January.

I've always said that January is the month of nothing.
It's cold, it's brown, and nobody can remember what year it is--so it might as well not exist.
But that's not really January's fault, is it?
And some things do happen in January if you just pay attention.

Stuff that happened this January

I made pancakes. Twice.
I saw Frozen for the fourth time.
(in foreeeevveeerrrr...sorry)
It snowed/is currently snowing.
I played in the snow while singing the Frozen soundtrack.

Audrey and I went hiking in Narnia (Grandaddy's backyard) at Grandaddy's 85th birthday party.

The dentist said I had NO CAVITIES!
Which makes all the Starbucks I drank OK.
I gave a long presentation about China at a nursing home and loved having time to REALLY talk about it.
After a month of not going to school, I got to sub again and it was AWESOME.
I even subbed middle schoolers...and liked it.
Downton Abbey started up again.

The dog who wasn't a good fit for us found a new home.
I saw a lot of friends, even if I feel like I didn't.

Including a lot of time with these two silly boys:

I gave Fabio's aunt's baby an English name. His Chinese name, Wu Tong Yu, means tree/strong/healthy, and his new English name is Woody.

I read all the way through my crazy college blog, missed college, and then didn't miss college.
I went to my fabulous coworker Janice's birthday party and we all got our groove on with some Just Dance.

And I struggled with some emotions.

I felt lonely because, even though I have friends, I've not got many here in Sevierville who are single and in the same stage of life as I am.
I felt inadequate because I'm living at home without a "real" teaching job.
I felt insecure because I'm not sure what's happening next, and stuck because I think I'm supposed to stay here for a while.
I felt sad because, yes, even seven months later I still crave Chinese food and miss my Asian babies. Part of me was left behind at Shanxi Modern Bilingual School.

Some of my moping probably could have been remedied if the weather had been warm enough to go outside, or if I'd asked for more hugs, or if I hadn't spent so much time alone with my thoughts.
But it shows that here, in the dead of winter, I'm still being made to grow.

Disney Princesses (and how I deal with anxiety)

I have a great passion in life that may be a bit over the top. 

The common thread in all these photos? The sheer joy they gave me.

Seriously. There are at least eight visible things in my "grown-up" bedroom that have a princess on them somewhere. I regularly listen to Disney music at my desk at work and have seen Frozen FOUR TIMES since it hit the theater (granted, two of those times were free. That gets me a little less judgment, right?)

The truth is that, while I liked Disney princesses as a child, they didn't really turn into a "hobby" until I was in high school. 

In college was when I really...well...let it go.

See what I did there?

And even out of college, I can't help but get ridiculously excited almost to the point of straight-up embarrassing every time somebody gives me a princess-related thing. 

Everybody's got little quirks that make them unique, right?
Stuff that makes them weird?
Maybe I've just got a few extra idiosyncrasies because I spent the homeschooled years of my childhood learning how to entertain myself. Maybe I was just born that way.

Here are some other things I love.

Coloring.

Pretending to be Beyonce. Sometimes on stage.

Baba Larve, the Russian alter-ego that comes out when it's time to party.

You never know what ze Baba Larve ees going to do next. Yaga. 


Face-in-a-hole.

Hiking. And pretending to be King of the Woods.

Reading Children's books like these.

I also enjoy knitting, baking, eating chocolate, and watching Downton Abbey.

Like a lot of people, I sometimes struggle with anxiety. It's very easy for worrisome thoughts to plant themselves in my head and grow into full-fledged panic trees.

The best weapon against anxiety? Laughter. Something I'm good at.

When anxiety hits, it can make you feel trapped and helpless. After all, it's inside of you and you can't just pull it out and throw it away. If you let it sit long enough, it can even make you sick.
Sometimes, the best thing to do is remove yourself from the situation (at least for a little while) and make cookies
or belt out Defying Gravity
or do yoga
or ask for a hug
or do the absolute silliest thing you can think of.

But, most importantly, LAUGH.
Laugh a lot.

To the men in my life...

I have a lot of girl friends. 

