Category Archives: Random

December 26, 2016

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

By solarisgaudium

2016 is finally coming to an end, and oh boy has it been a wild ride! Full of good times and bad for everyone in the world, unfortunately with more bad than good, it can be difficult to be happy, especially during this time a year.

For me personally, it took a long time for me to get into the Christmas spirit. Last week when I realized Christmas was only a few days away, I honestly panicked a bit. I usually try and buy my presents months in advance so that I wouldn’t have to worry about last minute shopping in the snow and ice, however the only present I had gotten months ago was a necklace I ordered for my mom’s birthday. By the time Christmas was a week away I had only found something for my sister on Black Friday and half of something for my mom.

I honestly was very concerned (concerned meaning I was stressing hardcore). When I was running around like a maniac looking for presents like so many others out there in the snow and rain, the last thing on my mind was the Christmas Spirit. The only thing I was worried about was finding stuff for my family that they would like within my very small budget, which of course meant buying pricey stuff with as much money as I could spare!

It wasn’t until about four days before Christmas Eve that I realized what kind of mindset I was in. I was talking to my parents when my dad lamented that he had not gotten anything for mom for Christmas. Without thinking I told him that having him here in the flesh for Christmas would be gift enough not only for her but for all of us. Mom agreed with me, but what I had said struck me. I was so busy worrying about having enough money to buy things for the ones I love that I didn’t realize what I already had. My dad was home, in the flesh, for not only Thanksgiving but also Christmas. Yes, that meant we had almost no money coming in, but dad is HERE, for the first time in YEARS! I was there; yes living in a *cough*cursed*cough* leaky 5th wheel trailer, but I was with my family. ALL of my dearest, closest friends were here with me, allowing us to spend our own little ‘squadmas’ party and exchange gifts with each other before going to our own families.

Honestly, I was disappointed with myself. I was worrying over the material things when I should have been so grateful for what I already had. I felt like I was in a cheesy Christmas movie, learning about the true meaning of Christmas after going through so many things I thought were major when they really weren’t.

I guess what I’m trying to say is I finally remembered what the most important things in life are. I’m a little mad at myself for having to relearn this lesson in the first place, but after all that has happened in this past year we need to try and remember what is most important in life: the ones we love. Stuff isn’t what makes us the most happy, it’s being able to be home and surrounded by family and friends. In the darkest times of our lives, the only constant we can rely on are those who truly, honestly care about us.

2017 is going to be a new start for me. I have two resolutions that I plan on working on: first take better care of my body so that I can be healthy, and second stress less over my funds and concentrate more on keeping my connections with others strong.

What are your resolutions? What did you learn this Christmas/year? I would love to hear from you, either in the comments here or in my Facebook post.

I hope you all had a pleasant holiday season, and good luck on the new year. I believe in you!

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May 8, 2016

Happy Mothers Day!

By solarisgaudium

Today is a day where we celebrate the awesomeness that are mothers! All over the country mothers are showed with flowers, chocolates and countless gifts by their loved ones, but I run into a small problem every year. What do you get someone who is a saint? I usually figure something out, in fact this year I was able to paint a simple picture of a peacock, her favorite animal. But I always have the problem of feeling like what I do or make isn’t enough to show the amount of love and gratitude I have for my mother.

Let me tell you about my mother. She grew up in unusal circumstances, with her mother murder when she was very young and her father walking out of her life. So she and her brother were raised by her grandparents. We always like to joke that the mother’s side of the family, the Parkers, have a curse to die prematurely for odd reasons, because they seemed to drop like flies while she grew up. Her brother, my uncle Mark, died from medicine malpractice, her grandmother died from diabetes that she didn’t really take care of, and her father was shot by his new girlfriend on his birthday. I’ve never been so happy to not have a certain name!

So my Mom went through a lot of death during her childhood, she had to take care of her grandparents while growing up, and only really had one best friend in her life. After her grandmother died, her grandfather became bitter and would often take it out on my mom, but she continued to help him and care for him. When she first told me her story, I marveled at how happy she was and still is. She never complains about life or when things go wrong and she always had a smile on her face.

Her story doesn’t end there. She met my Dad, who was very bitter at the world, and they didn’t like each other very much. Then they started hanging out, then dating, then eventually my Dad asked her to marry him, to which she (eventually) said yes. When they went to her grandfather for his blessing, he didn’t approve. He forced her to choose him or my Dad, and I’m sure you can guess who she chose. She was ready to live her life. Unfortunately the rest of her family weren’t very happy with her decision, so they cut off communication with her, leaving her all alone.

