The Benefits of Vaseline

I just bought a HUGE jar thing of Vaseline Petroleum Jelly because I use it for so many things! And I had this little jar thing of it that fits in small places because it's cute and little and it lasted me over a year despite its small size.

So my little one was running out so I decided today to put some from my huge jar into my little one, because I love how the cute little one is much more portable. So instead of being delicate about the process and melting it so it's easier to transfer the jelly... I just stuck my finger right in the big jar and started scooping it out.

IT WAS THE MOST FUN EVER!!! 

I know that makes me sound slightly crazy, but it really was so much fun!!! Apparently I just get easily excited and little things are my favorite... like moon sand! I found my moon sand today whilst cleaning some drawers out. Moon sand rocks. 

So because of this experience I'd like to share my favorite uses for petroleum jelly!

1. Chapped lips.

This is why I started using Vaseline in the first place! Every night I put Vaseline on my lips to help keep them very soft. Chris makes fun of me for the large amount of Vaseline I put on them, but it helps, so he really shouldn't complain. 

2. Cuts and burns

I love this because it's a cheap way to help heal your smaller injuries. It really has helped some cuts that I've had. It helps them heal faster and keeps it protected. 

3. Dry skin

Like with your lips, Vaseline helps a lot with dryness. I particularly use it for the back of my hands, but then I end up washing it off too soon sometimes. But it creates very smooth skin. It also does not clog pores, so don't worry about spreading it all over your face. 

4. Thicker eyelashes

I recently learned this trick, so now every night when I'm putting Vaseline on my lips, I also put some on my eye lids, and it really has made a difference in the way my eyelashes look. Sometimes if I want my mascara to really stand out, I'll put a little Vaseline on before applying mascara. It make a great difference. 

5. Keeping in the lines when applying nail polish

 A lot of members of my dad's side of the family have these tremors things which make our hands shake a lot. I don't have it as badly as some other people in my family, but my hands still get pretty shaky. Especially when I'm concentrating on doing something delicate with my hands (which kind of really sucks). So when I try to paint my nails, it gets all over my skin! But I learned to put some Vaseline around your nail before painting them so when it gets on your skin, it's so much easier to get off. Just don't get it on your nail because then it doesn't stay as well. 

6. Scent sticking

If you put on a little Vaseline in the areas you spray your perfume, it helps your scent to stick around longer. Which can be a very good thing. Keep in mind though that Vaseline makes your skin very shiny, so don't use a ton or it could look weird. Unless you want shiny skin. 

7. Makeup removal

This trick is fantastic because some makeup removal products seem to dry out my skin, but Vaseline specifically helps smooth your skin! It works really well in makeup removal, but I don't use it for that trick very much. 

8. Pumpkin carving

After your carve your Halloween pumpkins, rub some Vaseline around the edges, it helps keep it from rotting or getting dry. 

The above list is all things that I have tried before. But it has more uses found here. I am particularly interest in the "removal of eyelash glue" because in ballroom I wear fake eyelashes much too often and I hate taking them off. 

I hope this helps you! Vaseline always helps me in many ways. And as a fun tip, just sticking your finger in a big jar of it feels really cool. :) 

2012 in Review...

I feel that 2012 was VERY good to me. New Years is a great time to look back on the year you had. So here I go, month by month.

JANUARY was good. I honestly don't remember anything significant happening, other that starting the worst semester of my life. I was only a few months in my relationship with Chris, but at this point we both knew we wanted to marry each other. :)

FEBRUARY was fun! I always hated Valentines Day, but this year it was really good!! Chris's birthday is the day after Valentines Day so it was two days of gift giving and keeping him happy. I loved it! It was also the month I went to Las Vegas with his family for a soccer tournament. I got to meet a lot more of his relatives and truly get to know his brothers and parents.

MARCH was exciting! In college, March was always busy for me because of the San Diego trip I take with the USU Ballroom Dance Team. That trip is always so fun though. (even when our team sucks and gets last place in the competition...)

APRIL was... well I really can't remember. April is my best friend's birthday month, but unfortunately  now that I go to USU I don't usually see her on her birthday. I will this year though!!

MAY was relaxing. The worst semester of my life ended (with all failing grades) so I was able to relax a bit. I moved into the worst apartment of my life for the summer, but it was nice because Chris lived in the same building.