A LOT. 

Girl friends are great. We love to be silly, talk a lot, and give each other hugs and compliments. And while I'm gung-ho about being an independent lady, I must admit that there is something inside of me that craves affirmation from guys (which could be said of a lot of girls, I think). 

I was blessed to grow up with a father who read me bedtime stories, a brother who spent time with me, and men who treated me like a lady--but a lot of girls don't have that. 

For the men in my life, the men I love and respect, this is a blog of thanks. 

Thank you for being awesome. 

Thank you for not making me feel like I have to look like the images of women I'm bombarded with every day. Thank you for not treating me like an object. 

Thank you for elaborating your manly-man stories with sound effects and hand gestures, because that makes them more exciting. Thank you for making me laugh.

Thank you for opening doors, carrying bags, and getting things for me, even though I can do those things myself. 

Thank you for showing me that I'm valued and special just the way I am. 

Thank you for being excited about the things I cook, because it makes me feel like a food master.

Thank you for reminding me not to take myself too seriously and overanalyze EVERY. SINGLE. THING.

Thank you for asking for my advice. 

Thank you for saying and doing ridiculous, unexpected things.

Thank you for telling me that I smell nice, look nice, sound nice, or act nice. I feel like I get extra points if you say those things when I didn't even try.

Thank you for spending time with me--whether that's sending a text saying "WORD UP--I just ninja'd a BUG" or driving eight hours to visit me.

Thank you for asking me to dance instead of making me sit on the sidelines, wondering why I put on makeup and a dress just to watch other people hold each other. And thank you for dressing up--you guys look nice in suits.

Thank you for brushing your teeth, taking showers, and wearing deodorant every day. I know it's hard.

Thank you for laughing at my jokes, even if they don't make sense.

Thank you for secretly liking Disney movies.

Thank you for walking me to my car when it's dark because, yes, it somehow makes me feel safer.

Thank you for respecting not just me, but all the women in your life. For taking us out to dinner, giving us hugs and high-fives, telling us we're pretty, cheering us on, loving us well, and teaching your sons to treat us the same way. Thank you for proving me wrong on the days that I want to believe that all men are bad. Thank you for pointing me to Christ.

You guys are great. Really.

Purple, Pretend, and Pig Sweaters

The other day I put a picture on Facebook and it got 82 likes. 

EIGHTY-TWO. 

I didn't have a baby, I didn't get engaged, I didn't graduate, and I've never had so much feedback from one picture. 

What was the picture of? 

Me in a pig sweater when I was a kid. 

A pig sweater that I picked out myself and loved well. 

I also had a matching duck sweater. 

The eighty-two thumbs-up of affirmation inspired me to write this post...about the younger, homeschooled Laura who wore awesome sweaters and ponytails.

I wasn't homeschooled my whole life. I went to public school through second grade, homeschooled through seventh grade, and transferred into a teeny-tiny Christian school in eighth grade to finish out my education. 

Those 5 homeschooled years, though...

THEY WERE AWESOME. 

I played pretend, like, every day.

My mom read historical fiction to me for an hour in the morning while I made crafts and rearranged my dollhouse. And if I worked hard, I could finish the rest of my work by noon and have the whole afternoon to myself.

You know, to read books and make things out of pipe cleaners and toothpicks.
Life was good.

Every morning I walked my dog and made up stories about the pretend world in my neighborhood.

In my pretend world, I had a herd of flying cats, fairies, snow leopards, and an eagle named Bon-Bon. My pretend boyfriends' names were Cameron and Colin, and my brother was always the bad guy who rode out of the sky on black clouds. 

We didn't have cable, so I watched shows on PBS and taught myself how to speak Ubbi-Dubbi, the language of Zoom. 

My best friend lived in my neighborhood and some afternoons I would go to her house, play under her porch, and listen to sinful music by Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys. 

My other best friend lived in the woods, where we played hero-and-damsel and listened to sinful music by N'sync.

One summer, my brother and I rode bikes around the cul-de-sac in our pajamas and caught baby grasshoppers in the neighboring field.

