Something to NOT Do: Catch Your Car On Fire

Hi everyone.

I had a very interesting weekend. Actually, it was pretty normal until about 10 PM last night.

You see, this is what happened: My friend and I were off to another friend’s house with the goal of watching movies and making silly videos all night. It was dark and incredible snowy, and I had a car that was not very well suited to the weather conditions. Needless to say, the two of us got stuck on a hill and ended up overheating my engine. After getting off of said hill, I noticed we were low on gas, so, luckily, my friend new someone who lived nearby and thought they might have some gas we could borrow to make it to the next town. As soon as we got out of the car, I noticed the hood was billowing smoke. I also noticed something that made my stomach drop: what looked like an ember from a fire was on my car. When I went to pull it off, I noticed that the hood of my car was melting.

What subsequently followed was, naturally, calling 911. The woman whose drive way we pulled into was on it, while their neighbor brought over a fire extinguisher to try and control the flames burning from the hood of my car. I called my family, and my friend grabbed what he could from the car. The flames kept growing stronger and stronger though, and the man had to give up the fight against the fire with the extinguisher. For the next ten minutes until the fire department got there, I watched my car become engulfed in flames.

Luckily, we are both okay and there was nothing terribly valuable in the car. It was still a terrifying experience that I would never recommend for anyone. I’m still stressed about it, but I’m sure that will fade in time. What I did take out of this though, is that it’s a really good time to be thankful and to just tell everyone I love how much I do love them, because near death experiences tend to make you see the brighter side of things more often than not.

I know I’ve complained about my more frequent than not car troubles on here before, and I have to say I am officially done with cars for a while. They stress me out.

I’m glad to be here still.

I’m glad you’re here.

Uħibbak, all of you.

Sarah.

To Write Love On Her Arms

Hi again!

Tonight I’d like to share with you another charity related tidbit; my personal favorite nonprofit, actually. To Write Love On Her Arms is its name, and it is dedicated to finding help and providing support for those who are suffering from depression, suicidal thoughts, self harm, and addiction. While these things may be rather foreign to some people, they are definitely very real and not very foreign to me. I have known many, many people and had many friends go through at least one- if not more- of the things To Write Love On Her Arms (abbreviated TWLOHA) fights against. Because it has affected me the most personally, it is probably the charity that I am most passionate about. But more about that later.

I would sit here and try to tell you all about what TWLOHA is about, but I would like them to tell you their vision in their own beautiful written words: http://www.twloha.com/vision/. I plead you visit that site and at least give it a look over.

I’ve known about them for a while, and I can’t even quite remember how I came to first hear about TWLOHA. I think it was either through one of their shirts that I saw someone wearing, or possibly from seeing others participate in To Write Love On Her Arms day, which is a fan created day in which everyone writes love on their arms for a day in support of the charity. However so, it has become a part of my life that I can’t help but brag about. Not only does the group have their own day, but they also have their own conferences, called MOVE conferences, in which anyone can attend to learn about their vision, how to help themselves, and how to help others. I can only imagine that To Write Love On Her Arms has saved hundreds of lives through these, and also the stands that they keep open at various concerts throughout the year by sponsoring bands.

To Write Love On Her Arms also has a fancorp community, a street team that they wouldn’t be able to do much without. This street team is there to not only support TWLOHA , promote it, and gain new supporters, but also to help complete TWLOHA’s vision by completing outreach projects. The street team can give support by doing everything from sharing TWLOHA on various social networking sites to wearing a TWLOHA shirt while volunteering somewhere. The team also gives support to the community in little ways: one of the orders that I have done recently involved writing something encouraging on a post it note and leaving it in a public place. Whatever the thing is, big or small, the biggest reward comes in the form of the feeling that you are helping others, and maybe even actually helping someone out by volunteering or referring them to the organization. They also hand out reward points which you can spend to get merchandise from their store, but nothing compares to how awesome it is to support the charity.

I would suggest you at least check their main page out, and if you’re interested, just keep exploring the site to find out more. If you’re really into it then I definitely suggest you join the street team and become active. Whatever you do, I’d also like you to share your personal favorite charities with me below. I’d be really interested to see what everyone is passionate about.

Until next time,

Sarah.

Volunteering & New York City

Hi again.

