Christmas Giving

Many of you know that I read a blog called Cake Wrecks it is generally a very funny blog that leaves me smiling. From the 11th of December till the 25th they are adding something different to each of their posts, they are including the name of a charity or organization that they will be donating to and are asking that you join them in just giving a dollar a day (you can see their original post about it here.)
For the past week they have been giving to some amazing organizations, things that I would never even have thought of but that were going to people/animals in real need, today's was a little different. Here is what they wrote in their blog:

Today's charity is something different, so I hope you'll bear with me. You see, on Tuesday night 27-year-old Amanda Buckland lost her husband, her 4-year-old son, her 8-month-old daughter, and everything they owned in a house fire. (The house they'd recently begun renting had no smoke detectors.) She and her 12-year-old stepdaughter only escaped thanks to a quick-thinking neighbor with a ladder.

Take a second and think about that level of loss. I, for one, cannot even begin to fathom it.

So today, John and I are donating to the Buckland Family Trust, which was set up by Amanda's employer. I hope you'll join us by donating your dollar, too.

Even though I have lost my Dad I can't even begin to understand what Amanda and her daughter must be feeling, but I echo their words and ask if you will join and give but just a dollar to help her. (The Donate button through paypal can be found at the bottom of this post.)

The Flute

I wish that I had talent like this on the flute (which would probably have a higher chance of happening if I practiced more :D)

Invisible Women

I was blog-stalking today and the blog that I was looking at shared this video, it is very true. Though we might feel that we are invisible to others, we are most definitely not to Heavenly Father.

(DD) Holiday Decor

"The joy of brightening other lives, bearing each others' burdens, and supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of Christmas." W.C. Jones

PICTURE: A favorite piece of holiday decor.

WRITE: Talk about a sentimental piece of holiday decor.
I am not quite sure why this is one of my favorite holiday things but for some reason it has always been. My Grandma and Grandpa Williams cut and painted the tree and all the pieces that go with it. Growing up every year my parents would write on the calendar who's day it was to pick an ornament and hang it on the tree, they would rotate every Christmas who got to put the star on Christmas morning- generally if we had a visitor they were bestowed that "great" opportunity. When I was younger I always thought that my turn never came soon enough and once every 6 years was not cool to get to put the star on tree, so every time my turn came around I would pretend to take a long time considering what ornament to put up but then I would pick the star and put it on the tree-sometimes on the top where it belonged or other times somewhere else (in hopes that my Mom wouldn't notice). Most of the time my Mom wouldn't catch on the first time but then she would and every other time she would check and tell me to go back and change it, I always would giggle and go do it-it was almost like getting the double amount of turns. (This year because it's just Mom and I and as we have two advent calendars Mom has taken over the one in the kitchen and I get to do the tree in the living room-it's not quite as fun when it's yours to do as you please :D)

REMEMBER: Do you have any decorating traditions that were handed down to you?
Mom and I have been discussing it and she can't really think of any that have been continuing traditions except the candles. We have electric candles that we put in every window of our house, Mom said that was something that she had in her house growing up also.

(DD) Something Warm

"There is no ideal Christmas; only the one Christmas you decide to make as a reflection of your values, desires, affections, and traditions." Bill McKibben

PICTURE: Something warm
WRITE: For today's journal you were supposed to read the article "Welcome Home, for the Holidays!" that can be found here and then write your thoughts.
At first when I began to read it, it made me sad, what she was explaining as what happens at Christmas was most certainly not what I look forward to and not what I have felt in the past. Then I finished the article. I have been to the home where it is completely white, where there are glass chandeliers hanging in every room and where the carpet is two inches thick, I was afraid to touch anything, afraid that if I were to breath I might brake something. We went into a back room where the family was, this room was so different, completely relaxed- kids bouncing a basketball and laughing and completely at ease. What a difference your surroundings and attitude can make.
Christmas can be all about you, you, and you- about the gifts, what you want this year, who has the most lights on their house. Or it can be about others- whom can you serve this year, who can you remind of the true meaning of Christmas and bring love and joy into their hearts.
I hope that I can make Christmas about others this year, I hope that I can help them remember the true meaning and serve them through my example, love, and actions.

