Life of a Wannabe Archives - Page 16 of 23

July 13, 2010 · in Life of a Wannabe· My Thoughts and Feelings

A Lesson Learned

You would not believe what I’ve been through today. It all started last night when I noticed my computer was acting up. It suddenly just stopped working, I tried to restart it, but then it wouldn’t even turn back on. I started freaking out, but I didn’t even realize at the moment the extent of what just happened. I was about to learn a very hard lesson.

After trying to figure out the problem on my own which consists of about 2 seconds, I turned it over to my husband like I usually do. He tried and couldn’t get it to work either. Thats when I knew something was REALLY wrong. “Sorry Crystal, but your computer crashed.”

Um, WHAT!!! Ha, no, thats not possible, it’s only 3 years old and it’s a Mac. Aren’t Mac’s supposed to be the best?

I was trying hard NOT to believe him and began thinking of the last time I had backed up my computer. Thats when the anxiety began rushing through every vain in my body. I realized I hadn’t backed it up in well over a year. Bits and pieces of all the information I had possibly lost starting flashing through my mind. Pictures, home videos, projects, folders, emails…. THE BIRTH OF MY SON!!!! No no no no, this can’t be happening! How could I let this happen? I was so upset and even cried before I fell asleep at the thought of losing all my precious memories I had worked so hard to capture.

I woke up the next morning feeling sick to my stomach. My whole life had been turned up side down. You may think I’m being a little overly dramatic, but I honestly could not live without my computer.

The first thing I did was went down to the Mac store in hopes that they would be able to recover all the information. I dropped it off for them to look at and anxiously waited for their call. I literally could not function, It was like I was paralyzed. Finally after a long 3 hours passed, I received the phone call. “Sorry, we were NOT able to retrieve any of the information, but you can call this other company and they may be able to help you.” Okay, so I called the other company in tears. She said they have a 96% success rate and she was pretty positive she’d be able to recover the information from the hard drive. Yay!!!!!! Just as I was about to take a huge sigh of relief she said, it will cost anywhere from $700- $2,700… WHAT!!!! Are you serious!!!! Then I cried some more.

Okay, now I have a question for you. Would you put a price on your memories? How much would YOU be willing to spend to retrieve lost memories?

This experience caused me to really think. All of this could have easily been prevented if I would have just taken the necessary precautions. A new hard drive only costs around $100, and backing up my computer only takes a few minutes each day. It’s been a hard lesson to learn but I can see how this applies to many different situations in life.

Sometimes we get lazy and think, oh that won’t happen to me…

and then it does.

July 9, 2010 · in FAB Fridays· Inspiration· Isagenix· Life of a Wannabe· My Thoughts and Feelings

Worlds Sexiest 30 Year Old!

picture taken by carrieshinphotography.blogspot.com

This weekend we are celebrating my husbands 30th birthday! I’m so excited because I have a thing for older men and always wanted to make out with a 30 year old. Yah baby, all my dreams are about to come true 🙂
So today I’m featuring my wonderful husband, we’re not going to call it FAB Friday though 🙂 It’s a little too feminine for my strong, sports lovin, manly man.
I have so many things to say about this guy I don’t even know where to begin. First of all, the story of how we met is coming soon. We’re celebrating our 6th wedding anniversary the end of this month and I plan to share the interesting, yet amazing story of how we ended up together.

I want to start out by sharing a little something that he wrote recently. I stole this from his weekly newsletter he sends out to all the top leaders in our company. I really liked it because he shares part of his bucket list, also mentioning some things he hoped to accomplish before he hit 30. He is such an inspiration to me, you’ll see what I mean.

Got Dreams? Better put them in Writing!
-Sean Escobar

Did you know that the single act of writing your goals down increases the chances of achieving them by 1100%? Amazing, isn’t it! You can increase your chances of reaching your goals by 11 times just by writing them down.

I remember fondly a day when my dad took out a red marker and wrote on my hand the number “50” It was August then and he said, I want you to be at 50 cycles (higher ranking in our company) by Christmas, for some reason he likes to say “by Christmas.” 🙂 Anyways, I nodded, didn’t really need to say anything, I knew it would take an incredible commitment to pull that off. Would you believe that by Christmas that year Crystal and I had broken 100 cycles a week!

When I first got involved in Isagenix I remember Dad always instructing people to write down their goals in RED. I actually still have the pad where I wrote them down from years ago. It has become quite special to me.

Here are some of the goals I wrote down in no particular order and whether or not they have been fulfilled since:

-Have the Ability to Retire by the age of 30 – Fulfilled, I turn 30 this weekend

-Meet my dream girl and get married – Fulfilled!