I’d just like to share with you a little bit about an amazing opportunity that came to me. A few weeks ago a friend of mine got me in touch with a guy who was leading a mission trip of sorts to New York City. Namely what we would be doing there would be helping the homeless. I love doing things like that, so I was all over it and ready to go, even if it did mean I was going with a bunch of people I’ve never met before. That’s the fun of it though, going out and trying new things in sometimes scary situations. I wasn’t intimidated really, but it was definitely an out of comfort zone experience.

Anyway, it was one of the most amazing weekends of my life. If you’ve never done any kind of volunteer work, I would highly recommend it. Even if it doesn’t seem like something you’d like, try it anyway. Almost always I’ve found people come out of volunteer experiences feeling good about themselves and with a happier attitude about life, which I think is something we all need. It definitely doesn’t have to be as out there as going to New York City to hand out blankets and sandwiches to homeless people in bus stations at one in the morning; it could just be going to your nearby Animal Shelter or even a retirement home. Just anything to get you out there helping somebody or something for the better good.

The people who I went with were amazing as well. I’m not sure I’ve ever been around a more welcoming, kind group of people in my life. I’ve decided that I like going places with random people that I’ve never met before; it presents a great opportunity to get to know people who you haven’t known for forever. Growing up in a small town it’s hard to find people within a fifty mile radius who I don’t at least know by word of mouth, so it was nice to get out there with some people who I’d never met or even heard of before.

So that’s my little you should volunteer schpiel. But honestly, it’s definitely an experience, and even if you don’t enjoy helping others (though I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t) at least you’d take something away from it. It’d be good for anyone, guaranteed. And it’s always nice to make our world a little bit of a better place.

So get out there and do something that will change your life and someone else’s!

Sarah.

Raving About: Skrillex

Hello all.

For you today, I don’t have much, just something short and sweet. I’d like to rant to you about one of my favorite musicians, and though I’m a little late on reviewing his rise to fame (quite a few years late), I still think he deserves to be talked about, just in case some of you don’t know who he is. That musician’s name is Skrillex, and if you haven’t heard of him, please, I beg you, go look him up and take a look at his music.

Skrillex is just the stage name for this guy Sonny Moore, who is probably one of the greatest musicians of our time, in my opinion. Not only can this guy create amazing dubstep, which is an off genre of techno, but what most people don’t know is he was also the lead singer a while ago for a band called From First To Last. He can sing and play guitar. Pretty good too. Basically, he’s got every area of music covered pretty well, and he’s only twenty four. He started in From First to Last when he was just fifteen years old.

This guy basically made an entire genre famous almost overnight by music standards. I’ve been listening to Skrillex for a while, but one day I woke up and it seemed like the entire world was suddenly obsessed with his music. He hasn’t stopped there. With his recent new EP, Bangarang, Skrill has only climbed the rungs of success even more. He has quickly become one of my favorite musicians ever, and I can’t help but brag about his talent. So I would really enjoy it if you  checked him out. He won’t waste your time, I promise.

Ich liebe dich,

Sarah. 

Why You Should Play An Instrument

Hello everyone.

Again, I have not been holding true to my word and I have been a slacker. Please forgive me.

My first report is that my juggling has been going… fairly well. We’ll leave it at that. I am a very uncoordinated person, so the fact that I can keep three balls in the air for even a couple of seconds is pretty impressive. I’ve also decided to try and add yoga to my daily schedule. Which is pretty busy to begin with. I think I might as well train myself to become an insomniac, because that seems the way my life is going. I actually like staying up pretty late. I feel like I get a lot more accomplished. Well, at least at night. The next morning my body is not so sure of that.

But there is also something that I’ve been meaning to post about: why you should learn to play a musical instrument as soon as possible, if you don’t already. Obviously there are several benefits to doing so.

Firstly, it gives you a sense of accomplishment. I know better than most that it’s hard to learn instruments at first, given that I play quite a few of them, but once you stick to it, there is nothing more gratifying that saying you can play that instrument and being able to learn whatever song you want on your chosen instrument. Granted, some are easier than other (bongos vs. clarinet) but they are all worth it in the end, because the learning never stops. Music is a constant process, and I think that’s part of what makes it so wonderful. You can always learn new songs or tunes on your instrument and keep feeling that same sense of accomplishment every time.