JUNE was boring. Sorry to my sister whose birthday is in June, but I really didn't do anything in June except hang out with Chris, work, and eat. We tried to start running together to train for our 5k for Independence Day, but, please, I don't run. And I started a dance camp, but it made me wake up too early and I was way older than everyone else there. It was weird.

JULY was sad. I love Independence Day and Pioneer Day (which I'm told is just a Utah holiday) but this year I didn't get to do the fun, crazy things I usually do and it made me sad! I walked a 5k with Chris's mom, would have been better if I wasn't sick. It was the first time in many, many years, pretty much since I was like 4 or 5, that I hadn't been with my best friend Lauren on the 24th of July. It killed me.

AUGUST was super hot and fun! We went on our family trip to Jackson Hole, Chris got to come for a few days. It was a blast!! I love Jackson because I get to see lots of family, more specifically my amazing cousin who lives in Austria. Because without Jackson Hole and Facebook, I may never see her. I also started this blog with 50 Things About Me!

SEPTEMBER was weird. I had decided to move back home to find a better job and earn money for school. But I didn't realize how hard it would be to be away from Chris. It was also strangely weird to not be going back to school. It didn't feel right, a clear indication that I need to go back to school soon.

OCTOBER was happy! I started working more at the daycare and I absolutely (still) love it!! Those kids are so much fun and amazing! October is also my favorite holiday, Halloween! And I got to decorate the house and I made an awesome Halloween craft!

NOVEMBER held the greatest moment of my life:

I don't think any other words are necessary. :)

DECEMBER was merry! I had the best Christmas of my life this month!! I loved every minute leading up to it! My parents spoiled me rotten! I love Christmas!

I'm so excited for January to come again! This year (the year I get married) will be the best year yet!! :)

My Dancing Adventure

So I recently started up dancing again. I'm taking a jazz class and a flexibility class. I'm taking these classes through the gym I work for. I get lots of discounts for being an employee so it's totally worth it.  I'm paying like $100 a month for four hours a week of dancing! I love it!

However, this dance "studio" is like the studios I went to growing up. Meaning I'm in a class with a bunch of high school girls. Some are even in middle school. So I'm just a creepy 22 year old dancing with high school students.

The worst part? I gave up jazz about six years ago and switched for ballroom dance. I wasn't ever the best jazz dancer, I wasn't the worst either though. Now, I'm probably the worst in my class. Because I'm old and haven't done it in six years...

(Did anyone else recognize these people from Dance Academy??? I love that show! If you haven't see it, check it out on Netflix!)

So today in dance class we learned a combination across the floor. 

Pique, double pique, prep into double pirouette, coupe, stag leap, tombe pas de bourree, prep into fouette turns (about eight), and then repeat. 

Okay. Let's see, a bunch of turns, blah blah blah.

I understood every word of the combination. It was easy for me to pick up. Except... just a couple things...

I never learned a stag leap in my entire life. 

 Yep. I don't know if that's a bad thing or not... but today in class, it proved to be a bad thing. How embarrassing to be in front of a bunch of high school girls (and a few boys that were absolutely incredible but looked older than high school) and to not know how to do a proper stag leap. It was a miserable failure.

This video isn't that great... I was worse.

I haven't done fouttees in six years.

I used to be fairly decent at these. I couldn't do as many as this girls in the video above, but I could do them and look good doing them. But that was six years ago. I, apparently, can't do these anymore without looking like some crazy drunk person. I'm falling, my arms and legs are all over the place because I just haven't done them, and my technique on them is really shaky. 

In ballroom, girls don't turn all that much unless there's a guy supporting you.

This was a biggie for me. In my jive routine last year I did like six pot-stir turns, with the guy holding my hand and guiding me through them. No big deal, it was easy! I could have done more! Except there was a guy supporting me. In jazz, and in this combination, there was no guy supporting me. And over they summer, I had a ankle mishap and was injured for a while. My ankles haven't fully recovered, they're really weak, and they are terrible for spinning. So without a guy, my weak ankles couldn't really handle all those spins without me falling, and I was getting a little too dizzy... 

Then we did a dance combination that... blew my mind!!! My jazz class never did stuff like this... and again, six years. 

