girl-ish
By Hannah Henriques For Spring Break this year I went to Florida with my daughter, my parents, and most of my siblings. We spent a week with my grandparents and two glorious days at Universal in Orlando Florida, pampering ourselves and seeing and doing everything we possibly could.
Without my parents’ help, I would not have been able to go on such a grand adventure. But I hope when my daughter is a little older I will be financially stable enough to take her somewhere like Disney World without the nagging feeling that I’m spending too much money. That being said, there are a lot of articles out there on how to budget for big trips and vacations. You can penny pinch doing anything from camping in the mountains to backpacking across Europe. But today I’m going to take the unpopular route and give you some tips on how to splurge the right way, and feel like a queen at Universal Studios. So maybe someday you can save up enough money or get that killer promotion in order to treat yo’self. 1. Stay in a themed hotel:
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By Melissa Moon I will never forget the first time I realized I had a Resting Bitch Face (RBF). I was a senior in high school and performing in our high school’s Christmas concert. About halfway through the concert, one of my best guy friends had the opportunity to perform a solo. He was/is an incredible singer and I was completely thrilled for him! My precious father decided to record the concert and despite the fact that I was not singing in that moment, decided to pan over to me. (Parents, right?) So there's my dad, unassumingly panning the camera to catch my reaction to my friend's solo. On the inside, I am dying of happiness. He is killing it and he sounds like an actual angel! It didn’t even cross my mind that my face wasn’t conveying those thoughts and emotions. However, much to my surprise, when the camera landed on me, I looked like I wanted to rip his vocal chords out of his throat. I was straight up glaring at him! Anyone who was looking at me would have thought, ‘Wow! This girl legitimately hates this guy with a burning, fiery passion.’ UGHHHH IT'S NOT TRUE! THAT'S JUST MY FACE!"
I'm Probably Not Coming. The story of my 'party anxiety.' By Kiley Shuffett Illustrated by Kiley I don't fancy myself an insecure person. I don't usually want what others have unless you're holding a brownie or a poppyseed bagel...then, I very much want what you have. Overall, I would say I'm extremely comfortable with who I am and what I bring to the table. Put me in front of an audience of hundreds...I will be fine. Make me play piano on the spot when I haven't practiced in weeks....okay, I'm pretty nervous, but I will be fine. Invite me to a party..."Ummm, yeah I don't think I can go. I have a thing that I must do and also, I have to get up early tomorrow."
Yes, I've definitely used this line on you (*you know exactly who you are). I'm so sorry. I swear it's not you, it's me. I would not put this on the internet for the entire world to see if it were not absolutely true. There is just something about fun, late-night outings that make me want to crawl in a hole. For now, I have no explanation. But someday, I hope to change the title of this piece to: This Is An Awesome Party, I'm So Glad I Came! Featuring Mandy Tornstrom *Sprinkled with awkward girl .gifs* I have always been the “awkward girl”. Now some people that know me will read this and say, “Mandy? Awkward? I don’t think so!” I think that is because those people know me from college and work, and see me as the beautiful, blossomed and matured flower that I am now… (Or, maybe they totally agree with my awkwardness statement and I think they don’t, thus confirming my “gift, but a curse” awkwardness.)
I think the pique of my awkwardness happened at the blossoming and ripe old age of 12. Mmmmm…. 7th grade. Just a delicious age of hormones, drama, and note writing. Oh, the note writing! I am actually a little upset that I have forgotten all the ornate ways that one can fold a stupid piece of paper that holds the ever important: Math iz totally B O R I N G Can’t wait for 2nite. Do u really think Michael is gunna call you? Lol LYLAS! Mands Breakup Monologues Pt. 2 Despite this misleading Halloween photo, when I was a kid I was not the little girl dreaming of her wedding. Here I was probably dreaming of growing up to become a Spice Girl/ lawyer. This was after I moved past wanting to be the Pink Power Ranger, Kimberly. I had high aspirations, certainly. I was unfortunately awkward in middle and high school. And chubby, too. There was no romance to speak of from those years. If I liked a boy, I invited him to my house to play with lightsabers in my front yard with my four younger sisters. I wasn’t a Star Wars nerd, it was just really fun. You get why I was single. By Ciara LeRoy A Christian guy I dated called me a “slut” because I wore shorts on an evening out with him.