REMEMBER: Do you remember making any specific recipe with older family members? What was the experience like?
I am not sure if they were specifying a holiday recipe, but I always remember helping my older brothers bake on Sundays. The experience wasn't always the same- it could either be fun and joyful for both sides or unpleasant for us both. When I made the choice to listen and follow directions my brothers would let me participate and let me feel like I was actually cooking and knew what I was doing, but if I would try to steal cookie dough when they had asked me not to take some or do something else then they would become irritated with me and it would become not so fun anymore.

iFit

A couple of weeks ago Mom bought a reebok tredmill from Costco. I was so-so on my excitement and energy, not sure if it was really something that I would use. But when it came I helped Mom set it up and move it to where she had cleaned a space for it. I decided to try one of the workouts, I only lasted for about 5 minutes and still wasn't too excited. Mom continued to read and found out that it came with something called ifit- one for walking and one for weight loss. I tried the weight loss one, and I loved it! I am still on the day one workout and can only do 15 out of the 20 minutes, but I feel so good when I am done and I am quite impressed with myself that I can get up to a 7% incline while going 3.4 mph at times. I know that to some it won't seem like much but when I have been doing nothing for the last several months it is impressive to me, now all I have to do is work on my eating habits and the workouts will really help! (one of the best parts is that the tredmill also came with a hook-up so that you can plug your ipod or other mp3 player directly into it and it has speakers, makes it nice so that I am not just staring at a cement wall for long periods of time)

December Daily

Mom reads a digital scrapbooking blog and this year they had something called December Daily- it is a book that she printed out and there is a page for each day of December. For each day there is a picture that you are supposed to take and then has two things that you should journal about-one about now and one that you are remembering. Today (December 1st) we were supposed to take a "Welcome to December" picture, so here is mine, I put a poinsetta in my hair and then stood as close as I could to the tree.
I am still working on the journaling for today-Write your thoughts about your family holiday values (present). What is your earliest family holiday memory (remembering)?

O Christmas Tree

Yeah, Christmas is finally here and we have our first decoration up! Mom got out our advent calendar's this morning and we put red candles all around the house this afternoon, they have been burning since and then this evening we put up the Christmas tree. There are no garlands or ornaments on it yet, but I still think that it looks really pretty. I have come up with the idea that in our new house in Utah we will have two Christmas trees-one with white lights (for Mom-though I think that white lights are beautiful and classic) and another one with color lights (for me because I LOVE all the color). I ABSOLUTELY LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!! (for those that didn't know) and I am super excited to have the decorations beginning to come up.

Black Friday

What a wild ride Black Friday was this year! I worked until 10pm on Thanksgiving night, came home and immediately took a shower, then Mom and I headed to bed. Friday morning we work up at 4, Mom showered and then we headed to Newport. Narrowed down just into a list this is what we did: Wal Mart, Fred Meyer, Staples, JC (for Breakfast :D), pause at home for bathroom break and check our e-mails really fast then headed to Corvallis/Albany where we went to: Michael's, Costco, the mall (Target, Bath and Body Works, and Rue21), Fred Meyer (in Corvallis), another craft store, WinCo, then back to Wal Mart in Newport and Staples again. We left at about 4:30am and finally got home at about 6:30pm!
What a day, we came home with soooo MUCH stuff and probably spent way too much money but it was a super fun day. Of course because we were gone so long I was exhuasted, we came and tried watching one of the movies that I bought, I fell asleep part way through it and got about 12 hours of sleep by the time I woke up- did feel much refreshed when I was done :D

Health Hazard

It's official! My backyard is a Health Hazard, we even have the sign to prove it :D A a couple of months ago the city came and did a smoke test thing that showed that something was wrong with our pluming. Many things have led to the discovery that our pipes are not leading to the main sewer line (which they are not completely sure where the main sewer line is-sad huh?) and that it is just dumping into the ground. DISGUSTING! They came and pumped a bunch of water into the ground hoping to figure out where it was leading but all that I could tell that happened was that the whole outside stunk and that I started gagging REALLY BAD! Hopefully tomorrow the problem solving will be begun and that we wont have problems for much longer, but as for now we are "officially" a health hazard (bet that you can't say that about yourself :D)

YouTube

If you can't tell, I spend too much of my time on youtube and find way too many good movies/clips on it to share with you and to keep to watch again later. Sorry for the overload this week :D

Thanksgiving Commercials

Both of these commercials are really good, I almost expected them to say "Brought to you by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" instead of Publix. But still they are both very thoughtful and express completely what we should be feeling at Thanksgiving and everyday of the rest of the year also.