Years later I came along, then my brothers, then my sister. All through my life I’ve only seen my mom cry three times that I can remember: when my Grandpa Fritz died, when she accidently stepped on one of our kittens (who survived), and when one of us (I can’t remember who) got her so frustrated and mad she started crying. I don’t know about you, but if I had to go through what she did I wouldn’t be as happy as she is.

She’s always serving us, making sure we have clothes, food, and toys, and she even spent a lot of time working while my dad went to school to help keep a roof over our heads. She taught us how to clean, cook and take care of the various pets we’ve had, then when we moved to a farm she learned with us how to build structures, care for a garden, and take care of a large property.

She also helped us emotionally, especially me. She was always there giving us support during our trials, cheered at our successes, and gave us a shoulder to cry on when things went terribly wrong. I’ve told her everything about my life, my thoughts, my feelings, and she gives me treasured advice. I would not be where I am today if it wasn’t for her, and not just because she gave me life.

I love her with every fiber of my being and I feel so sorry for those who complain about their mothers because of things mothers should do to their children or suffer because of their mothers neglect. I never had that problem. I had a mom who loved me and cared for me. She never belittled me for my thoughts or my mistakes. She always welcomes me home with open arms, no matter how long I’m away. I tell her I lover at the end of every conversation or when we part ways, even if it’s just a wall seperation us. I wish I could show her how much she means to me.

Thank you for listening to my rambling. I hope you all are having a wonderful day, and to all of the mothers out there: Happy Mothers Day!

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September 7, 2015

I’m Alive!

By solarisgaudium

I am so sorry I have been so scarce! So like I mentioned in my last post I was going to be in Virginia for the summer, but what I didn’t know was the internet where I was staying was practically nonexistent, and phone reception was completely unavailable for miles! It was definitely an interesting experience.

So just a quick rundown of what happened:

It took longer than I had hoped, but I found a job working at the Wendy’s in Ruckersville. It was the first job I ever had to actively interact with my coworkers and dealing with customers, so it was a big learning experience. I learned that I handle customers pretty well, I learned how to work a cash register, and I learned I cannot tell if a customer is joking with me or not! There were plenty of times where a customer tried to joke around with me and I took them very seriously! I also had amazing coworkers who always made work an adventure. They were so diverse and unique from each other and anyone else I know from home, which was so interesting! The one thing I will miss the most from this job are my coworkers 🙂

Other than working I pretty much stayed at home dealing with the most dramatic child I have ever met! She is my friend’s niece, and because of some intense family problems she is staying with her grandparents aka my friend’s parents. Now, she thought she was only going to be there for the summer and when she found out she was sticking around much longer she threw a massive fit for a few days, which included calling her mother to try and convince her to let her come home. Now I understand that something like that would be extreme for any child to deal with, especially a nine-year-old, but that was just the beginning of the drama. She came from an abusive home, so she was constantly seeking attention but in the worst ways. If she didn’t get what she wanted, she threw a fit; If someone tried to tell her something, she would say they’re wrong and she’s right; If didn’t want to eat whatever food was for dinner that even resembled vegetables, she threw a fit. Let’s just say there was a lot of unnecessary drama that I had to live with, but by the time I left that home she was doing a lot better. I really think that being where she is and being away from the troubles of home will be very good for her, she just needs to learn how to trust others again. It will be a long and hard road, but I believe in her. She’s in good hands.

The last thing I wanted to mention was as of right now, I am staying at my Dad’s place for the holiday weekend before heading home. My parents were able to pick me up from Virginia and drive back to Pennsylvania so that my friend could spend this weekend with her family before she left. She’ll be heading up here tomorrow and then on Tuesday we begin the long trek back to Idaho! I’m SO ready to be back home with my family and pets! I miss my dog Josey and my snake Balthazar soooo much! And my fish and my cat and my peacocks and- well you get the picture.

Anyway, I’m really enjoying being able to spend time with my Dad before heading home. The last time I got to see him was October of last year, and that was for a funeral so it wasn’t under the best of circumstances. This visit is definitely much happier!

Oh! One more thing I should mention: I got accepted to Brigham Young University of Idaho! I’m a college student! Woo! I’m so happy about this, I have been trying to get all of this madness figured out for months, and it all paid off! I won’t know my track until October, but from the looks of things I’ll probably get a Winter/Spring track. Unless they do something weird like the Spring/Fall track. I hear that can get pretty confusing.

Well, I hope you all had a wonderful summer full of fun and growing experiences! I’ll write again soon, most likely after I get settled back home. Until then, please enjoy this video I made of the neighborhood I was living in! It was so beautiful and secluded, like a magical forest!