“If I‘m ever wearing anything immodest, don’t be afraid to tell me. I’ll change.” I thought being a good, godly girlfriend meant having a conversation like this. I spent my adolescence immersed in the “modest is hottest” culture in the American evangelical church. I measured hemlines. I signed virginity contracts. I wore purity rings. I watched pulpit illustrations that compared sexually active and immodest girls to dirty roses. No one wants a dirty rose. By Claire FitzSimmonds Mercy and I met five years ago when we both, for some crazy, awesome reason, decided to spend six months on a Youth with a Mission base in Lusaka, Zambia. We were job-less, money-less and, at first, friend-less. I figured out pretty quickly that Mercy was going to be crucial to my sanity during long, hot (or unexpectedly cold) hours weeding the vegetable garden, my futile attempts to stir cornmeal into nshima (the staple food in Zambia and what, to this day, I attribute any muscles in my arms to), and multiple day-long bus rides to various corners of Zambia and beyond.
We slept in bunk beds in a dorm room, huddled under three blankets, and we slept on the floor of a pastor’s house in Malawi, on top of all our blankets, dreaming of rain. We slept on an empty bus at a deserted bus station, and we slept on a shared twin mattress in a mud hut with nothing but a burnt-out light bulb for other company. We slept a lot of places. We went a lot of places. And then YWAM ended. I came back to the States with grand dreams of starting projects to end homelessness or hunger or both. I’ve made a few attempts, here and there, but mostly I’ve waited tables and written novels. Nothing to scoff at, not quite the humanitarian ambitions I imagined. And Mercy? Well, she kept going. To England and Sudan and back to Zambia. Somewhere in the middle of all that, she had an idea called Educate the Future. But I’m gonna let her tell you about all that. By Amanda Paschal So you’ve got 48 hours in the big, Big Apple; so much to do in such little time. When I first moved to New York City, I remember my mom saying I would get lots of visitors- not necessarily people coming solely to visit me but people coming to visit the city and looking for a tour guide. I remember not quite understanding what she meant by that, but as time went on, I quickly understood exactly what she was saying. And let’s be real, what better backdrop could you ask for when catching up with old friends? Over time, I feel like I nailed down the art of showing off NYC to “first timers” in 24-48 hours, so I’ve put together this little guide to assist you. Perhaps you’re heading there soon and this can help you to see it all. My whole work life is about creating schedules, so no need to thank me for later this ;). (**note: this is a guide to seeing the major tourist attractions. A “locals” guide will later follow for those of you who have been there done that with everything below & are looking for something new ☺)
By Jesse Powell As much as I think of myself as an over-sharer, it is hard for me to talk about my feelings most of the time. I hide this well, I’ve been told. Really I would rather not talk about what’s going on in my life. I know it’s not healthy to hold things in. We are still creating a culture that nurtures that side of us that wants to share, though. Sometimes it is so easy, and sometimes it is difficult.
But here we are, and I’m going to share my most painful experience with you. My father passed away on April 2, 2013 of complications due to injuries he sustained from being assaulted exactly a month before that. So March 2-April 2 is the worst month of the year for me. I go into hyper self-care mode. I have learned a lot about grief. You never really stop grieving, did you know that? Unfortunately I wasn’t taught this until I was already in the midst of grief. If you want to do yourself a huge favor, read up on grief, how to take care of yourself when experiencing it, and how you can be there for someone who is grieving. I will share a bit of course, but there is so much I can’t cover here. Featuring The Girl-ish Team Throughout our lives, we have countless "firsts." No matter the age or the occasion, firsts tend to be REALLY nerve-wracking. In our 20's, these firsts are commonly of the career variety. Either we've graduated and are awaiting the first day of a "big-girl" job in our chosen career field, we're nervously arriving at our first day of college or Graduate school or we are already working one job and having to take on another. No matter what, that first day can make or break your attitude about the task ahead.
I tend to be OVERLY apprehensive about the first day on a new job, and I know I'm not alone. Even though it always turns out to be (much) less painful than expected, imagine how much better we would feel going into the job, and how excited we might be to return for a second and third day if we didn't let our nerves take us prisoner?! I got together (over e-mail) with some of the Girl-ish Team and asked their tips on how to knock the **** out of those first-day jitters we all seem to experience. P.S. These tips are great for nerve-calming in any scenario! |
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