-Have all the time in the world for my children – Fullfilled!

-Hit a Hole In One – Not yet Fulfilled

-Invent Something – I have a couple things in mind, top secret 🙂

-Write a book – Not Yet

-Max out our position in Isagenix – Fulfilled

-Find out what people’s dreams are – getting better at this all the time

-Build a big Garage with my office above it – Fulfilled

-Read Scriptures Everyday – Not Yet Fulfilled

-Make 100’s of millions of dollars – Not Yet Fulfilled 🙂

-Start a Charity for Single Mom’s – not yet

– Serve a Christian Mission with Crystal – Not Yet

Anyways, those are just a few of them, but you can see that some of my Big Aspirations HAVE been Fulfilled and Many of the Small ones that I’m not mentioning have been. It works. I have no doubt that ALL of my goals and dreams will come to fruition! By the Way, Have I mentioned how Grateful I am for Isagenix in my life?

Love Sean

Isn’t he amazing! I feel so lucky to be married to such a person. One of the things that attracted me the most to him in the beginning, was his obvious passion to better himself and achieve HUGE goals. I LOVE people who dream big, and he is one person who truly believes that he CAN accomplish what ever the heck he wants! I’ve seen him come so far in the last 6 years.
He is also the BEST dad ever! These little kids have him wrapped around their little fingers:) He spends so much quality time with them, never tires of playing with them. In fact, if he didn’t have to work, I guarantee he’d spend every second with them. He’s such a family man, I never doubt that we are THE most important thing to him.

Now don’t be alarmed, these are Sean’s hairy feet, and he doesn’t normally wear nail polish 🙂 Like I said, these kids have got him wrapped around their finger. He’ll do anything for them, even allowing Lily to paint his toe nails.

Yes, this is a picture of him doing Lily’s hair. How cute is that?

July 5, 2010 · in Life of a Wannabe

I’m Back!!!

Hey Everyone!
I’m back from an amazing weekend at our cabin. It’s always nice to get away for a bit and completely disconnect. No phone, no internet, just me and my family. We stayed up late watching movies, slept in, ate ALOT, went boating, 4 wheeling, and went to the beach. It was great! I feel all refreshed now, except now I’m in major need of a cleanse 🙂 I ate one too many sugar cookies, probably gained like 5 pounds. How was your 4th of July?

I also wanted to announce the winner of the $25 gift card to Sucre Lulu. The lucky number was 7!!!!

Congratulations Kristin @ Ellie-Town

June 28, 2010 · in Life of a Wannabe· My Thoughts and Feelings

TWO KINDS OF PEOPLE

I’ve just learned the way to overcome writers block. All you have to do is, well, just be an emotional wreck which seems to happen about once a month for me… hmmm, very strange. So, anyway, I’m realizing that the drama queen emotional side of me is what kicks out my best blog posts. It’s all about pouring your heart out, and if being on my period is what drives my passion, then so be it. It’s about time I find something good about that time of month. I shall now embrace my womenhood more fully than ever.

Now if I could just get my husband to do the same… 🙂

There are two kinds of people. What I AM, and what I am NOT.

What I am NOT: I’m not the type of person that hides the way they’re feeling very well. I know that this can be a good thing, but also a bad thing. Sometimes it’s good not to share EVERYTHING, especially when it’s negative. Focusing your energy on the bad things is not going to make life any easier. Learning to find solutions can bring you closer to achieving your goals and overcoming your trials. I heard a quote once by Charles Malik, “A great leader suffers in a hundred different ways and keeps his suffering to himself.”
The bad side to always keeping things to yourself is, you’ll never allow others to know how you truly feel, and as a result may never have the opportunity of helping them. Sometimes it’s just nice to hear someone say, “oh yes, I’ve been there” or “I feel the SAME way”.

What I AM: I am the type of person that is VERY open and will share every detail about the way I’m feeling. Some people may not like this because they’d rather just hear the good. I like to vent, I feel so much better when I can just get my feelings out. And sometimes it’s not even venting, it’s just being honest about the way things are. Life can be hard, we all know that, but why not open up a little and allow others to relate and know that what they are feeling is normal and okay. I always appreciate it when people are open, it allows me to feel a little LESS crazy :). Writing and talking about your thoughts and feelings can bring clarity to problems, and perhaps helping you figure out what’s really bothering you.