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April 30, 2015

Just Some Thoughts on my Mind

By solarisgaudium

So I haven’t written about anything for a while, mainly because nothing big is happening right now, but yesterday I had an interesting day and I wanted to share that with you.

First off: I dyed my hair! It’s really cool!

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It’s green! Well, the front and tips are. Man it was so much fun! I wanted something different and I decided I wanted to dye my hair, and it took FOREVER to figure out what color. I finally decided the day before I got it done that I was going to try for Jade Green, and I think it got pretty close 🙂 My favorite descriptions of the color is Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream, Fairy, and/or Mermaid. It makes me want to make a fairy costume specifically for my hair!

Now the thing I wanted to talk about ties into this new hairdo I have. One of my favorite things to do is mess with people’s heads. Even when I was a small, sweet and innocent 14 year old I liked messing with people. I used to be a janitor, and I ALWAYS had my MP3 player on me, and I would sing to my favorite songs really loud cause I knew I was the only one in the building. Well, I always wanted someone to say out loud how teenagers always have music playing and it would be heavy rock or the like (unfortunately it never happened), you know that stereotype, but in reality I was listening to piano and relaxing music like Pure Moods most of the time. It wasn’t until about a year ago that I started to really like listening to loud pop and a bit of rock music.

So that’s the kind of messing I like. I like to break stereotypes (at least in the beginning it was mainly stereotypes) and show people that I was no ordinary teenager. These days I’ve gotten pretty good at that, and my favorite thing to do is while I’m driving bus. I may have mentioned that I’m a school bus driver, and even  though I’m 21 I tend to look 16, and I love driving by police cars, because when the officers notice me, they tend to have a confused and sometimes a bit concerned look on their faces. It’s the best!

Anyway, the thing I wanted to mention about yesterday is that because I dyed my hair green, which is what young teenagers tend to do more than young adults, I felt like every time I was out in public I was shattering every stereotype in the world! Even though that really wasn’t true, I was really confident in myself, which I thought was a really great thing. But then I near the end of the day I started feeling sort of uncomfortable, like I shouldn’t be so proud of my comfort around people, and I started getting negative looks and feelings towards me. Let’s just say my depression started to get the better of me.

But then I read a post on tumblr. It read

“how the heck do people just stay motivated their entire lives? what drives you? I got out of bed once and i’ve been exhausted ever since.”

And someone replied with “You need to learn to hate life to the point where you want to get revenge on existence itself”

Now I didn’t completely agree with hating life, however I thought of it this way: Live in a way that life will regret ever trying to mess with you.

And that reminded me that I don’t have to care what other people think. I like my hair, I like the music I listen to, I like my clothes, and I like my way of LIFE, and that’s all that matters. I’ve heard that saying all my life, but now I finally understand how important it is to remember to like yourself, no matter what anyone else says or thinks.

So I just wanted to share this experience, mainly because it’s been on my mind for a while, but I also wanted to share it for those who might need a reminder to be happy with you, like the song by Colbie Caillat “Try”. If you haven’t heard that song before, I suggest looking it up, because it’s such a good song! It’s one of my top faves!

Anyway, I hope you all have a fantastic day, and thanks for listening to my ramblings. TTYL!

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March 18, 2015

A Month of Practically Nothing

By solarisgaudium

So I just sorta need to vent a bit so you don’t have to read this. Who knows, I might put something inspirational at the end like I try too, but we’ll see what happens. This will probably be just rambling 😛

SO! Have you ever felt like you’re life is going nowhere? Like you’re in a rut and not quite sure how to get out? I’ve been feeling this was for a while now. I think most of it is because I’m SO excited for things that are going to happen in a few months. At the beginning of June I’m going east with my Best Friend 5-ever and we’re going to get jobs for over the summer. I’m excited for this for a few reasons: 1. We’ll be in Virginia and I’ve never been that far east    2. It will be the first time I’ll get a full-time job    3. It will be the longest amount of time I’ll be away from my family.

Now. What my theory is is that I want it to be June so badly that time has decided to slow down JUST FOR ME and it feels like an eternity. Plus, I am slipping into this routine everyday where I go to work, I go home and lounge around, I go back to work, I go home and lounge again, then try to sleep, then the cycle starts all over, with a few different activities on different days. This is very frustrating for me because then I feel like I’m doing nothing with my life, when in reality I’m just waiting. Waiting for my adventure to begin.

To make things worse, there are so many things I could do between my work shifts, but I just spend all day either watching YouTube videos or on Tumblr or web surf the same pages over and over again. I could be working on studying for my SAT, I could be recording music for my YouTube channel. I could be oh I don’t know WRITING!

