A New Life

Well as many of you may already know, I got married! Yes, yes, it was a surprise for me too. Because I am now a married woman this blog is not going to be just about me anymore. Dominic and I have already had many adventures being married and we have only been married for a little over 1 week.

We got married November 19, 2014 in the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. According to my dad, we were married at 11:04 :) After all the pictures and such we were hungry so we went to Panda Express in our fancy clothes and brought food to our new house to eat before going to the reception. The reception was awesome! We had so much fun talking to everyone that came and dancing like crazy. It was a wonderful day that I will never forget. As soon as we get official pictures I will share them with everyone :)

Presenting Mr. & Mrs. Pasquale

My new family

My girls still supporting me in everything I do

In the car at Panda Express 

For our honeymoon we went to Kauai Hawaii. I have been there before and its one of my favorite places on  earth so I was excited to show my favorite place to my favorite person.

We went to the Fern Grotto. This is a place where people used to get married and now it is a place to go with your spouse or significant other. They sang the Hawaiian marriage song while we were there so we were married Hawaiian style

One of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen at Salt Ponds beach

We took a helicopter tour! This is us with our pilot Chris

The overlook at Waimea canyon

The view from our hotel the first day

I just love him 

Overlooking a beach that we found while driving around the island

When we got back we came home to a house with food, sheets, and pretty much everything we could need. It turns out that my parents filled our house with stuff and got us some bedding which was so nice of them because we were planning on come home to nothing. We really appreciate it. I have the best family ever :) 

We also spent our first Thanksgiving together with my dads side of the family and that night we went home and got our house organized!

Our cute kitchen

Cute little bedroom. Thanks for the bedding and pillows mom and dad!

The front of our adorable house

The Simple Things

Life has a lot to offer and being a working college student it is a little bit difficult to remember this all the time. Lately I have been very busy and have been wanting to rip my hair out from all the stress. In order to combat this I have reverted to an old coping technique I used earlier in college and totally forgot about. Appreciating the little things in life.
The little things in life can be anything that makes you happy. The trick is to live in the moment and not stress about what is up and coming in your day. As I have put in an extra effort to notice the simple things I have really enjoyed what I have noticed in the last few days and want to share a few of them with you.

Class getting cancelled

Going out for hot chocolate with someone close to you

Listening to classic rock music

Watching an episode of my favorite TV show with my best friend

Reading a book by the fireplace

Scarves

Singing in the car

Laughing with my mom

Having a day off from work

Leather jackets

Changing from jeans into sweatpants

Celebrating a birthday

Buying a gift for someone

Looking through old pictures

For many of you reading this, this will seem like a really strange list of things but they are all special to me. These are all things I have taken the time to enjoy in the last couple of days and because I have taken the time to do that, I have seen a change in my stress level and overall happiness. It does not require you to go out and set time aside all it requires is for you to be a little more observant and appreciative of the mundane :)

Changes

Some of you may know, some of you may not, but I no longer work for Bath & Body Works. I worked there for 2 years. Lemme tell you, it was a rocky start. When I started I was not properly trained to do anything. It basically ended up being that I was thrown out onto a cash register and was told to use it. Just about everything I know about that system, I learned on my own. In the beginning, I didn't really have anyone to talk to. There were a couple people who I was able to talk to and ask for help but other than that, everyone kind of kept to themselves and I felt really alone. Over time, people quit and new ones were hired, I learned how to use the system efficiently, and I grew to love working there.

Because of my experience when I started, I decided I would not let that happen to anyone else. I made the best effort I could to introduce myself to every new person and make myself approachable for them if they had questions. Because of my anxiety disorder, this was not easy for me but I am so glad that I did it. I have had more than one person thank me for talking to them, helping them, and not treating them like they were stupid. I was able to get to know coworkers on levels other than the fact that we were coworkers. I found many people who like the same things I do, shared some of the same opinions and I do, and were just a joy to be around. If I did anything with the 2 years that I was there, I hope that it was passing on the desire to show others the kindness, approachability, and warmth that I tried very hard to convey.

As I move forward, I am now working in an contact and eyeglass place and the cycle of what I went through at BBW is well along. I plan to keep my goal of getting to know new people when that time comes so they do not feel as stupid as I have the past couple of weeks. I learned a lot from my time at BBW and the only reason I stayed there for so long was because of the people I worked with. I learned something from every single one of them. I know I probably haven't made a huge difference, but I hope I made a difference in at least one life while I was there because if I did at least that, then my 2 years was not wasted.

Unmarried and Frolicking in the Grass

Marriage. Personally whenever I hear this word I think of that one scene in The Princess Bride. But that's not what this is about. This is about the unmarried who feel like failures.