Let me give you an example here, which happens to be from my mission once again. The reason why I refer to my mission so much is because I learned ALOT of important life lessons within that period of time. Okay so, I had a companion that was great in every way. She seemed to be perfect, everyone I ever met who knew her had nothing but good things to say about her. We got along great except I always felt like there was something wrong with me for struggling so much. I was tired, homesick, discouraged, overwhelmed, and just felt completely inadequate. So, when I tried telling her the way I was feeling, I noticed that she was getting annoyed with me. She then said something that I’ll never forget, “gosh, do you just hate your mission or something?”
I didn’t know what to say, but I do know that when she said that to me, it made me feel even worse. I thought, wow, I must be such a bad missionary if I’m having these feelings, especially since it was obvious she could not relate. In her opinion I was just dwelling on the negative and she was sick of hearing it. In my opinion, all I needed to hear was, “oh, I know it can be hard, I’ve felt the same way, but you’re doing great, it just takes some time, you can do this, I’ll help you, being so far away from home can be rough, and the language is overwhelming, but I promise, you’ll get it”.

So the moral of the story is, there are two kinds of people and sometimes those two people don’t always mesh well, but it doesn’t make either one of them wrong. Some people are great examples of living a positive life, and the others are good at opening up which can be helpful to those who are dealing with the same issues.

June 8, 2010 · in Beauty· Inspiration· Life of a Wannabe· My Thoughts and Feelings· Spirituality

What is Beauty?

Yesterday’s post brought in a lot of really good feedback, some positive, and some REALLY negative. My first reaction was the urge to fire back, then my second was to ignore it and TRY not let it bother me, and my third reaction was to let it inspire me to write this post. I have a really hard time holding things in. Talking about it and getting the chance to explain myself, makes me feel sooo much better. Maybe this is a bad thing, but I don’t care, I’m going to do it anyway.
So, due to this really mean comment someone left me yesterday I’ve chosen to not allow anonymous comments anymore. I don’t need mean people leaving me comments who don’t even have the guts to reveal who they are.
First of all, I’m really sorry if I offended anyone by talking about horoscopes and patriarchal blessings as if they were equally the same. I was simply trying to relate to the masses. Not everyone is LDS and not everyone even knows what a patriarchal blessing is, so I was just trying to find things that people could relate to as far as what they choose to believe.
And now for my real purpose for this post. The comment that inspired this was “why did people laugh when you said you wanted to go on a mission? Please don’t say something like, they thought I was too pretty“.
Hah! Well, ya know what? That was not the reason AT ALL.
If people weren’t so quick to judge then maybe they’d learn a little something. Without going into too much detail, all I have to say is, you NEVER know what people have been through. Coming from a broken home, and moving every 6 months didn’t exactly give me any kind of stability a child needs. I was always changing schools in the middle of the school year, which of course put a lot of stress on me, trying to make friends, getting comfortable in my new area and adjusting to the new school program. I always felt behind in everything, while the rest of the class seemed to be doing fine. I began to think that I wasn’t very smart, and my grades made me believe I would never amount to much.
Of course I’m grateful for these experiences now because I can see how it’s made me stronger as a person. It took a long time for me to believe that I wasn’t stupid. So with this bad self image brought a lot of bad life choices. Most everyone in my family dropped out of high school, got into drugs or alcohol, never went to college… it was all I knew. I believed that I wasn’t anything special and that I probably would never do anything great in my life. So serving a mission was the last thing people would have expected me to do, and it was the last thing I ever thought to do.
After all these years of feeling this way about myself, suddenly a light turned on! I was starting to realize my true potential, and I didn’t have to settle for less. I COULD be amazing, I started to BELIEVE that I could do ANYTHING I wanted! Learning the truth about myself literally SET ME FREE from the bondage of self doubt.
Here is a picture of me on my mission with my natural hair color, no tan, glasses, and about 20 pounds heavier. I wasn’t anything too exciting to look at. And who ever said that “pretty” people don’t serve missions anyway? Each and every one of my mission companions were GORGEOUS! They didn’t choose to go on a mission because they couldn’t get married. They chose to go because they simply wanted to make a difference in someone’s life.

