The months of November/December are always crazy in the office, but this year it seems to be amplified 100x or so. Life is INSANE around the office.

Anyways. Seeing as how it's been almost a week since I last posted I figured a bullet-point list would be the best way to catch you up on my awesome life. (seriously, life is uber awesome.)

• Monkey Man is the sweetest guy in the whole wide world and I'm the luckiest girl ever. Seriously. I catch myself staring at him all the time and thinking to myself, "how did I get so lucky?" things are good.

• Went to Temple Square on Saturday night w/Monkey Man and another couple to see the lights, go to dinner (Z'Tejas @ Gateway. okay food. not my favorite restaurant) and then party it up at the Clark Planetarium. We took fun pictures on the moon and mars. It was a blast (although VERY cold).

• Had the annual Christmas tour day for my ballet company. that was a day full of driving and stuff. Nothing bad happened and it was a pretty good day overall. 

• Made Aebelskivers last night w/Sister B and her husband and Monkey Man. Also, we watched the First Presidency Christmas Devotional and played games. It was fun times. 

• during the course of this week, Monkey Man and I have something together to do/attend 5/7 days. :o) I'm very excited about this.

• I'm finding it hard to believe that it's been a year. Part of me is shocked it has only been a year. At times it feels longer. 

• I'm addicted to cherry coridal kisses and m&ms. :o) yummy.

• I haven't been very good about going to the gym the past week or so. My trainer is going to kill me.

• I get to party it up with my ballet girls tonight. I'm rather excited to see all my friends. It's been awhile.

• I leave for VA in 16 days. EEK! Christmas is going to be here before I know it. :P

• I need an idea for a mass gift for my RS sisters. Any and all ideas are welcome. a DIY project is not really feasible at this point, but I need to keep cost down as well....so yeah. Please suggest something. ;)

• My office was a brisk 56 degrees Fahrenheit this morning. SO COLD. Stupid next door office that controls the thermostat and doesn't leave it on during the weekends. :P

• The world is very, very small. Roommate R (one of my favorite persons EVER) is friends with someone that Monkey Man knows as well. Insane how small the world is. ESPECIALLY in Utah.

Basically, I'm really  busy with life in general but I'm super happy, twitterpated, and joyful as an elf.  :o) Have a wonderful day!

Cloud 9

I just may float away....here are some prints that express my thoughts perfectly for today. :o) Have a great day y'all!

WEDNESDAY!

So....I missed Tender Mercy Tuesday. I'm sorry! I had a great one planned in my head...but after a CRAZY Halloween night (car accident :( [my fault. so sad] and a party w/Monkey Man) and a VERY busy day on the phones....posting just didn't happen.

BUT I'm here today! The party with Monkey Man was so much fun. I love spending time with him and getting to hold his hand. :o) Everything is still very surreal to me. (a very good surreal though)

Tonight is going to be busy, but should be fun.

My brain is scattered, so I'm going to leave you with this AWESOME YouTube video that I shared via twitter earlier this morning and call it good. Happy Hump Day all y'all!

disappearing act

so remember how I was SO excited about my date with BM2? Well he called me yesterday on my lunch break to cancel. Basically he told me he wasn't in a place to date right now, he doesn't want to lead me on so we're not going out this weekend or anytime in the very near future. We're going to stay friends because he thinks I'm awesome and stuff. Plus he said he wants to be ready to date soon and when he is we might try things out then. So for now...we're friends and we'll hang out in the future and stuff. (and before you freak out and say, "Why Alishka, why?" or "He's just stupid." He had very good, personal reasons that he shared with me that I'm not gong to share with you. so there.)

while I was initially very much saddened by this turn of events, I think it's going to be good. I told my mom and one of the first things she said to me was the following: "With as many guys as let you go suddenly, Heavenly Father must have someone very special for you that isn't quite ready."

I tend to agree with my mommy. She's usually right. ;) Also, my life has kind of been a crazy roller coaster lately. I've come >this< close to having an emotional break-down for the stupidest reasons, but then again, that's how I roll. See I let the smallest things - the tiniest thorns inbed themselves inside of me and then they fester, because they're small and practically non-existent, I ignore them. Before long there is a huge collection of thorns inside of me and then the stupidest thing will push me over and I'll just break. I was sort of there at the beginning of this week. I need to be better about not letting things fester, and it's a goal of mine to do this.