We also found pop-weeds around the side of the road and shot them at each other.
The world was a big place.

In my top-secret diaries I wrote about crafts, sleepovers, and the occasional boy. 

"Dear Diary, It's almost 9:00! My bedtime. I taught Morgan crochet and she finished a bag! She encouraged me to finish what I start to make. And I'll do that, now. Well, gotta go! Mine truly, Laura Rose Love."

"Dear Diary, Pokemon comes on in about 10 minutes. Morgans party was great even though we stayed less than 2 hours. She did like my present....I've gotta go now. Mine Truly, Laura Rose Love."

"Dear Diary, I'm going to a pumpkin patch with Morgan in not to long. It will be fun. I'm about to wake up Panda. Pokemon comes on in about 5 minutes so goodbye! Mine Truly, Laura Rose Love."

(Yeah, I had a panda named Panda and I put him down for naps)

(And Pokemon was my JAM)

Sometimes the entries even had titles. 

My Love

I love Andros (the red Power Ranger). He's nice. He's handsome. I wish I could marry him. I pretend I marry him. He's friendly. I wish I was with him.

The Love of Mine

I absolutely adore Ash Ketchum. He has pointy black hair, big eyes, a black shirt, a blue jacket, jeans, and tennis shoes. He also has a Pikachu.

Because I was homeschooled, I had lots of time to write stories, including one called Friedchickenunzel. It's about Friedchickenunzel Sunny Delight, who was locked in a tower by the evil wizard Harry Potter, grew really long hair, and was saved by George W. Bush.

DON'T ASK.

Every week we met up with other homeschoolers at a Co-op to learn special skills, like how to make pillows and bead necklaces and identify cool rocks. 

Sometimes our family went on field trips to places like the aquarium and Walmart. 

It was the best time.

Of course, after such an extended, idyllic childhood, the transition back to school in eighth grade was rough, even though I needed it. 

I (obviously) didn't know how to dress myself, had spent years not saying "butt" or "gosh", had just stopped playing with dolls, and liked to read on the bus. I had a crush on a real-live boy who was in my class that was KILLING me and tucked my uniform in at least three inches higher than the other girls did. And my hair was up in a ponytail. Every. Day.

I was disconnected from my homeschooled friends and didn't fit in with the crowd of kids who'd grown up watching Nickelodeon and wearing flare jeans. I didn't feel like I had friends again until the end of ninth grade, and I knew they were really my friends when one of them looked at my snowman turtleneck and lovingly said, "Laura, we have got to go shopping."

Then I figured out how to make people laugh, and things got better.

Don't worry. I have friends now. I think.

I'm not saying that homeschooling or not homeschooling children is the answer to education, because my siblings and I all received a mixture of both and we turned out pretty great.
All I'm saying is that I will never take my childhood for granted, and that everyone should wear a pig sweater at least once.

Here are some more fun photos for you to enjoy:

Dress up like a historical character day. I look just like Addy, right?

Who doesn't wear Tigger keychains on their belt-loops? SWAG.

Daniel's faces. Classic. 

Also, I was a ballerina for...not a long time.

This is when mom decided I should get swimming lessons...

...and wear more sunscreen.
It's ok, whenever I got this red I got to pretend to be Princess Ruby. She had a white cat.

But really, who needs a waterpark when you've got a sprinkler and a best friend?

And who needs toys when a giant white thing blows into your yard after a storm?
ROCKET SHIP.

I had more Pooh shirts than I cared to count.

Homeschool field trip to the animal shelter in my favorite outfit.
Start wearing purple, everybody. It'll change your life.

That time when I forced Daniel to play Rudolph with my earmuffs. Pretty sure this is the part where I was telling him to fly...or else.

Maybe he didn't like it as much as I did. 

CREEP FACE. Destined to be a cat lady.

There are photos of at least three other occasions where I am wearing this sweater.
And holidays were the best time to break out the creep face.

Last but not least, the pig sweater resurfaces. 
Life. Was. Good.