She Drive's Me Crazy

This movie with the Muppets makes me laugh---it's got a lot of hollywood people and Miss Piggy is just funny :D

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope that you have a wonderful day spending time with family and eating! I'll see you on the other side--probably with much more pounds of food consumed (not just by me :D) and many new purchases!

Empire State of Mind

I DVR'd the American Music Awards on Sunday so that I could watch it later, I skipped over most of it, as I didn't care for the singer, dancing, or for the song itself. But I did really like this song "Empire State of Mind" sung by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys (just ignore Alicia's dress)- it's amazing as you see that there are least 8 pianos and how strong her voice is when she sings. I have already watched it several of times and will probably watch it a few more :D

Dream Car!

If anyone was trying to think of something to give me for Christmas, I have something that you can give me, only this SWEET car, what else would I be talking about then the Cupcake Car!

And it's only $25,000 :D

The description of the car is pretty funny...Put on your matching hat, slip under the muffin top of your Cupcake Car, and let the world figure itself out for awhile. Get (or give) the sheer, joyful chaos of a gift that is mind-blowing, triple-dog-dare, double-infinity forever cool. Make the kids or grandkids literally squeal with joy. Bring it to work and buzz the breakroom. Crash parades! Putter about the ‘hood. Ever had a crowd of kids chasing after you just for the crazy gleeful heck of it? (No worries, the top speed is a comfy-safe 7 mph.) What’s it made of? A 24-volt electric motor, a heavy-duty battery, sheet metal, wire, fabric, wood…and mad genius. Launched at Burning ManSM as a cooperative art car project, the Cupcake Car sprang from the fevered mind of Bay Area artist Lisa Pongrace and her less-rules-more-laughs posse of artists and techno geeks. Yours will be tricked out with your favorite topping, so start thinking flavors.

Full of Thanks

As I am sure you have noticed I haven't done very good at doing my daily post of something that I am grateful for and because it is always much harder to try and get caught up with the past I have made a collage of some for which I am grateful. I know that there is much more that I am grateful for and that I am not always the best at expressing my appreciation, whether to my Heavenly Father, family, or friends- but I am.

Today Jenna from That Wife shared the newest movie on the Church's YouTube channel- it is beautiful, I was getting ready to leave this morning and paused to watch it, I was crying. I can watch this over and over and still just feel the spirit pouring over me. The church has even provided it in Spanish---share this and think about it "What are YOU thankful for?"

A Job (Nov. 5)

I know that sometimes I complain about having to go to work and dealing with the different customers but in reality I am extremely grateful to have a job at all. I have many friends who are still struggling to find a job and have been searching for many months and they have not been able to find one. Sure my job doesn't take the most brain power but I am so happy to have it and I am especially thankful for the paycheck that I receive twice a month and am able to put a large chunk into savings for school.

Prayer (Nov. 4)

A Child's Prayer

Heavenly Father, are you really there?
And do you hear and answer ev’ry child’s prayer?
Some say that heaven is far away,
But I feel it close around me as I pray.

Heavenly Father, I remember now
Something that Jesus told disciples long ago:
“Suffer the children to come to me.”
Father, in prayer I’m coming now to thee.

Pray, he is there;
Speak, he is list’ning.
You are his child;
His love now surrounds you.

He hears your prayer;
He loves the children.
Of such is the kingdom,
The kingdom of heav’n.


I am not always the best at taking full advantage of prayer, but I always know that it will be there for me, I will always have this way to communicate with my Heavenly Father and be guided by him. What an amazing gift that we have been given, that we have NOT been sent here to Earth completely alone with no help or chance of succeeding. Heavenly Father wants us to succeed and he has given us many resources in order to do so, prayer is one of them and I am so grateful to have it, to know that he is there and listening to me.

Shelter (Nov. 3)

The last past week we have had terrible storms here, that has been more rain drops then I wish to count, lightning illuminating the sky, thunder rocking the soul, wind pushing you like a kite around the sky, there was even a tornado in Lincoln City, waves splashing buildings on the other side of the road in Depoe Bay, and lightning striking the bridge in Waldport.
With these great storms I have come to appreciate the roof I have over my head, my house may not be the fanciest home in the world and it may not be the dirtiest either, but it offers protection and keeps me safe and warm from the weather storms and also the worldly storms that are going on outside. Whenever I am home there is no doubt that I am loved and am protected.