Anyways, the point of me telling you all of this is I'm not going to worry about dating for a while. In fact, I'm kind of going to just step away. I'm going to continue my friendships with people I know and I plan on doing fun things all the time. However, I need to find my balance again. The musical has definitely thrown off my balance and with the ballet school year in full swing I need to figure out how life is going to go. I have major responsibilitiesat church and work and I need o put some focus on those things and make sure I'm not letting any balls drop. This does not mean that I'm just going to stop dating - if a boy asks me out I'll say yes. I'm just not going to worry about it at all. Nor am I going to renew my subscription on the dating site I've been using.

I think that's all I want to say about the subject for now. :o) Have a great day y'all!

the morning after

Opening Night last night was FANTASTIC!!! It honestly was oh so magical! We had a really good crowd and it felt good to be performing for a real-live audience and not just our directors, producers and stage managers. We had a great audience that laughed and clapped and were just fabulous. I had several friends come including friends from my ward, ballet students and my codirector, and SwingKid and a friend of his. Among friends from my ward was Leviticus (remember him?) he gets a special shout-out because he brought me FLOWERS!!! I love flowers and I especially love getting flowers after performing. Makes my heart happy inside. and outside. :o)

SwingKid and I chit-chatted for quite some time after the show was over and everyone else was gone. I am glad that he and I are friends. We understand each other in ways that others don't and so it's nice to still have a connection with him even though we aren't dating anymore.

I am a little tired this morning as I sit at work, but I did make it on time, (unlike last week) and I'm excited for this weekend's performances. It shall be good times y'all, good times!

I think we'll finish up this post with a little Friday Fill-Ins fun! It's been awhile since I participated, so here we go!

1. How can I express my true feelings on the matter? It's so hard sometimes.

2. I remember having to wake up early when I was little so I could weed the garden. I hated it!

3. My hair is bugging the crap out of me. I'm ready for a change, but I'm not sure what I want to do with it next.

4. I love having friend get togethers that turn into min-reunions. Makes my heart happy.

5. My favorite summer fruits are strawberries, rhubarb and watermelon. Oh happy day.

6. Sometimes I just stop and stare and think...what was that?

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to Night 2 of Aida! Huzzah!, tomorrow my plans include laundry, sleeping in, errands, a presidency meeting and Night 3 of Aida (not necessarily in that order) and Sunday, I want to get through my first Sunday as Relief Society President! EEK! Makes me nervous!

Tender Mercy Tuesdsay - 28th Edition

Hi there. It's been a long weekend. Full of fun in the sun, fun with friends, fun with family, and fun with boys. I promise to give you a full recap later - I'm sure you want to hear about all the fun fun fun fun I had...in the meantime I want to take a moment and be thankful for how well my Heavenly Father knows me.

See...even with all the fun I had this weekend I struggled with a few things emotionally. Mainly related to past relationships and where things could have been if we were still together. I don't really want to go in to a lot of detail because it's not needed. I've worked through the emotional angst and I know that I'll be okay, but that doesn't mean that this weekend wasn't hard. One of the harder ones I've had to be honest.

However, Heavenly Father knows me SO WELL that he made sure I had friends who made plans with me, family who called ME and asked me to spend the holiday with THEM and basically HE made sure that I had a well of support around me through all my hard moments. It made getting through my thoughts and emotions that much easier because I had people I could talk to who understood where I was coming from right then.  How grateful I am for that tender mercy.

Sixth of June

So...I sort of haven't blogged in five days. I apologize. I really do. See...Thursday was just very, very busy at work and then I was busy all night and what not...and then I just didn't get a chance to blog this weekend. :o) I was having too much fun! So...let's kind of do a little bit of a recap of what happened. I have more boy updates for you. I'm sure you're excited about that. ;)

So...Percy. Percy called me Thursday to reschedule our lunch date. See...he had a meeting come up and couldn't get out of it no matter how hard he tried. Unfortunately he called while I was at work and so we ended up playing phone tag all night, and we haven't connected yet. So, the date is on hold which makes me really sad because I do want to go out with him, so I'm hoping it happens sometime soon.

