Mishmash

I LOVE:

- playing Black Ops 2 zombies on repeat for hours with the boy and not getting better AT ALL
- marathons upon marathons of Big Bang Theory, thanks to a roommate who bought every season on Black Friday
- candy cane Joe Joe's from Trader Joes, courtesy of my beautiful mother
- NOT falling while ice skating!! (ice skating is my natural enemy)
- having a REAL Christmas tree in our apartment that we bought and smuggled up the stairs and decorated all on our own (they're a "fire hazard", apparently, and we could get kicked out for it, but we bought it anyways because CHRISTMAS SPIRIT DUH)
- friends texting me SPECIFICALLY because they have egg nog in their apartment and know what I'm all about
- taking the long way home at 2 am just so I can see some Christmas lights on big houses
- receiving videos of my woozy sister after getting her wisdom teeth removed
- HAVING HAIR THAT IS 4 INCHES SHORTER HOLLLAAAAA

And here are some lovely pictures:

 

 

"Shea let's do a duck face on the picture" "OKAY"

 

Matching wounds and cupcakes

 

RYDER the love of my life

 

Piece of the Berlin Wall at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library

 

Locations I have searched recently (HAHA)

Work, Caffeine, Television, Repeat

I think I haven't blogged lately because there's really not anything to blog about.  Life has become a marathon of getting 5 hours of sleep a night, living off of caffeine, working 8 hour shifts and hanging out with friends when I should be attempting to keep my body from breaking down by the age of 28. 

Here's an average day in the life of Shea:

I wake up at 6 AM and get ready for work while listening to Drunk by Ed Sheeran on repeat.  It's ironic how much I enjoy a song about something I've never done.  I get to work less than 5 minutes before I'm supposed to start, A COMPLETE MIRACLE since I left 15 minutes later than I should have due to eyeliner OCD issues.  I am close enough to being late that I am sweating from walking quickly from the shuttle but early enough that I have time to check Twitter and Instagram and realize that all of my friends are just as wonderfully miserable/happy as I am.  After spending the first 2 hours of my shift in a slightly frustrated, exhausted daze, I down the 5 hour energy shot that I have been carrying around all week as my plan B.  I run around like a seemingly inebriated madwoman for the next 6 hours until I am finally off.  I return home to an empty apartment, put on leggings and a hoodie, eat one of my grandma's brownies because it's the single food source I have that involves the least amount of effort, and crash in the pitch-black living room for a half hour until I am woken rudely by a phone call from a boy I'm a little too excited to see.  I drag my bones off the couch, put on the same flannel shirt, skinny jeans, and Docs I've worn for a week and return to the happiest place on earth.  I cry watching the Christmas fireworks show (like I do EVERY SINGLE TIME) with its emotionally-exploiting usage of I'll Be Home For Christmas and position myself right below the gingerbread-scented "snow" machines. 

I figure this counts as a shower. 

I eat dinner at 11:30 pm and fall asleep at 1:30 in the morning watching Elf with my roommate Jamie.  She wakes me up when it's over because she is concerned I might be dead (this legitimately has happened) and also knows how mad I'll be in the morning when my skin is breaking out because I didn't wash my makeup off.  I almost forgo flossing because I can't stand up straight at the sink, but my vanity wins out.  I crawl up the ladder to the top bunk, put in earbuds, and the next thing I know, my alarm is going off again.

This is my groundhog day.

But as exhausting as it is, I don't want it to end.  I love this place.  I love this job.  I love these friends.  And I could keep it all. 

Pray for me.  Some decisions I can't make on my own.

Grateful

Every year for the past 5 years around Thanksgiving, I've made a list of 50 things that I am truly, madly, deeply grateful for.  Things that are unique to me, tender little mercies that I can tend to forget about in the hustle and bustle of everyday life.  I find that it's these little things that really make life worthwhile.  I would suggest making your own list and sharing it with those closest to you.  For the first time ever, I'm sharing mine.

1. Christmas lights
2. New guitar strings
3. The nearest Chipotle
4. Earplugs on weekend nights
5. Second chances
6. Walt Disney
7. People that let me pet their dogs
8. Farmers markets
9. Modern Family
10. Ghiradelli hot chocolate
11. Full gas tanks
12. Comfortable high heels
13. Family photo albums
14. Down comforters
15. iPhone maps app
16. Warm towels straight from the dryer
17. Restaurants that remember to leave the onions off
18. Letting go
19. Pinterest wedding boards
20. Head massages
21. Boys' sweatshirts
22. Beach bonfires
23. Waterproof mascara
24. Sundays I get to go to church
25. Taylor Swift music videos
26. Days with no traffic on the 5
27. Unbelievably cheap Jack in the Box tacos
28. Undiscovered tidepools
29. Little black dresses
30. Egg nog
31. Andrew Lloyd Webber
32. Forgiveness
33. Sleep without nightmares
34. Buses that come on time
35. Nights when you can see the stars
36. Wildflowers
37. Good advice
38. Fireworks
39. Elton John
40. Adventures at D.I.
41. Nonjudgmental friends
42. Magic
43. Family games of nubs
44. Long, quiet evening walks
45. Handwritten letters
46. Sleeping in
47. Beach cruisers
48. Visiting the snow but not actually having to live in it
49. Clean sheets
50. Love.