Friends (Nov. 2)

Friends. Friends are something that have always been very important to me, I strive hard to work on those relationships and to keep them strong. They, like my family are always there and a constant support to me. I love seeing my friends happy and work as hard as I can to do things so that they are happy, I hate to see them sad and will work even more harder to help them not to be. I love having that in return and know that with my friends they will do the same. I am so grateful for the friendships that I have and that I can continue to make more.

Family (Nov. 1)

(As it is the 11th I have to make up for the first of the month)

There are no words to begin to express how thankful I am to have my family, they continually offer words of support, give me hugs when I need one, tell me they love me, lift me up when I am down, make me smile, laugh, cry, and mean so much more than I can explain.

Month of Thanks

Last year my brother and his wife did a grateful chain where everyday they wrote something that they were grateful for on a piece of paper and then made a chain to decorate their Christmas tree with. I wanted to do something along the same lines, except do a different blog post every day for something that I am grateful for, these will be in no particular order, just as I thought of them.

Overcoming Fear

One thing that I have to deal with often as a checker is selling alcohol to people and with that comes the responsibility of deciding whether someone has already been drinking and whether it is really ok to sell them beer. I have always had a great fear of having a confrontation with a customer if I refuse to sell them beer and so sadly when I have seen someone that I though questionable I would escape out of my check stand or let the manager refuse for me.
But last week that changed for me! A customer was walking towards my check stand and was looking a little tipsy, as he put the beer on the belt I picked it up and put it to the side and told him that I was sorry but that I would not be selling to him tonight. He started to mumble in Spanish and Gary (the night manager) walked up and said to him "no cerveza" (no beer) and took it for me and put it away. Gary came back and made sure that the guy was gone, Shanda told me that she would have done the samething and Gary told me that I should never feel nervous about it, there will never be a time when management asks me why I didn't sell someone beer.
Having them support my decision really helped and in the last week I have been able to refuse several people and feel really good about it, the latest was last night when this guy walked up to my check stand, his eyes were barely open and he didn't look like he was walking the most stable. I asked him if he had been drinking already and he mumbled something, so I told him that I would not be selling him beer tonight, he stood there and looked really confused for a minute, mumbled some more and then finally walked out of the store.
A customer who was in the check stand next by said to me, "you are really good at that" I am glad to know that I have overcome a fear and that with doing so I can stop people that could otherwise cause hurt to themselves and others.

What Happened to Beth?

For Halloween at work we were allowed to dress-up, you actually could wear anything that day, a costume or even just comfortable clothes, but of course you know me I had to dress-up :D I had many different ideas of what I wanted to be, a pumpkin head, a witch, "HELLO My Name Is" name tag, a bag of jelly beans, a pushpin, or one of the fairies from Tinkerbell (two of the bakery girls were being others and invited me to do it with them). I had so many ideas and when it came to the night before Halloween I still wasn't sure what I was going to be, I had bought many different things for the different costumes but none of them were really jumping out at me.
I had bought these stripped pink and black tights to wear with my witch costume so I went to try them on and found that they did not fit :( so with the help of Mom I had to quickly figure out a new costume...I first tried the witch costume and then the fairy costume, I ended up going with the fairy (Mom said that I was Tatiana-the queen of the fairies from Midsummer Nights Dream by Shakespeare)

I bought this witches hat at JoAnn's and I absolutely LOVE it, it has little bats and spiders in the hair and is Absolutely Adorable!
I

My real hair sticking out adds so much to this picture :D
I wore my the witch hat and took some pictures then quickly got ready for the day in my fairy costume---I added so much glitter: on my clothes, skin, and hair, whenever I moved it was shimmery.

I got my wings at JoAnn's also, I thought that they were really pretty and I got so many compliments from customers throughout the day, I can't wait to think of another reason to wear them as they are really pretty.

Mom and I had found these super cute cauldrons and I went to WinCo and bought a bunch of candy and took it to work, I handed it out to almost every child that came through the store. Shanda (one of the other checkers) had a scary mask on so whenever a child would come through her line and start to get scared she would rush to my checkstand and grab the cauldron and take some candy back to help calm their nerves. I had to always be in the checkstand behind her so they wouldn't be too scared.
We had one customer who looked at Shanda and I and said "I aint going to the devil" (Shanda's mask wasn't exactly a happy face) and then came to me. Ahh the funny things that happen.
I was so afraid that it would be hard to work that day and that I would have so many people coming in drunk and trying to buy beer, but strangely I didn't have any problems, I don't even remember selling beer for the last 3 hours or so of my shift. When I drove home it was completely dead, I think that I may have passed 1 or 2 cars. It was the weirdest Halloween ever but so much fun!

