A New Years Eve Reflection

Today's Thought.

Don’t try to make people happy if those people don’t make you happy in return.

From The Sidelines Of Lambeau Field

As you you walk out of the tunnel, you are amazed at the immensity of the stadium. With the capacity to hold thousands it finally hits you that you will be in front of a crowed larger than you have ever imagined. You can feel the Greatness in the air. You are hit with a familiar smell of brats and beer. The roar of the crowd is louder than anything you have ever heard. You can practically feel the energy pulsating through the arena. As you gaze around you see a sea of green and gold. With every passing minute the crowd manages to grow louder. Your excitement is rising, like a river after a monsoon, swelling at the banks and over flowing to create the biggest grin on your face. As you stretch, nervousness begins to take over mixing with adrenaline to create the most potent combination.  Falling into the familiar routine of warming up, you begin to relax. Lining up on the field, you get another chance to take it all in. This time every seat is filled, almost everyone supporting the G-Force in some way. Suddenly the crowd explodes. The team runs out of the tunnel, shouting out words of encouragement to their teammates, pumping themselves up for a victory. The intensity of their energy is contagious. The crowd feeds on it, their spirit spilling over the walls of the arena. The national anthem begins and you can’t help but to get goose bumps. The crowd is silent with the exception of those singing along respectfully. The planes soar overhead; the flyover is quite a sight. Your emotions are a mix, unnamed and unknown to many. This experience is one of a lifetime.

Just Moosin' Around: Abercrombie Summer 2013

Summer break from college means one thing: work time.  This summer I was recruited to work at Abercrombie, which I loved but was also pure torture – sending a broke college student to the mall every day: hello temptation! I spent most of my lonely time up in the front of the store admiring the clothes and deciding what to buy with my paycheck. But in all seriousness I enjoyed working there. My managers and coworkers were all awesome, and despite loud music and dark lighting, the store had a fun atmosphere. The best part of working in retail is easily the crazy customers and the stories that come with them. Luckily for you I’m going to share them now.

•  My sister was working at the register and a man asked her if he could get a gift card that didn’t feature half naked children on it. For the record, we do have those. 
• While standing in the front of the store folding clothes a woman comes up to me to ask a question. She brings me a pair of shorts and points to the “8” on the size sticker and asks if the eight means that in order to wear this pair of shorts you had to be eight years old.  She was wondering because her daughter is seven years old and the lowest number on our clothes was eight so she didn’t think her child was allowed to wear our clothes. 
•  I’m asked if the deer on our wall is real. In case you are curious the “deer” aka a moose is fake. Abercrombie & Fitch: Making PETA proud since 1892
• On a lady’s way out after tag lining her, she says to me “we’re going to a store with more daylight” Okay, it’s not even that dark in our store. If you want dark try Hollister.

•  After checking out a mom leaves the store and forgets her daughter in the corner of the store. It takes her at least five minutes to realize this and to come back to collect her child
• I witnessed a mom telling her child to shut up or she would take her the f*** outta there and beat her a$$. I was seriously in shock. She got a disgusted look from me.
• -A younger boy sprays our perfume, smells it and  goes “mhmmmm!”, his mom then asks him if that’s what his girlfriend smells like
•  A lady walks in and excitedly tells her kids come on let’s go look at the big moose on the wall! They don’t look at any clothes, just check out the moose then leave

Abercrombie Kids has been at our mall for many years, yet people constantly get it confused with Abercrombie and Fitch, the adult store. At first I understood. Then I realized every single sign in the store, even right when you walk in, reads “a&f kids” in big bold lettering. It was a rare occurrence for a shift to go by without someone asking if this was in fact the kid’s store

• An older woman, probably about mid-thirties, walks in with her friends. She holds up a medium t-shirt and complains that we must be shrinking our sizes because she always wears a medium but this just looks way too small and starts ranting about how have changed our sizes. She looks embarrassed when I tell her that she is in the kids store and the adult store can be found on the lower level.
• Two larger gentlemen come in asking if this was the “big guy store”
• A bigger lady, who is on the phone, asks me what size our jeans go up to. I tell her a sixteen, thinking she’s talking on the phone to someone she is shopping for. She excitedly hangs up and tells me how happy she is that we carry her size, thinking it’s a women’s size sixteen not a child’s, and then asks me about how the jeans fit.  She was so happy. Once I realize she is looking to shop for herself I relocate her to the adult store.
•  A man walks in, looks around all confused so I ask him if he needs help. He said yes, his girlfriend asked him to pick up a pair of the “dawn” shorts. I pause for a second, not sure if he is shopping for his girlfriend or maybe he is a baby daddy. I just say well the adult store is found downstairs…. He was looking for that store. But hey, you never know …

Hopefully more stories to come after winter break.

