About a week ago I procrastinated until nightfall to feed the chickens. This used to be routine for me, working after dark. However, now I try to actually get out and do these things before I can't see.

So I went out there, the moon was bright, so I didn't require a flashlight. I moved over the mosquito nets that hang around the rabbit hutch, and felt something weird.

I pulled out my iPhone and turned on the flashlight app, moved over the mosquito nets, and screamed like a small child.

The two largest rat snakes I've seen in the wild were intertwined hanging from the nesting boxes under the rabbit hutch.

My boyfriend hears me scream while he's walking the dogs and comes running with towels because he thinks I've been bitten by something.

Basically at this point I'm trying to get photos to document that this really happened.

It is not a new experience, I've encountered possums, raccoons, and snakes during the night. I've rescued a cardinal that was caught in the coop's wire. My cat Leo was discovered in the chicken coop when he was a kitten.

However, I'm not usually frightened.

Anyway, here's some photos. I didn't edit them, they're just straight off my phone.









What are the weirdest critters you've seen at night?

So I completed #40 on my summer list...

DISNEY HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

On Monday my wonderful boyfriend Ryan took me to Disney. We drove down that morning and met his friend Becky who works for Disney.

I had never been to the park before, and I totally geeked out.

So I sucked at taking photos, because my phone died. Here is my limited selection.

So, I joined Bloglovin...

I'm not sure why I did that, but I did.

All I want to do right now is hide and play the Sims 3, but I guess that means I need to push myself to write this. So what if no one is reading?

A lot has been happening to me lately. I've been having a lot of great dance opportunities lately, and you can follow that journey on my new blog "Saved by the Belly" (up in the top bar).

I've also had the opportunity to join the Looks on Campus team over at College Fashion. I feel incredibly honored that I get to join the team on one of my FAVORITE websites.

So that's cool. Anyway...

Anyone there?

Can you hear me?

The photo up there at the top is from this afternoon. The three of us performed Najmah's choreography "Hypatia's Veil" at a small community festival called "Makers Fest" at the Repurpose Project.

While I'll talk about the dancing aspect on Saved by the Belly, I'm more interested in talking about the people I met today.

I've wanted to learn how to sew well for a while (you know, follow a pattern correctly) and my attempts have been...something. Well, I met an ADORABLE woman named Shona who teaches classes in town. Check out her blog, I'm already enjoying it.

I also met Corey Souza, a very talented woman who teaches aerial dance, equestrian vaulting and more. Well, those are two things I've REALLY wanted to learn.

I've wanted to learn aerial vaulting since my senior year in high school (around when I started belly dancing) that I wanted to travel the Renn Faire circuit vaulting and belly dancing. It was a dream quickly given up upon.

As for aerial dance, it's amazing, and I've always been sold on it. However, a well known fact about me, I'm TERRIFIED of heights.

Wanna help me get over that? How have you faced it?

Well if you are interested in Corey's classes, here's her website.

The final interesting person I met was a woman looking for host families for exchange students. I'm a very big fan of exchange programs, as I was in one my sophomore year of high school with two students from Germany, Lena and Miriam.

Want to host? Visit this website, the woman's name was Sarah Hernandez.

Well that's all for now. Hope I haven't bored you too much?

If you're their, tell me a story about conquering fears.

Pretty please.

Now back to the present...sort of.

Yesterday was Garfield the Cat day so we got lasagna for dinner from Bella Donna's, but today...I forgot to celebrate something...

Well anyway.

I try to make to-do lists every few months for fun seasonal things to do. However, I've been a grand failure since September.

Last summer my friends Mana, Greta, Kaley and I had a blast playing through a summer to-do list. Back in September I wrote another list for the fall, but I only managed to work through most of it through the winter as well.

This spring I just failed. I never wrote a list. I did very few spring themed things.

So this summer (even though it's technically half way through the summer) I'm going to try to complete everything (yes everything) on a shorter summer to-do list.

I had Ryan go through the summer to-do list from 2012 and highlight his favorites. This list is Ryan's favorites, plus a few I've added myself.

Happy International Sushi Day!

In my quest to become Leslie Knope I've decided to celebrate holidays all the time. While Leslie celebrates random holidays based on meaningful events, I just want to make any holiday into a meaningful event.

Lazy Sundays are the best.

As I've mentioned here before, I have a very large problem with sleeping. I've gone from not sleeping at all, to sleeping barely, to sleeping badly, back to not at all and back to badly once again.

I'm plagued by bad sleep. I toss and turn, I sleepwalk, I talk, I yell. Mornings are worse, because once I'm asleep it's so hard to wake up.