But even though I felt all sad and pitiful about my current state of dance ability and technique, I'm so happy to be dancing again! :)

Month of Gratitude: Days 17-19

Day 17: I'm so grateful for my ballroom friends!!! It's so great to go to a USU Ballroom performance and be welcomed with smiles and hugs! It's amazing how the people you're on a team with easily become your best friends. I'm so grateful for them and how happy they make me! I love you guys!

Day 18: I'm grateful I'm marrying a guy who can cook. I have never been a fan of cooking. I kind of hate taking the time to do it. Baking is okay, I love making deserts, but I'm not one for cooking. But yesterday my fiance made us a wonderful chicken curry lunch! It was delicious! I love that I won't be expected to cook all the time in my marriage, even though I'll try. :)

Day 19: I'm grateful for Soup and Noodles because it's one of my favorite meals. It's just delicious. And the only think I'm willing to cook. (tomato soup and elbow macaronis, SO GOOD! Chris called it a fancy Spaghetti-O's, but I disagree)

I've gotten a really bad cold and am going off of like 3 hours of sleep. So I don't have anything else to say. I'll talk about my fantastic weekend another day.

Month of Gratitude: Days 14-15

Day 14: Yesterday I was most grateful for my mom and sister for going wedding dress shopping with me! It's so exciting to finally be able to shop for a dress, and I found the perfect one. Seriously. I NEED THAT DRESS!!! But we're checking out another store to make sure we get the best one for the best deal. But I'm still hoping for the one I fell in love with yesterday. I can't say anything else just in case my fiance reads this. Sorry!

Day 15: Today I'm most grateful for the power of prayer. Sorry. I'm LDS, and the next paragraphs are very Mormon-y. So if you don't want to read on, you don't have to.

So last year I accidentally took home a pair of gold pants from the USU Ballroom team (shown below) and they have a performance this Saturday so they need them back. I knew they were in my house somewhere, but I had been looking all week and could not find them! I was so scared! I would feel absolutely terrible if I had lost those pants, especially two days before a performance! So today I thoroughly cleaned my room and still couldn't find them. So I prayed. I prayed that I would be able to find the pants. I didn't get an answer right away. There wasn't some magical appearance of the pants or I suddenly knew of their location. Nothing like that. I just continued to clean my room. I had to take some boxes downstairs to the basement and while I had already looked through that stuff, I could have sworn the pants were in my bedroom somewhere. So I took down the boxes and saw a laundry bag. I was like "Oh yeah, when I first moved down here, the pants were in there, but I took them out." But I looked anyways, and there were the pants. :)

I truly believe in the power of prayer and I know that my Father in Heaven listens to each and everyone of us and He knows what we truly need and He will help us get what we need, no matter what. Sometimes the answers take a long time, other times it only takes a couple seconds. But He will answer.

I'm grateful that my prayer was answered today and that I was able to find the pants.

Okay, sorry, you can't actually see the pants that well. But this was the event where I borrowed the pants and took them home from. So this picture is the best for this post.

I'm also grateful that while I left the stove on while writing this post it didn't burn the house down. :)

My Fears

I'm starting an October segment, every post this month will have something to do with creepy, scary, Halloween type things. I love Halloween, so enjoy!

Okay this blog post may turn away my readers. You may feel that I'm a big wimp and that I need to stop being so afraid of everything, but even though I have tons of fears (as you soon will see) I usually still do things that involve them anyways. So in honor of Halloween coming up, here are my biggest fears; judge me if you want, but this is just the way I am. (this is not a Top Ten list, it's just a random list of my fears in no particular order)

1. Animals

Let my clarify this one a bit. I'm not afraid of all animals. I love aquariums and zoos and as you should already know, I love cows. But my fear of animals is more a fear of animals touching me... except cows... actually that's not true. I am probably afraid of all animals that touch me. I think it has to do with the fact that I can't communicate with them, I don't know what they're thinking or what they might do next and that scares me.  My own dog scares me. 