Secondly, the social aspect of it. I have been to so many parties, gatherings, social events, even places like a park where there are just people wandering around where either myself or someone else has broken out a guitar, and people just gravitate towards it. Guitar is the easiest to make friends using, but when you’re with others and you have your instrument, you can just pick it up and bam, almost always instant admiration. I have met countless people and made friends out of those I’d never even spoken to before just because someone or myself had a guitar out and was strumming it. It’s such a great way to break the ice. Another great way to meet others is to play a weird instrument that not many people can claim they play. I play ukulele, which usually results in people coming over and commenting on it. My friend plays the didgeridoo and will carry it around with him while we are out, and you wouldn’t believe how many people he meets just by having it on his back. It’s amazing.

Thirdly, and a mix of the first two, is the places playing an instrument will take you. Now not everyone makes money off of playing music, and it requires one to be really good at their chosen instrument to do so, but hey, if it becomes your passion, go for it! If all you ever even do is strum on your guitar alone in your room, there is still a certain gratification that you get from it that you can’t get anywhere else. The fun things you can do with an instrument and the people you meet are bonuses, but nothing ever holds a candle to how it feels to strum that first chord or learn your first song or play in front of your first crowd. It’s a different kind of experience that everyone should get.

That’s all I have for you tonight. I promise to start posting more often again.

Je T’aime,

Sarah.

What's Going On.

Hello all.

I honestly don’t have much to say today, just a few little tidbits about what I’ve been doing and what I’m going to be doing.

Over the weekend I went camping at a place up near Erie in Pennsylvania called Camp Judson. I’m always a fan of getaways, but Judson is a pretty special place. We had a small group of people with us, twenty or so, and it may be the first group of people I’ve ever been camping with where we all got along the whole time, which was pretty miraculous. Usually someone gets mad at each other when I go camping with lots of people. It was probably one of the most relaxing atmospheres I’ve been in in a really long time. It was so natural to be with the people there that it was like being around family. So, yeah. They were basically one of my many mini families. Which are very nice to have. It’s wonderful to be able to go somewhere else away from those who actually share your blood and have such a strong bond that’s unique in a way that your bond with other friends isn’t. I hope someone understands what I’m saying. It’s really fantastic actually. I love my families.

On other notes, there are a couple of things that I am going to be starting. The first is that I’m going to attempt to make a violin cover of Echelon by 30 Seconds to Mars (which my friend helped me in deciding, thank you), but it might take a while. Hopefully not too long, though. I’m somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to these things so I won’t let it be anything but so, and that can take me a while. But I hope it comes out wonderful whenever I’m done with it. The second is that I have decided to learn to juggle, as to knock off one of my bucket list items that I can actually do during the winter. I will be documenting my struggle to juggle on here, so stay tuned. Hopefully that one doesn’t take me too long to learn either, but knowing my excellent coordination skills it could take a while.

That’s really all I have for you for now. I hope you’re having a great time living life.

Ti amo,

Sarah.

The Best Weird Hobby You Should Try

There are definitely strange hobbies out there. I mean, people do things like host national mooing contests and or unicycle for fun. Not that unicycling is weird, I’ve known many a unicycler. Personally, I obsessively collect pennies. I will throw away all other change and just keep the pennies. I harass friends to give me their pennies. I have so many I’ve had to start multiple jars for them. So that’s my weird hobby.

Sure, I’ve heard of a lot of weird hobbies before. Some time ago in my internet surfing, though, I stumbled across perhaps my favorite weird hobby ever, and one that I definitely want to try some day: extreme ironing. Yes, you heard me right. Extreme ironing.

So what is extreme ironing? Well, it’s pretty self explanatory. People take their ironing boards and a shirt and go iron in extreme conditions. I’ll show you some pictures, but perhaps my favorite one I’ve ever found of extreme ironing was a guy who was hanging suspended in the air by a rope at least a couple thousand feet off of a cliff, sitting there with his ironing board, ironing away. If that’s not amazing, I don’t know what is.

But enough talk. I’ll let you see a few pictures for yourself.

Skydiving ironing.

Scuba diving ironing.

Antarctic ironing.

Back of a taxi ironing.

In the middle of the highway ironing.

You get the gist. Luckily, extreme ironing can be as simple as riding an intertube while ironing or placing your ironing board on the back of a cow, so it shouldn’t be that difficult for me to try this year. I think whenever it gets warm out again, I’m going to grab my kayak, head to our river, and try some extreme ironing. Hold me to that.

Until I can do that, I hope you find some way to do it. Maybe on a ski slope. Or for those of you in warmer areas, the possibilities are endless.

Have fun,

Sarah.