That One Time I Wanted a Bloody Mary

I just wanted a damn Bloody Mary.

It was a rough week of work. Friday rolled around finally and I wanted to satisfy my craving for a Bloody Mary. I was going to get one even if it meant achieving it alone. I was supposed to have a date that night and he had cancelled again. So I really was going to do what I wanted because that kind of stuff can't stop, won't stop me.

As soon as I got home, I threw on a dress and freshened up my lipstick and hair. Then I made my way to Yard House all by myself and I walked in and told the hostess it was just me and I wanted to sit outside on the patio. It would be a 45 minute wait. I told her I would go shop and come back and I took that black brick so it could buzz at me when they were ready and thew it in my purse.

I made my way to Off Broadway shoes store and started trying on an array of high heels that I had my eyes on. I was trying to get my strappy sandals back on so I could start making my way back to Yard House when all of the sudden one of the straps broke. Completely broke. I looked at the time and frantically thought, well I am in a shoe store, surely I can buy a pair of sandals real quick! 

Hobbling around with a broken sandal, I went down the isles and tried a couple on, but couldn't find a pair that I loved and would actually spend $40+ on. I kept checking the time knowing that any minute, they would be trying to buzz that black brick, but I wouldn't know because I was way down the way at another store.

So I decided I would suck it up and take myself back to Yard House with my broken shoe. I hurried as much as I could in the done-for-sandal with the heat of the summer sun making me start to sweat. I made my way down the front hall of Yard House and waited.

I looked around me and finally noticed all the couples and the groups of girls. There was a huge country concert that would be happening that night. Couples dressed up nicely. Girls with their perfectly fresh blonde curls, cute outfits, and boots to go with them.

Here I was; frazzled, hot, standing there waiting wearing my broken sandal. I wore a bright dress and my short brown hair was fiercely slicked back.

I started to get uncomfortable. But I had gone out to eat alone plenty of times! I told myself. But it wasn't on a Friday night, in a dress, full makeup, surrounded by people that aren't like me. I was so frustrated with how the week went and even that past hour. I wanted to ditch the whole plan and just go home.

I knew I couldn't though. I had craved and wanted a Bloody Mary so much. There was no way I was going to let the shoe mishap, the cancelled date, and the other dates that were actually happening win. I knew I was so much stronger than that.

So after waiting longer and longer, I finally asked the hostess what was up. Why hadn't I been seated yet? They had indeed tried buzzing that black brick while I was gone, but I was too far away for it to work. Then they continued on down the list. They finally were able to sit me outside on the patio. And boy, did I order that Bloody Mary and even a salad.

On that summer Friday night, I sat a table by myself among tables of couples and girls with their best friends as I caught up on messages. Messages from friends in different states. No matter if I am physically alone, I always have friends across the US in the palm in my hand. That evening, I was giving my input on wedding outfit ideas for a couple of my close guy friends miles away.

I took my notebook out of my purse, grabbed a pen, and started writing and brainstorming ideas for my blog while I sat at the table eating and drinking to my delight.

I already knew this would be good writing material.#NeverADullMoment

The night I got my damn Bloody Mary

Rachel Ramble: Bubble Baths & Stress Fests

Wait. It's already the 3rd of August?

Currently: Singing to the Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga Cheek to Cheek album while I type.

I am pretty much settled into the new place now (finally) and now we are one week and a day-ish away from the big event at work! (holy smokes)

You can imagine with the celebration right on the horizon, I have been living in a stress fest and here are some results of that stress fest:

• I have been trying to relax when I can so I asked my lovely Facebook friends for recommendations for bubble bath. And of course, they delivered. I ended up getting bubbles from Lush cosmetics. I love that the blue one was named Dorothy and was described to take you "Somewhere over the Lush rainbow." (clever)
• Bee tee dubs...Bath & Body Works has a couple new lines of candles out and it was hard to pick just one two.

• I've been working really hard and also haven't bought new tennis shoes in over a year (it's about time for new ones anyway), so I treated myself to new kicks. Day dreaming of future beautiful runs and sweat sessions at the gym.

• Anna and I ordered take out cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory and picked it up in our sweatpants.
• I started reading Gala Darling's Radical Self Love book and I loved this quote so much, I tweeted it. 

You may think that you want to look different, but what you really want is to feel different. 

And then Gala Darling favorited and retweeted it and I might have freaked out just a little and tweeted about how ecstatic I was that she did that and then she favorited that too so it became a vicious cycle of excitement. It was a lot to handle in just a few minutes.