But I’m not. So I have a question for you guys who read this. Do you have a way to motivate yourself to do things you should? It’s very possible my depression is why it’s so hard for me to be productive, but if there’s a fun or cool way to maybe trick myself into doing stuff that would be great 😀

I you have any ideas for me just comment on this post. That would be way cool.

Thanks for reading this rambling of mine. I do feel better already just by writing it out 🙂 I hope you all have a wonderful day!

2 Comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Random

February 26, 2015

Role-play and an Awesome Read!

By solarisgaudium

So here’s the thing.

I’m going to write about two totally different and unrelated things because they’re both things I want to share with you and they happened around the same time. The first one is cool cause it involves my thoughts on writing (again) and the second one is just plain awesome!

So first: Role-play.

For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, my friends and I love to role-play (RP) together, which is where we send messages to each other pretending to be different people. I do this a lot with them through Facebook messenger (for group RP’s) or other apps for just two of us.

An example:

ME: *walks up to the door and knocks loudly* Hey! Open up!

FRIEND: We know you’re in there! *positions herself to kick down the door*

This is a simplified version of RP, and recently I met someone online (My first internet friend!!) and we do more detailed posts, like paragraph sized messages detailed.

So my point of mentioning this is because while rping with my new friend, I realized how nice it is to pretend to be a character you created and get into their head. The RP I’m doing now involves a character I created specifically for this RP and I wasn’t sure what kind of personality she would have. I had a basic understanding of what I wanted, but I didn’t know how she would react appropriately to different situations. As I role-played as her, I would send messages that I would randomly write because it fit her SO well, and it helped her solidify as a true character for me.

So basically my point is, in you ever want to try out role-playing like this and you’re a writer, it makes figuring out your characters so much fun! By pretending to be that character you are getting into their head, seeing what they see, feeling what they feel. Plus, it’s really easy!

When another friend of mine introduced me to role-playing, I was skeptical at first. It sounded confusing and I wasn’t sure what the heck I was supposed to do, but she convinced me to do it, and I’ve been addicted ever since. It’s just so much fun for me and it pushes my writing skills because I have to remember that I’m not able to describe my character the way I do in a book. I have to go with speech and basic action descriptions most of the time to show what my character is like.

OK, now that I’ve had that particular rant, it’s time to move on to another one! Yay!

So I don’t know if any of you readers have heard of that girl who faked her pregnancy for a school project, and if you haven’t, here’s the jist:

A girl is raised in a home by a teen mom and all of her older siblings who also became teen parents. Her mom didn’t want her to end up like she did, so she urged her daughter to make a better life for herself. So the girl went to school and worked hard. She was a straight A student, she was on the honor role, whole nine yards. Well, as she grew up it was sort of expected of her to become a teen mom as well, like some sort of family tradition. For her senior high school project she wanted to see what people would say/ how they would react to her being pregnant as a sort of social experiment about stereotypes.

I heard of the story through Tumblr, and someone mentioned how she had a book out talking about this experience called “The Pregnancy Project: A Memoir“. Well, me being the psychology buff/fan that I am, I was more than wanting to read a more detailed description of this. So, I went onto Amazon and bought the kindle version of the book, and I didn’t read it until today. I finished it in one day. I just couldn’t put the book down! I know people say that a lot, but if I had to leave for work or something, I would be really sad and I couldn’t stop thinking about where I left off.

I absolutely love this book and I highly recommend it to everyone! Seriously, go read it now. Stop reading this rambling fangirl’s ramblings and read this book!!!

No but seriously, the things she talks about this, how her family treated her, her teachers, and her peers was incredible. Only the principal, her boyfriend (who her siblings didn’t like in the first place), her mom and her best friend were the only ones who knew the truth. She talks about how she did all this reasearch, she talked to profesionals about the symptoms, her mom helped her create a fake belly, everything! And she did it because she wanted people to know what it was like to be a pregnant teen and being told how you’re life is now ruined. Her boyfriend had already graduated so he wasn’t as school, but his friends and his own parents told him how he screwed up and he was now trapped and was no longer able to have fun. Then she talked about the after affects of this project, how her life had completely changed.

Holy cow, I can hardly contain myself while writing this!! You have no idea how much I love this girl and her courage and the message she was able to share. When it all came down to it, it takes just one person saying they believe in you and support you to help someone completely turn their life around. The words and actions we portray effect SO MANY PEOPLE! We can make a difference in someone’s life just by being kind and supportive, no matter what, just like that comic I told you about a while ago.