This above picture is of my family's dog, Molly. My family never planned on having a dog, my mom didn't really want one. But one day my dad and brother came home from a camping trip with Molly. She mostly just stays in our backyard, she's an outdoor dog. She comes in sometimes in the winter though (Utah winters are brutal). Molly, while adorable, terrifies me. I go out in the backyard and play catch with her sometimes, because it's her favorite thing to do. But when she gets close to me, tries to lick me, or jumps up on me, I almost want to run away screaming. I hate when she does that! I hate when dogs do that! And unfortunately, that's just what dogs do! Dogs are adorable, I like them much better than cat and most other animals, but I'm still afraid of them. I'm getting better though! Christopher's dog Max, is the sweetest dog I have ever met, and I really like him. He's very gentle and will just fall asleep on your lap. He's the best dog I've ever met, and the only dog I've really liked (sorry Molly). So when we get married Chris wants a dog, and I said that we could have one as long as I don't have to take care of it, and it's trained to be a mellow dog like Max. 

Anyways, very long tangent there, animals scare me. Particularly the big ones, the fast ones, the little quick ones, and the slithering ones.  

2. Birds

I'm separating birds from animals because there are some animals I like, I'm pretty sure there are no birds I like. Birds are terrifying!!! Yes, penguins are birds and they're adorable... to look at. I don't really ever want to go near a penguin. I also think that owls are amazing, but that doesn't mean I want a pet owl like Harry Potter, even if Hedwig was always one of my favorite characters. I think my fear of birds has to do with beaks and the fact that they can fly at any moment right at your face. Ducks and seagulls are my least favorite and in Utah, I see them all the time! They aren't even pretty! At least peacocks are pretty, and most of the little songbirds, they're pretty, but I still don't like them. Ostriches are probably the scariest of all birds, they're huge! But I don't see them that often. I hate ostriches though. In elementary school kids used to tease me about my last name and call me "Ostrich" instead. I hated it. I actually think birds are my worst fear. I'm terrified of birds.

3. Bugs

I might as well just go over all the animal type things that scare me right? So lots of people are afraid of spiders like me. Which sounds irrational because they're tiny, but the minute I see a spider my brain goes into overdrive thinking of everywhere that spider could sneak into and pop out later. Spiders are terrifying. But my bug fears don't stop there. I'm afraid of every bug. Every last one. Even butterflies. Yes they are beautiful creatures and I like to color them at the daycare I work at, but similar to birds, they just fly wherever they want and they try to attack you and I hate it! I hate bugs! I'm not just afraid of them, I hate them. 

4. Closed In,Tight Spaces

More commonly known as claustrophobia, this is probably my most normal fear. I don't like feeling trapped in a small space. Occasionally it will effect me in a car, usually only if I've been in the car a very long time or we're in a parking garage. I get very claustrophobic in planes. But I still ride in planes, I just fall asleep for as much of the ride as I can, and then I'm usually okay. In high school I told my friends that I was claustrophobic and they locked me in a closet (we aren't friends anymore). I started hyperventilating and ate the peanut butter that was in the closet. 

5. Bridges

If I'm in a car and it goes over a bridge, I hold my breath and I'm fine. If I'm driving the car, I have a hard time going over the bridge, it makes my body tense up. If I'm walking over a bridge, I have to hold someone's hand for support. And some bridges, I won't go over at all. My mom told me that once at Disneyland a bridge broke and we all fell in the water. It was just a little bit of water, but I was a little kid and my mom and to pull me up to keep my head out of the water. I don't remember that happening, but maybe my fear of bridges stems from that.

6. Clowns

Lots of people I know are scared of clowns, so don't judge me too harshly on this one. Clowns are creepy! Even the ones trying to be all happy and make children laugh, they're still creepy! At a parade a clown poked me with his cane. Why? I don't know! But I didn't like it. And it didn't help my like clowns. Also at the same parade a few years earlier, my best friend and I were playing catch in the street (it was closed off for the parade and the parade hadn't started yet) and a golf cart full of clowns tried to run her over! Seriously, they could have gone around easily, but they didn't even try, just headed straight for her. She's more afraid of clowns than I am, so that experience really wasn't good for her.  (I also want to add that while looking for an image of a clown on Google, I found this quote: "If nobody likes clowns why do they even exist?" Yes! Thank you!)

7. The Monster in the Closet

Okay, this one's kind of a joke. But I can't sleep with my closet doors open. I don't know why. I think it has to do with the fact that in the dark, the inside of my closet looks even darker, and it's just creepy. But lets just go with the monster in the closet thing.