The last couple weeks have consisted of:

Two Sporting KC games | Westport nights | Trying a new coffee shop | New food places | Visits from out of town friends | Bubble baths | Glitter nail polish | Big Brother | A lot of work | Pretty Kansas sunsets | My nephew turning 16

Current obsessions: My new super duper soft blanket from Target & V8 tomato juice

Just did some air piano. 

Stop To Watch The Lightning Bugs

Move over, locust bugs! Lightning bugs are officially twinkling! Life for me went from a pretty casual cruise to 100mph. You will eventually find out why soon enough, but needless to say, I've been constantly on the go. I am trying not to neglect eating, sleeping, and shaving. My only break today was to watch the premiere of Big Brother (still cooling off from watching Clay in action) and my pre-dinner was a bag of popcorn and Mountain Dew.

I finally had some of Mom's leftover delicious baked ziti and made myself sit on the front porch and watch the lightning bugs sprinkled throughout our neighborhood yards. I am starting to think lightning bugs might be on my top 10 list of my most favoritest things in the world.

On Saturday, I hosted our 5-year high school reunion. Like, what? Here was my glam look for the occasion. I went for a sleek straight hair look with one side completely tucked behind my ear. Bangs swooped to the other side. So a pair of earrings went to one ear!

I changed my lock screen on my phone and wallpaper on my Mac to this super cute background over the weekend. As I opened my Mac to type this blog tonight, I realized I hadn't opened it since Sunday. Now that is too long and a weird feeling for me. A big sign of how busy I have been!
The wallpaper is part of Shop Ban.Do's free downloads and I am in love!

With how busy work has been and everything else going on, just know that I will be feeling like this on the inside for at least the next 3-ish weeks or maybe until after the big event at work is over with in August!

Goodnight, sleep tight,

let the lightning bugs shine bright!

That One Time I Tried Out For Big Brother

Since day 1, I have been a fan of the reality TV gameshow, Big Brother. For years, I have watched alliances form and heard the phrase, "Hey Julie" hundreds of times.

It was last year when my brother and oldest nephew did their formal pitch over dinner on why I should try out for the next season of Big Brother. They laid out all sorts of reasons they had come up with prior to the discussion. I was about to graduate college, I didn't have a job lined up, no boyfriend, no kids, nothing holding me back. It was perfect timing.

But senior year of college chaos kind of got in the way and I had already 3 concerts lined up to attend that summer. I also couldn't miss the birth of my second niece! So, it turned into, "Maybe next year!"

Next year rolled around and the question was asked again. Are you going to try out for Big Brother? Again, I had no full-time job, no kids, no boyfriend, nothing holding me back. So I finally did it.

I looked up casting calls and asked a couple of my BFFs to come along with me (Kirsten ended up trying out too!) and we had ourselves a road trip.

In March, we ventured on down to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and found ourselves in the middle of nowhere at a casino standing in a long line. Filled out the paper work, got my number (110!) and waited to film a 2-minute video.

I was pretty bummed that all we did was film a short video selling ourselves to the camera rather than meeting with casting agents or producers to do an interview. But none the less, we got a road trip with BFFs out of the deal and a nice story to tell (& write).

Needless to say, I didn't make it this year, but I am glad I can say, "At least I tried!" You can see the people that did make it on the show by clicking this different colored font! Will you be watching this season?

Big Brother starts Wednesday, 6/24 at 8/7c!

Right after the audition in Oklahoma City!

The Worst-Case Scenarios

Have you already brainstormed and mapped out your plan of action if Michael Meyers from the Halloween movies just came busting through your house tonight? Do you watch scary movies and think you would have reacted better and would be a little smarter in the decision making process while being chased down by the monster?

Sometimes we imagine those worst-case scenarios and we may ponder what we would do if they were to come true. Read through a couple of my ridiculous and slightly hilarious worst-case scenarios.

The Taco Bell Drive Thru

One morning into early afternoon, I had been cleaning my room and getting things done when I finally remembered I needed to grab something to eat for lunch. I was wearing Victoria’s Secret PINK pajama pants with the word PINK stretching across my butt. I also graced a sweatshirt and a really messy bun. I slipped on cheetah-print rain boots. I figured I am just going through the drive thru. Who is really going to see?

I had already placed my order at Taco Bell and was waiting in a long line in the drive thru. This was slow moving. I looked down at my dashboard to see the gaslight had made an appearance. I was sitting on that E.