I've been trying to increase my amount of sleep because I feel like it's negatively affecting my health. I've been taking Melatonin every night, and it's helping.

So understand my amazement when I woke up naturally at 11:30 a.m. It was wonderful.

Ryan made steel cut oats with cinnamon and agave nectar, and then I headed to dance class.

I love sunday afternoon belly dance classes. I've been taking a fan veil choreography class that is almost over. I'm crazy excited to perform it soon, I've never been so invested in a choreography.

Afterwards I swung by a tea party before heading to the dinner shift at work. While it rained shortly after these photos were taking (and my phone died so I missed taking photos of Olive and Kaley who came later) it was great for the hour I was there.




My updated 21 Before 21 List.
1.) Become ATS General Skills Certified in Vancouver, BC.
2.) Stay in the Hostel in the Forest in Brunswick, GA.
3.) Have an article published in the Gainesville Sun.
4.) Take the Ballet I leisure course.
5.) Become scuba certified. 
6.) Go hunting. 
7.) Spontaneously travel somewhere by plane.
8.) Take pole dancing lessons.
9.) Stay for a weekend at a fancy bed and breakfast.
10.) Learn how to keep bees. 
11.) Climb real rocks. 
12.) Stay in the Everglades hostel.
13.) Visit the Florida Keys. 
14.) Run a marathon. 
15.) ?
16.) ?
17.) ?
18.) ?
19.) ?
20.) ?
21.) ?

I'm sitting in Cymplify writing next week's blog post for The Alligator, and I got distracted and wrote a second post for today. In my defense, the Links I Like post was supposed to be out yesterday...


I came across a blog called The Happily Ever After Project today. It's a wonderful little blog by a lovely woman named Celine about living for yourself, and making your happily ever after yourself. However, the blog that inspired The Happily Ever After Project is the one that hit me.

The blog The 30 Before 30 Project ended in 2011 and Celine has since moved on to her new blog. However, reading through the archives of this original has been substantially inspirational.

When you enter The 30 Before 30 Project the right sidebar will direct you to a post called Come Along for the Ride. It explains that the project came from Celine approaching 30 years old, and realizing she'd set aside all amazing the things she had planned to do for another time. It hit her one day "like a piece of concrete jutting out of a sidewalk".

That line hit me like a piece of concrete.

I'm almost 20 years old. It's terrifying me substantially, and I'm not really sure why. I've gone through a lot of changes in the past year: I transfered schools, I'm working more jobs than I ever thought I could handle, I'm in a serious relationship, I rarely see my house...the list goes on. I'm prone to frequent panic attacks since a traumatic incident last March left me with PTSD. For the past week I've been having these strange attacks where suddenly I'm distraught and afraid, all because I realize that I'm nineteen, and it feels like I was ten just yesterday.

I'm overwhelmed with the feeling that I have the life skills of a child, and I'm thrown into the adult world. I'm making meal plans, I'm working, I talk to my parents more on the phone then I do in real life, I miss my childhood friends.  I feel like the main character in 13 Going on 30. I just want to go back to eating dinosaur-egg oatmeal and watching PBS before going to school. I want summers to be for friends and summer camp, not for class and work. I cried after watching Avenue Q at the Hippodrome Theatre last night because I am so afraid of life after college.

It usually takes me falling asleep to end these panics, and then I'm back to normal. I'm me. I'm planning my trip to Vancouver in August, I'm excited to make steak stir-fry for dinner tonight. I'm planning my next blog post for The Alligator.

After reading Come Along for the Ride, I realized this is all probably because I'm approaching the milestone of turning 20. I'm scared because I feel like I've let so much time slip through my fingers.

So I'm taking control.

I originally wanted to make a big 25 Before 25 list to start when I turn 20 years old. However, I'm ambitious; I want to do more than that. I LOVE to-do lists, I usually make one for every season. So on top my my usual seasonal to-do lists, I'm writing a 21 Before 21 list. 

Here what I have so far, want to suggest anything?

1.) Become ATS General Skills Certified in Vancouver, BC.
2.) Stay in the Hostel in the Forest in Brunswick, GA.
3.) Have an article published in the Gainesville Sun.
4.) Take the Ballet I leisure course.
5.) Become scuba certified. 
6.) Go hunting. 
7.) Spontaneously travel somewhere by plane.
8.) Take pole dancing lessons.
9.) Stay for a weekend at a fancy bed and breakfast.
10.) Learn how to keep bees. 
11.) ?
12.) ?
13.) ?
14.) ?
15.) ?
16.) ?
17.) ?
18.) ?
19.) ?
20.) ?
21.) ?