8.  Heights

I don't know if this is true. I love hiking and rock climbing (indoors, I've never done real rock climbing) so I've dealt with heights before. I think it's more edges. I don't really like looking over the edge. That sort of applies to my fear of bridges as well. If you can find it (I couldn't, but I didn't look very hard) you should listen to the Barenaked Ladies song "I Don't Like" because it talks about being afraid of edges just like me.

9. Ladders

I hate ladders. I don't even like step ladders. I don't like being on the first step of a tall ladder. I don't trust ladders. I feel a lot of my fears stem from my massive trust issues. I don't trust animals because I can't understand them, I don't trust bridges to keep me safe, I don't trust clowns to... not be creepy, and I really just don't trust ladders. (Ironically, my dad put a ladder in my room and it's sitting right across from me, in plain sight while I type)

10.  Falling

This kind of goes back to my fear of bridges, and heights, and ladders. I am scared of falling. I'm a ballroom dancer and the guys are supposed to lift us into crazy tricks, but I'm scared of it because of my fear of falling and my severe trust issues. My ballroom coach always makes fun of me for it. There's only one person on my team I would do lifts with, because he's big, a cute kindergarten class called him "The Beast". But even when he lifted me, my hands got all shaky. It's definitely one of my biggest fears because it holds me back from doing lots of things. 

So there you have it, 10 of my fears. Sadly, I think that there are more. I just can't think of them right now. Actually I can think of a few more, I won't go into details, but here they are:

• Slipping on ice
• Hurting other people
• Being laughed at
• Haunted houses
• Horror movies (since it's almost Halloween I'll be writing a blog post about my opinion on haunted and/or scary things)
• Old people
• Injuries
• Stepping on gum (oh boy, I have lots to say about this...)

Thanks for reading!

--Kaylee 

My Favorite Youtube Dances!!!

I've been dancing since I was four years old.

I'm the second one from the left, thrusting my hips out. :) (except I'm pretty sure I'm older than 4 in this picture, this is just the oldest dance picture of mine I could find) This shows my ballet days. Growing up I did ballet, jazz, and tap. I absolutely love it! But when I was 16 I switched over to ballroom.

This picture is from two years ago with my ballroom competition partner Taylor. He's currently on a mission but I really hope he'll compete with me again next year (even though we never won). I love ballroom as well even though it's much more strict than jazz or tap... and kind of ballet as well.

So as a dancer for many years, I love dance and watching dance! I'm not a huge fan of Dancing With the Stars, but I love So You Think You Can Dance and Dance Moms. Youtube also has wonderful dancing available for viewing. So here are some of my favorites! Enjoy!

Okay, Kate Jablonski is an INCREDIBLE choreographer!!! All her dances are mind blowing! Seriously! If you don't believe me, check out her Youtube page: http://www.youtube.com/user/katieshmatee?feature=watch. The dance above really just captures you and pulls you in. It's incredible! I cannot look away from those dancers!

So I already said I love Dance Moms, so the clip above features Maddie Ziegler from the show. She's one of the best dancers on the show and this clip proves it. Just look at her energy! She also very good at execution, hitting the moves perfectly, cleanly, with energy and attitude. She's amazing.

So here's another Dance Moms clip, this one feature both Maddie and Chloe Lukasiak. Chloe is my favorite dancer on the show. I think she's amazingly talented and a very sweet little girl (in case you're confused, she's the one in the black, Maddie is in white). This dance sort of proves how talented both these little girls are.

As much as I hate spiders, I love this dance! I have no idea who this woman is, but the fact that she's flexible and talented enough to actually look like a spider while dancing is amazing to me. Props to her! She has lots of talent!

Again, I have no idea who this is, but she's very very talented! I love this song and the interpretation of it. She's also very pretty.

This one is from So You Think You Can Dance! I said it once in an old post, I wanted Kayla to win that season!! She's has incredible technique and amazing dancer's legs. I wish I could be her. I wish I could dance like her. This dance is so amazing. I just love it! All of it! Especially when Kayla comes forward and just whips out a triple pirouette... like... what? Did she really just do that so flawlessly? Speaking of pirouettes...

This girl has a talent. She was even on Ellen once to show off her many pirouettes, but she only did 20 something on the show.