I don’t think I’m any prettier than the average person. Anyone can wear make up, hair extensions, false eyelashes, body shapers to look thinner, get braces on their teeth and bleach them to make them white, color their hair, and take a good picture.
What is beauty? Well, we all know that true beauty comes from within. I don’t think there is anything wrong with enhancing the way you look in some ways. The bad thing is when you think your looks are ALL you have.
I’ve learned that there is more to life than LOOKS. I love to share tips on hair, skin, and weight loss. It’s fun and it makes us women feel good to pamper ourselves and to FEEL pretty, but it’s only one small part of life. I also share my thoughts and life experiences that don’t have anything to do with beauty. It’s all about balance, and not getting too obsessed with any one thing.
Anyway, I feel so much better getting that off my chest.
Thank you all for listening 🙂

June 7, 2010 · in Inspiration· Life of a Wannabe· My Thoughts and Feelings· Spirituality

Finding Ourselves In This Journey Called Life

I’ve been doing a little soul searching lately. It seems that we all go through this from time to time. Wondering if we’re fulfilling our purpose, or living up to the expectations of motherhood. Are we making each day count? Are we sharing our time and talents with others? Are we working hard to DEVELOP our talents? Are we using our talents for the purpose of serving others, or for the purpose of serving ourselves?
I know what OUR purpose is, but I also know that each one of us has something extra special to offer the world, and whether or not we choose to fulfill it, is up to us.

In hopes to shed a little light on the subject, I started going through some of my old journals, studying my patriarchal blessing, and even reading my horoscope. By the way, what is your opinion on horoscopes? Do you believe in them? I’m still not sure if I really do. I would LIKE to, it would sure explain a lot about myself, which seems to be something that I’m constantly trying to figure out. Perhaps it will ALWAYS be something that is not so clear. I guess it’s all part of this journey we call LIFE.

It’s funny, because everything that my horoscope told me, seemed to be VERY comforting, and in fact answered many of my questions. My NEEDS as a Pisces, is: A purpose, so as to focus thoughts and avert boredom. Quiet intervals, to foster a sense of identity and peace. To feel ENCOURAGED, trusted and loved. Pisces needs to stick to a schedule or they’ll get lost in their own dreams. Too much regimentation, however, will crush their creativity.

“THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE” John 8:32

Horoscopes and patriarchal blessings are very interesting. If you choose to believe them, it unwraps the truth about ones self, and in a sense, setting us free to do MORE with the gifts/ talents we’ve been given. It enhances faith in our own abilities, giving us the reassurance that, YES, we are special, and even GOOD at certain things. It gives us affirmations of what we can ultimately become, and perhaps unveiling the hidden obstacles holding us back.

RISING ABOVE
I laughed when I read in my horoscope that I NEED to feel encouraged 🙂 I’ve noticed that about myself and I believe it’s a weakness. It holds me back a little in life, provoking me to second guess myself A LOT! I remember when I first started telling people I wanted to serve an LDS Mission. People literally laughed, thinking I was joking. This caused me to really doubt my abilities and think maybe I was fooling myself at thinking I could ACTUALLY do something like this. I knew I had to rise above the negative comments and go forth with my endeavor. It’s not easy for me to ignore the nay sayers, but I know it’s the only way to succeed.

COMPARING OURSELVES
I think it’s human nature to compare ourselves with others, and in so doing, we tend to compare our weaknesses with others strengths. Why not be happy with who we are and what we have been given? I ask myself this all the time. It’s hard to always be aware of the unique abilities we each have, and not be jealous of others gifts. I’m always doing this to myself, not realizing at the moment the harm it’s doing to my self confidence. I read other blogs and I’m completely blown away by the talent these other women have. I can’t help but feel less as a person, completely inadequate in every way. Comparing yourself to others is guaranteed to bring you down and make you feel worthless. Therefore leading you in the opposite direction of finding true fulfillment in life.

HURRY LESS

In a world that’s ever changing and clocks that seem to be going 100 miles a minute, it’s hard for us to take time to relax and enjoy the little things. Maybe I should just speak for myself. I’m constantly trying to remind myself to slow down and relax a little, always feel like there’s something more I should be doing, like there is never enough time in a day to accomplish it all. I’m reminded of the quote by President Ezra Taft Benson, “When we put God first, all other things fall into place.”

Hurry Up and Slow Down

SEASONS OF LIFE
I know I’m in the season of motherhood and that in itself is something to be grateful for and proud of. I also believe very strongly that it’s so important for us mothers to have other hobbies that don’t include wiping bums and making bottles. It’s important for us to set aside time for ourselves to refine our minds and develop talents.

“Water cannot be drawn from an empty well, and if you are not setting aside a little time for what replenishes you, you will have less and less to give to others, even to your children.”
-Elder M. Russell Ballard

I want to try harder to fulfill my purpose by allowing the truth to set me free, rising above the negativity, quit comparing myself to others, and hurry less in my season of motherhood.

A Lesson Learned

Worlds Sexiest 30 Year Old!

I’m Back!!!

TWO KINDS OF PEOPLE

What is Beauty?

Finding Ourselves In This Journey Called Life

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