Grizzly Bear and I hung out Wednesday night and watched Beauty and the Beast and chatted. He also kissed me. Now, I have this set of rules for kissing. The main one being that I kiss someone when there's going to be a commitment involved. Well. I sort of kissed Grizzly Bear without having been on a date (ha. done THAT before!) and it was really nice. He's a really good kisser and I do enjoy it......but honestly? I'm sort of freaking out. A LOT. Now, we've been on a date since he kissed me. (I told him he had to) We went to a movie Saturday afternoon/evening. It was enjoyable. However, I don't think I'm ready to make some kind of commitment to him at this point in time. He's in my ward and while I don't mind dating in the ward I am not ready to tell the ward that I'm dating him (like by holding his hand or something). Anyways....I realize that it having been only a week, that I shouldn't worry about it defining what we are and what not right now. I think part of it is from dating SwingKid for so long and I want to be in the same place I was with him with someone else - but I don't want to go through the process. I sort of forget that SwingKid and I went through a process to get to the point of seeing each other every day, always kissing hello/goodbye, to understanding each others quirks....you get the idea. I want that same kind of thing (who doesn't! It's a wonderful thing to have!) but I forget that it CAN'T happen immediately and that's why I am freaking out. Part of me feels like I need to have it immediately although to be honest I'm not ready for that emotionally. I just like to have it. It makes me feel safe and so here I am sort of pseudo-dating this boy that I'm not sure is going to go anywhere. I realize that you have to take risk and move forward and TRY things...but I hate leading boys on. I feel like I should feel more for him (maybe?) then I am and I just have NO IDEA what I'm doing! To be honest, I really REALLY want the date (when it happens) with Percy to go well and have it lead to more dates quickly. Is it bad that I'm still wanting to date other people? A lot? And take The Australian....I still like him. I'm not sure anything we've got is EVER going to lead anywhere....but he's just so awesome and what not. Sigh. I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't think I've really been in this predicament before.

Anyways, now that I've rambled on about that for forever....let's move on.

The wedding is in 10 days. EEK! Although really, everything is done for it and I think I'm good to go. :o) I finished the guest book last night and it is adorable!! I'm excited for my plans for my wedding gift to Sister B and her soon-to-be husband. :o) It will turn out super cute.  I found the most ADORABLE white shirt for the wedding. I'm very happy with it. I also got 2 other new shirts (all at JC Penny's) for a STEAL. I also went to the ModBod outlet store in Springville and got cute new shirt/jacket that is kelly green, a bright pink belt and a new swimsuit - all for $33. I am AWESOME.

Anywho, life is pretty good. I'm getting my hair done this week and I have a few other pampering things that are going to happen that I'm pretty excited about. :o) Hopefully I can just keep calm and carry on these next two weeks. I'm trying to enjoy the time as much as possible because I know it's going to FLY by me. :o) until next time my dear friends...ciao!

Tender Mercy Tuesday - 19th Edition

After the shortest relationship I have ever had happened in the past 2 days I have found that I really am so blessed. The tender mercies of this weekend and last night have overwhelmed me.

• My dear friend Bassbob called me within 10 minutes of getting off the phone with Fryman. Honestly, I was just starting to feel sorry for myself and he pulled me right out of that slump.

• My other Bob friend (Becky Bob) has been a great friend. We've always been good friends, but in recent weeks our friendship has grown and we talk via email and text messaging almost daily. I love her. 

• I wouldn't have the above two things happen to me if it weren't for the amazing technology of this day and age. I love that I am blessed to be here NOW when all these things are possible.

• I am going to a funeral today, and while it is a sad moment to say good-bye to someone at the same time this man lived a full life. He was amazing and he is in a much better place now.

• I still feel peace. Even with Fryman totally making a 180 degree turn and changing his mind on how he feels about dating me....we're not completely throwing it out the window. There is still a chance but like I said last night, I'm not holding my breath. 

• Patience is a virtue that I obviously need to keep working on in my life.

• Work has been crazy, but even with it being crazy I find time to hang out with my friends and do fun things. I love it.

• My new ward is pretty cool. Still getting to know people, but I'm excited about it!

And basically, this sums up how I'm going to deal with life right now:

Nevermind

Thank you guys for being so cute and supportive and excited for me. It's always a nice feeling to get comments and to have people share in on your joy.

I just had a nice long conversation with Fryman.

Sigh. Boys are so....confusing!

He called to tell me he's just not feeling right about us dating right now. He hated saying it, I could totally tell. He's not sure if it's just feelings of being scared of committing to a relationship or if it's more of a this isn't going to work with us right now...but regardless we're stepping back.

like way back.

like, we're not dating exclusively, we're not going to see each other this week. maybe we'll go out next week, but i'm not getting my hopes up.

I knew this was a possibility based on some of our text messages today. I'm not going to lie, I hate it. I had such a peaceful feeling about us dating yesterday and to have that dashed to pieces - it hurts. Granted, it takes two people that both are feeling right about the situation to make a relationship work. I guess it hurts the most because I did let him kiss me and I felt so good about taking that step.

But what's a girl to do?  I can't force him to do something he doesn't want to do. If it's not right...then it's NOT RIGHT. And the peace I felt...I knew that it was a peaceful feeling in that it was okay. That doesn't mean it was going to mean an instant relationship or anything. I am just full of sad right now. I wish that it would have worked...I wish dating was easier.

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