"I know no limits, life can change in an instant"

It’s crazy how easy we forget to appreciate the things we have and take things for granted. While this could apply to many things of my life, today I’m talking about cheerleading. I have been cheering for nine years and I love it. There is such a thrill from hitting a new stunt, such a great adrenaline rush from throwing and sticking a new tumbling pass. Cheerleading is my happy place. October 27^th 2012 would be classified as one of the worst days of my life. It was the first basketball game of the whole year; my excitement level was running high. My mood quickly took a turn south when during the second timeout of the game I did a round off back handspring layout, got much higher in the air than I expected and landed on a hyper extended knee. After much evaluation the end result was a torn ACL and meniscus. That meant surgery and no cheerleading. The whole ordeal kept me out of my beloved sport for eight months total.  Sitting out for those seven months after surgery was pure torture, watching everyone learn new skills and improve while I had to relearn simple things like how to lift and bend my knee. I don’t even know what emotion I experienced having my happy place ripped away from me. It is always said that everything happens for a reason and I spent many practices and lonely nights pondering on this thought. After being released to return to cheer I think I have finally found the answer. I believe that it was in God’s plan for me to get hurt so that I could rediscover my love for cheerleading and appreciate all the things that I can do. I can remember times where I had complained about having to go to practice but I don’t think I will say those words ever again. I truly value every moment I have to practice, tumble, stunt and cheer because I know how in a blink of an eye that can all be taken away from me.  This is just a small reflection and tiny look into the thoughts on my mind. Through this all I have learned to never take the things that I love for granted, and as much as I hate that I had to go through all of that, in a way I am thankful. My passion for cheerleading has resurfaced and that passion will stay burning forever.

Feeling Lucky?

One of the greatest feelings is when you realize your lucky is changing. Your life is like a never ending cloudy sky and suddenly the sun breaks through, and luck feels like the warmth of sun on your back. It's as if you suddenly found a four leaf clover, or Harry Potter and his friends spiked your lemonade with Felix Felicis - the potion for liquid luck. Everything seems to be suddenly going your way. But the scary part is never knowing when this streak of luck may end. Will this span of good fortune lead up to when you need it most? For me, luck brings along  new confidence. Doubting stops because you just have this feeling that this time things might go your way. But some situations confidence can't get you through, especially when a decision is in someone else hands.  Is there a way to keep your luck from running out?  

Pintrest Review - DIY Citrus Leg Scrub

Spending a rainy day pinteresting, I came across a do it yourself sugar leg scrub. Promising to give you irresistibly smooth, summer ready legs, I decided to give it a try. Ingredients and directions are as follows:

You Will Need:

• 1 cup of sugar
• 1/3 cup of oil (olive, baby, or almond)
• 3-5 tbs lemon or lime juice
• A razor

I used olive oil, I would preferred to have used baby oil. There was a quick second where I could smell the olive oil over the citrus and I felt like I was in the kitchen. I'm thinking baby oil would have smelled better.

Directions:

1. Mix sugar, oil and juice 
2. Apply half the mixture to legs and rub it in using a circular motion
3. Shave your legs 
4. Rinse and repeat steps 2 and 3
5. Give one final rinse and you're done! 

I applied the mixture to my legs on at a time versus doing both a the same time. While you're shaving one leg the other is just chilling there dripping into the tub. What was tricky is that unlike when you use shaving cream or other products, you can't see exactly where the razor has already been. You need to be slow and careful to make sure you get every area. Also be careful because when the mixture gets on the bottom of the tub it makes the tub very slippery

I would rate this scrub a 3/5 stars. While the sugar did a great job of exfoliating my skin, it was not left at the softest it has ever been. Feel free to try it out and report back with your own feed back. Happy pinteresting!