No good dance list would be complete without a Mia Michaels routine. I love Mia Michaels! She's incredible and this dance gets to my heart every time. If you want to read about my obsession for this dance, click here: http://whenthe-cows-comehome.blogspot.com/2012/08/so-you-think-you-can-dance-8152012-my.html. It's near the bottom of the post.

I don't really care that this is fake, I think it's adorable! And a fairly clever commercial.

Speaking of little kids... these boys are very talented! I think they're adorable and I hope my kids play Just Dance like they do. :) They have a lot more videos that you can find here: http://www.youtube.com/user/choynina?feature=watch.

This isn't the best Cha Cha out there but fun fact: Andrea Hale (now Andrea Tatton) is my ballroom teacher! Yeah! I love her, she has so much energy and is so fun to work with. She's also incredibly talented and I like this video because it reminds me how lucky I am to be taught by her. :)

This video seems very cheesy to me, but these two are incredibly talented dancers! I saw them live at the UCSD Ballroom Competition. They are by far the most talented dancers on Dancing With the Stars.

Ha ha! Aren't we great? Yes, I am in this video. This is my USU Ballroom Dance Team competing at UC San Diego two years ago. We won 2nd place that year. Not bad... but there were only 3 teams. The next year we did this same dance... we had worse dancers... we got 3rd. As much as I love my team and my coaches, I really hope we can step it up soon.

Finally, here's a lame video of me and my friend Kyle:

This was last year. We practiced not as much as we should have. But it was just fun to do that with Kyle. He's the best dancer on our team and he's fun to work with. I know it's not that good, I'm working on my technique. But I love wearing that costume. And I'm on Youtube! :)

So there it is! My favorite dances on Youtube... that's not true. There are so many more. But I'll just give them to you in small doses. I hope you enjoy!

Also, if you click on the tab above that says Argyle, you'll learn about my passion for dancing and my desire to teach dance (not necessarily ballroom dance, as you saw, I'm not that wonderful). So if you're in Utah and interested, let me know!

--Kaylee

USU Ballroom Team 2012-2013!!!

... I am sadly not on the USU Ballroom Team 2012-2013...

I decided to move home for a year to make money before going back to school.

I'm dying inside, not being able to dance for my team. That's my team! I feel like I have some ownership of it (even though I really don't). I'm just not ready to let it go...

So I'm the creator and main administrator for the Facebook page and group (http://www.facebook.com/pages/USU-Ballroom-Dance-Company/114584308643929 check it out). And because I'm not there I've had to, very reluctantly, give permissions for others to edit the page. I'm very upset about this, because I'm not ready to let it go.

On our group page, it's for team members only. And while I'm an administrator, there is now another administrator. And they are removing of last year's team members if they are no longer doing team. I'm so scared they are going to try and remove me from the page! Yes I'm an administrator, but Hans has all the permissions I do. But I created the page, so it just doesn't seem fair. More than that, I've worked really hard to create a fan base on our Facebook page! (seriously, http://www.facebook.com/pages/USU-Ballroom-Dance-Company/114584308643929, check it out and like the page if you're anywhere near Logan, it gives information on all team events)

I know it's childish, I know it sounds stupid, I know I'm acting like a whiny little kid, but I just can't let it go. I've been on the team longer than anyone else, and am going back next year. Please don't kick me out yet...

Also, check out our website:  http://usu.edu/ballroom/ !!!

--Kaylee

Celebrate America Show: In The Miller Mood - USO Style

So last night I got a ride up to Logan to attend the Celebrate America Show with my wonderful boyfriend. This is put on every year in the Taggart Student Center at Utah State University. This was the first time I've ever gone, but I loved it!

So the Celebrate America Show is put on by Brenda Anthony (who is a fun character) and her husband. It has a live band playing music from the WW2 era and there is a lot of singing and dancing. It's almost like watching a musical. It's so much fun to watch!

Members of my ballroom team were in it, so they got me free tickets and saved me seat in the very front row (thank you so so much Tiffany and Kyle!!!).

I really think that if you're in the Logan, Utah area, you should check it out. However, ticket prices are pretty expensive. Sorry. Learn more on their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Celebrate-America-Show/186423203478.

Don't forget to check it out! And say hello to my dancer friends for me! :)

--Kaylee