Happy Thanksgiving!

On the Nature of Time

Lesson learned this week:

Change the clock in your car immediately for Daylight Savings Time.  Otherwise, you will:
     
a.  End up yelling at your roommate for pretending like you're going to make it to your tour of Walt's apartment in 20 minutes.  You're not because you're stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on the 5 and you think she's completely delusional, when in reality you're the only one in the car who doesn't realize that you actually have 80 minutes, not 20 OR
b.  Go out to run errands, decide you'll allow traffic time to pick up your roommate at the airport and end up there what you THINK is one hour early but is actually 2 and have to go find a mall in Newport Beach and spend all of your money at Forever 21 OR
c.  Both.

Go ahead.  Laugh away.

:)

Recovering

1.  Here's something to chew on: imagine riding the Tower of Terror WITH ALL THE LIGHTS OUT.  No dialogue, no ghosts, no "wave goodbye to the real world", no key phrase to listen for because you know that's when the drop comes.  Nothing but darkness and everyone around you going into cardiac arrest, by the sound of it.  Yep.  The advantages of working at Disneyland.
2.  Something I hate that people close to me do: chain smoking.  Is there any easier way to passive-aggressively kill yourself?
3.  One of the best ways to heal a broken heart is trying on dresses you could never afford in a two-story Anthropologie on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.
4.  I've played Taylor Swift's new album so many times this week and so loudly that I'm pretty sure my neighbors are filing a petition to get me kicked out of my apartment.
5.  Something really cool: when the cashier in the Sprinkles in Beverly Hills RECOGNIZES YOU, asks if you're from Modesto, and tells you she used to go to church with you.  Four years ago.  And you actually remember her!  It's a small world after all (I am SO SORRY)
6.  I hate to get political.  I didn't even vote ( I KNOW, the shame, please forward all hate mail to my home address).  But I was really, really disappointed by the blatant displays of racism, ignorance and pure hatred I saw on social media after the presidential election results were released.  American politics are just turning into another poorly rated, pointlessly conflict-fueled reality TV show.  Let's have some dignity and some patriotism.  A real American who cares about our country will stand by our president, whether he (or she) is black or white, gay or straight, Mormon or atheist, REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT.  The future rests on all of our shoulders, guys, not just one person's.
7.  This week has been rough.  I'm not going to lie.  As Michael Scott so eloquently put it, "It feels like somebody took my heart and dropped it into a bucket of boiling tears.  And, at the same time, somebody else is hitting my soul in the crotch with a frozen sledgehammer.  And then a third guy walks in and starts punching me in the grief bone." 

Love sucks, you guys.

But it's funny how, when you're walking through the Christmas decorations on Disneyland's Main St. in the pouring rain with Ghiradelli peppermint hot chocolate in your hand and your best friend by your side, that you find yourself again.

Isn't it nice to know that the lining is silver?

Shenanigans

 

professional photo-bombing

 

waiting to be evacuated on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

 

family Christmas photo (we'll photoshop Brenly in)

 

Holly for a night

 

I saw Boys Like Girls

 

and All-American Rejects

 

 

Have a great week!

WARNING: Nerd Post Ahead

As many of you may know, the Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm for over $4 billion today from George Lucas and have announced plans to release a Star Wars Episode 7.

I am intimately connected to this event in 4 ways:

1.  I am employed by the Walt Disney Company.
2.  I happen to work full-time at Star Tours, the one and only Star Wars themed attraction at Disneyland.
3.  I was born and raised in Modesto, CA, which is also George Lucas's hometown and where his first film, American Graffiti, was set, and
4.  I am a huge Star Wars geek.  Like, a "I own not one but TWO Star Wars shirts and I also know Star Wars Battlefront 2 inside and out because I played it all weekend every weekend in high school instead of going out" geek.

So I know my opinion doesn't count for literally anything, but I'm going to give it anyways.  I don't mind the permanent marriage of Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Disney, three things I love immensely.  This is all well and good.  But the announcement of an episode seven is highly diconcerting.  The insisted continuation of a franchise we all know peaked in 1983 with The Return of the Jedi is, I feel, a mistake.  Sure, the last three made were exciting for me as a kid.  I still remember my father pulling me out of school early on the day of the release of Revenge of the Sith to go see it at the Brenden Theatres in downtown Modesto together. But one can only take so much cheesy Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen dialogue (love you guys, huge fan xoxo), and the amount of energy we had to put into pretending to like The Phantom Menace alone was frankly exhausting. The classic Star Wars is the Star Wars we all love, in all its primitive greenscreen glory and Harrison Ford sex appeal. We didn't really need episodes 1 through 3, and we definitely don't need episodes 7 through 9. I plead with you, Disney, for the love of all that is intergalactic and holy, let Star Wars rest in peace.