I am 21, LDS, unmarried, unengaged, single, and do not date ever. In fact, I can't even remember the last time I went on out with someone who I wasn't dating. I feel like that because I am 21, LDS and not in some kind of relationship that my culture looks down upon me. I feel like they don't look down just on me but others similar to me. My whole life I have been raised in the LDS culture and I love the religion so this is nothing against them because lets face it, if I were to be bashing on it I would be bashing on myself because I am a part of it. However, I feel like it has been drilled into my head from the time that I was a teenager that there are two roads you can take when you graduate high school. One is marriage and the other one is a mission then marriage. I have been out of high school for 3 years now and of course I haven't taken either of these roads. In fact, I'm just frolicking in the grass trying to figure life out. But I know that I'm not frolicking in the grass alone and I know that the grass is where I need to be. There are others like me who feel the same way I do, that unless you go on a mission or get married you have no purpose and are a failure.

That's right, I am not serving a mission. And for those of you who have asked I have never given a concrete answer as to why. Do you really want to know? Well here it is. It's not for me. I know it's not for me. It was not a decision I made out of the blue. I thought about it and prayed about it. It's not for me. As you all know from a previous post, that can be found here, I have social anxiety disorder. A mission would be a breeding ground of anxiety and panic attacks for me. I'm sorry but having an anxiety or panic attack everyday and maybe even multiple a day does not seem very appealing. Now the next response is usually "but the Lord will help you" and I do not doubt that He would but I also  know that this is something I have dealt with since I was a child and it will not go away just because I am serving a mission. It would probably be less intense with the Lords help but it wouldn't be totally gone. This is something I will most likely deal with the rest of my life. To put it simply, you don't have it so you don't understand how it feels. I can't even describe it. I am meant to go to school and put my time and energy into that. I know this is what I am supposed to do and that is why I am not serving a mission. If the fact I am not serving a mission is a problem for you  then I'm sorry you feel that way. I have prayed and I know that is not what I am supposed to be doing.

I'm not writing this to make people think that I don't care and that I am perfectly content in the grass because the truth is, I'm not content in the grass. Honestly, I feel like my life is going nowhere, I am a failure and I have done nothing of worth in the time since I graduated high school. I know none of this is true but like I said I also know that I am not alone in feeling this way. And you know what I have learned? It's okay to feel this way, it's okay to think all of this and you know why? Because I am not the only one. From talking to friends and people I work with I have found this is the norm for those like me. We are going against the grain. We are not taking the mission road or the marriage road and that is okay. Sometimes frolicking in the grass is what you need to learn things and better prepare you for the future. Does it feel chaotic? Yes. Does it feel like a waste of time? Oh boy does it. But there are experiences to be had in the grass that cannot be had on the road.

And so I say this to society and to the culture I live in. I am 21, LDS, unmarried, unengaged, single, and do not date ever. Is this where I thought I would be at this point in my life? No. But that gives you no right to tell me, and others similar to me, that I am a failure. There is so much more out there besides getting married and going on a mission. The world has so much to offer. Self worth does not come from marriage nor does it come from serving a mission and those that have done these things are not the only ones who have something to offer. It does not make them any better of a person than those who are not or have not done either of those things. The unmarried, non-mission bound LDS girls are not useless. We have things to contribute and we have things to say. Just because we have not been through the temple does not make us worth any less. Give us a chance to show the world what we are capable of.

Embrace Who You Are

You know what I've noticed lately that kind of bothers me? Everywhere I go there seems to be an ad for some kind of self improvement product. I'm not talking personality self improvement but outward appearance self improvement. I can't go anywhere without seeing an ad for weight loss something or other, make up, plastic surgery, botox, exercise products, etc. In these ads there is usually some kind of testimonial about how much their life has changed since using this product blah, blah, blah. It doesn't bother me so much that this stuff is out there, what bugs me more I guess is the fact that most of the time stuff like this is targeted at women. I don't understand why society believes that all women need to look like playboy models. What baffles me even more is the fact that women actually buy into that bull crap. You do not need to look like a playboy model to be beautiful. Everyone has something about them that is beautiful both inside and outside. Someone might have a wonderful smile but not so great style or something like that and its annoying that society will look at them and not see their amazing smile but will see their not so great sense of style or whatever and use that insecurity that they might have against them. Why can't society just be positive and focus on the good things about people? Everyone is insecure about at least one thing, why is it that that one thing is focused on? Instead of society playing on our insecurities, why can't it teach us to look at ourselves and others and find something, even just one thing, that we like? Personally, out of all the women I know none of them look like playboy models. None of them. Every girl I know are beautiful and some of them are never given the time of day and it frustrates me to see that. This doesn't just happen in relationships but in school, work, and many different social situations. Studies have shown that if two people are going out for the same job, the employer is more likely to pick the one they find the most attractive whether they have adequate experience for the position or not. Why do people work this way? Are we conditioned to think this way or is it just in our nature? Either way, it's not right. Everyone is beautiful. I don't care if you are black, white, gay, straight, a geek, a cheerleader, curvy, or skinny, you are beautiful and should never let society tell you different. Too many people walk around thinking there is something wrong with them because society tells them there is, when in reality there is nothing wrong with them and there is nothing wrong with you. Embrace your quirks, embrace who you are, and what you look like.