Birthday Cake

One of the local radio stations has something called the birthday book, where people can call in and enter their names on their birthday. Every day one persons name is drawn and they are the winner. The owner of the local radio station is a member of our ward and when he first started the radio station he entered our names in the book, I guess my name was still on the list and I WON this year! Among things that I got were...a cake from work (I picked carrot---what other kind is there? :D), a drink (I got a strawberry milkshake) from one of the local coffee shops, a bowl of clam chowder from Georgies (that will be going to Mom as I don't like clam chowder), and a shake from Artic Circle (I got almond fudge and Mom got raspberry cheesecake). It's such fun living in a small town and having things like this!

Paying Less at Payless

Friday was my day off and Mom and I were cleaning in the basement when I got a text from twitter saying 50% off EVERYTHING at Payless today thanks to Oprah! (thanks Jenna at That Wife), now you can't claim something like that without getting my attention, so of course I had to run upstairs to my computer and check it out, all I had to do was print off this coupon and then take it to Payless and I could get 50% off EVERYTHING! How awesome is that? We were already planning on going to town and that encouraged me to want to go to town even more. I found a super cute pair of brown shoes that I am pretty much in LOVE with!, a couple pairs of socks, a pair of gloves, and my Mom bought a couple pair of socks too. Between Mom and I (and another lady that I let jump on the coupon with us) we had over $70 and then ended up only spending $30-something, what an awesome deal! Thanks Oprah and Jenna! Who would ever thought that Oprah would help me when I don't even watch her show :D

B-E-T-H

I decided to google search each of the letters in my name and make a collage with them...this is what I ended up with, it's so much fun to just google "letter _" under images and then see what you come up with!

All The Single Ladies...

Gather at the local Dairy Queen?

Last Monday after I dropped my Mom off at the airport shuttle I got to spend the day in Corvallis as I had the day off! I met up with Kandis and we went out to lunch and had tons of fun, then we went onto the Singles FHE! Super fun, because of work I don't get to go out very often, I especially don't get to hang out very often with young single adults so I was super excited.
When the activity was over at President Sherry's we weren't all quite ready to go home and have the night be over, so I suggested that we head over to Dairy Queen. We were all pretty hyper (especially me) and when you get 6 girls together that have tons of energy and add ice cream and sugar you are bound to have some pretty fun and entertaining things happen...among some-blank text sent to guy that we had just met that night, a ripped sweatshirt, new friends with the Dairy Queen employees, oh what a night!

Possibility

I think I've got a great possibility for my Halloween costume...what do you think?

Snuggie!

That's right, my Mom gave me a Snuggie for my birthday...how awesome is that?!
:D

Disneyland Presents

My Mom went to Disneyland this past week with my brother and his family (I know, I know---totally not fair!), she was nice and brought me back several gifts!

I collect the flattened pennies and every time she goes somewhere my Mom tries to find a penny machine and she brings me back one. She know's that Winnie the Pooh is one of my favorite Disney characters and so she got this one for me, she tried to find the a princess one for me also but had no luck :(

I also like to collect mugs (we call them hot chocolate mugs or apple cider mugs instead of coffee mugs :D) so she brought me back this pretty pink (one of my favorite colors) princess mug! Don't I have an awesome Mom? :D

My Brother and his family sent me this sucker too! How nice though I wasn't there to enjoy the fun that through pictures, stories, and gifts I can feel as though I was there!

New Favorite Song!

For all of you that think that I am silly for listening/watching Hannah Montana that is fine, but you have got to listen to this song called Butterfly Fly Away, it is one of my new favorite's I have listened to it at least 100 times this week---it is so beautiful, sweet, simple and makes me want to cry.

What Not to Wear?

A couple of weeks ago Mom and I went through our closets and did our own version of "What Not To Wear," or more like "what do we not wear?" We started with a very full, un-organized closet (1st picture), got rid of more than double of what you see in the 2nd picture (I believe that we ended up taking 7+ garbage bags of clothes and other stuff to Goodwill) and finished with the very clean and organized closet of pictures 3-5. It was a process of 3 or so hours but we were very happy with it when we were finished! I know that there is still much to be done in our house but we have to start with one project at a time and where better to start then with what you use the most?