OK, I need to stop typing before my fingers fall off. My keyboard is startiing to protest and if I keep going I’ll probably start rewriting the book any moment. Holy cow, seriously, go read that book! Again, the title is The Pregnancy Project: A Memoir. It is so worth the money and it is something I will keep for EVER!!

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go sit in a corner and cry about this obsession I’m developing…

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February 15, 2015

Happy Late Valentine’s Day!

By solarisgaudium

Or as my friends and I like to call it: Singles Awareness Day 😛

Anyway, I hope you had a good day, whether it was with someone you love or just hanging out with friends, or staying home eating chocolate you bought for yourself and watching a show you promised a friend you would watch and with nothing better to do you finally watch it and accidentally become obsessed with another show you really didn’t need….

No, I didn’t do that (I was actually with friends all day and night) but I bet at least one person somewhere did that 🙂

Anyway, The thing that prompted me to write this post is I have a friend who is really good friends with my brother, and she messaged me on Facebook asking if I would be willing to read her story idea. I told her I did and I read it, and it was a really good idea, and I loved the message behind it, and I told her as much. I also told her a couple things to watch out for if she was going to publish and if she wanted any tips or info that I would be willing to help, and if I didn’t have the answer I have a really good friend who is a master at this kind of thing (How do you think I made it this far?).

Now what happened later that day: I have a tumblr account that I like to reblog stuff than post. Well, I saw a comic on my dash that I had seen before, but it’s one of my favorites! It’s about how it doesn’t cost you anything to support someone with their work (drawing in the comic’s case) and how that that person you encourage could go on to do great things like creating the next big TV show and inspiring people, etc., while telling that person that what they drew was stupid or wasn’t good or something, and none of that stuff could happen.

Then later I was on Facebook (I have no life between work shifts :P) and a post showed that said something along the lines of ‘If someone shares something they are writing with you, that means they trust you with their inner thoughts’. I read that and I was honored! I kind of felt like a famous author being shown one of my fan’s work and them wanting my approval. It was kind of cool!

Basically the point I want to get across is if someone trusts you with their work, whether it be drawing, writing, or something like that, then they see you as someone they can trust with their heart, and you can be the one that makes or breaks them. Our words and opinions of someone’s work, especially for those who are just starting out with shaky confidence, will stick with that person for a long time. I want to be someone who can help people reach their dreams, so I try to be positive and supportive, so that if it really is something they want to do, it will be their decision to continue or stop, not because of something negative I might have said.

Well, this was just something I have been thinking about a lot lately and wanted to get it off of my chest. I hope you have a wonderful rest of the weekend!

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January 15, 2015

Time for me to be productive! ….. Nah

By solarisgaudium

Have you ever had those days where you really want to do something (whether it be a craft, being active or I don’t know WRITING) and you have some really good ideas/things to do and/or a big desire to do ANYTHING and the second you sit down to do it, you suddenly feel like “never mind, I don’t want to do this right now” but the desire is still there? I’ve been feeling like this for almost two weeks now.

Part of it is because I have depression and I’ve been having problems with it lately (not suicide levels thankfully). But I haven’t been sleeping well, which is really bad since I get up at 6 am for work, my diet is completely out of whack *munches another pretzel* and I really don’t want to deal with anyone, not even my close friends at this point., which makes me even more depressed and not wanting to do ANYTHING.

But you know what? It’s moments like these that I have to remind myself that I’m lucky that I don’t have to deal with chronic depression, I have amazing friends and family who are always there for me no matter what, and I’m working hard on taking care of myself more. When I remind myself of the progress I’m making, or how I have a job that no one my age has, or how I have chances to do incredible things, I feel better. I have so many things I can be grateful for, and wonderful talents that let me help others in way not everyone can. That is what pushes me to work harder to be the person I KNOW I can be.

So if you’re feeling low or you are having a rough time, take a little bit of time to think about all the good things in your life. Even if you can only think of one thing, hold that close to your heart. Let it be the beacon that leads you back into the light of your potential, and use it to push yourself to be as amazing as you can be, no matter how long it takes. And as you find more things to be grateful for, add it to your little store, so that your beacon grows brighter and stronger, guiding you.

Don’t let pain, sadness or grief control you. It will only lead you down a dark hole that is really hard to climb back out of.

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November 27, 2014

My First Post!!

By solarisgaudium

Hi! My name is Jasmine and this is my blog!

This blog is going to be for my writing, like my books and short stories, and basically anything else I come up with.

So please enjoy your stay, and don’t be afraid to leave a comment. I want hear from you guys!

Have a great day!

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