Then I looked at my phone. I was at 4%.

Let the thoughts come rolling in.

It began with: what if I run out of gas in the middle of this taco bell drive thru with these people in front and back of me? What if I am driving home and I run out of gas? One thought was that at least I would have tacos to chow down on while I waited for help.

But what if my phone at 4% dies when I try to contact my parents? Part of me wanted to try to send a text to my mom to say, “Heads up, if I don’t come home after awhile, assume I ran out of gas so just come find me somewhere on the way to Taco Bell.” But that would take away from my battery life. I needed to save as much as I can!

And then the ultimate thought came.

If I ran out of gas and my phone dies while I am on the road back home, I would have to walk somewhere to ask for help and maybe a phone to call home. That’s when it dawned on me.

I was wearing pajama pants with PINK glittering across my butt and cheetah print rain boots. This would be my luck. This would be the worst-case scenario. A-trifecta-of- embarrassment. Maybe this was the perfect set up and it indeed would happen.

Luckily, none of that happened.

But the suspense made for a fun wait in line.

Funny scenarios happen on road trips. Read on about our hotel fire experience! 

A Hotel Fire

It was a Sunday morning approximately around 9:30am in a hotel room in Oklahoma City. Kirsten lying in bed passing the time on her phone while Anna and I were still deep asleep. I was in the middle of weird dreams. I was dreaming that Kirsten was trying to buy my evening gown I wore in Miss Kansas USA.

Suddenly, there was a loud buzzing. And then a light started flashing. An automated voice sounded informing there was an emergency in the hotel. My eyes quickly opened and my body immediately got out of bed. It was the automatic reaction that was conditioned in me from the dorms my freshman year of college when we were woken up every night during finals week by fire alarms being pulled.

“What are you taking?! I am taking all of my stuff!” Kirsten asked in a frazzled voice as I could hear her stuffing her belongings into her bag.

“Uh, I – uh, I think I am just going to take my purse,” I said still trying to fully wake up and use my mind. I grabbed my pink purse.

I kept looking around for something to throw over me and my Katy Perry t-shirt. I wasn’t wearing a bra.

And neither was Anna.

The buzzing kept going and the message that there was an emergency in the hotel still sounded.

“I am going to see if there are other people leaving,” I explained as I walked to the door and popped my head out looking back and forth down the hall.

As I went back to my things, it stopped. It became quiet. Kirsten opened the door to the hallway and a lady with a clipboard said everything was fine.

It was a quick minute of confusion and panic.

We were informed as we were checking out that it was too much hairspray that had triggered their laser system that made it go off.

But as we discussed the moment and laughed over the situation in the car, we realized how ridiculous we were in the moment and the possible mistakes we were about to be make.

Kirsten had claimed she had packed just about everything, even down to her shampoo, but had forgotten her phone charger. So, if the place had really burned down or something disastrous, she possibly could have had a dead phone, but at least her hair would smell good.

I realized I had grabbed my purse, but my ID, debit card, and cash were actually in my smaller purse I had taken out with me on the town the night before. I hadn’t put them back in my purse. So I would have been ID-less with no money.

And Anna and I would have continued to be braless.

We laughed at the brief random moment of panic and continued our road trip.

 …

Ever have those ridiculous worst-case scenarios? Share your stories in the comments section!

My Letter to the Younger Ones

Dear _________________,

This one is for you.

A letter from me to you and the girl in middle school wearing braces and going through puberty, the freshman boy trying to make new friends and figure out where he fits in, the girl trying to figure out what college to attend, and the one that doesn’t know if they are in the right major. To the ones that only need a little reminder that it gets better.

You can grab your elbow and knee pads, but it won't protect you from everything :)

I had braces. For I believe exactly two years and one day. And I am glad I did because my teeth are still pretty magnificent at age 23. I still wear retainers. And I like being goofy in them when my friends see me in them.

I had braces when I still didn’t have contacts and wore glasses all the time. It was the same time when I tried to give myself highlights from the box and it turned out terribly wrong. Even my siblings agree, I went through that “ugly betty” awkward phase of life. Who would have thought that girl would compete in a Miss Kansas USA pageant about a decade later?

For a long time, I attempted the messy bun look. When I was little, I wanted to master the messy-throw-up-your-hair-style my cool dance teachers did and then later what the college girls did when they went to class or the library. I finally would master it at the age of 22 and it was an amazing feeling. Sometimes you just have to practice and wait. It might come to you over time.

And along the way, you will always have bad fashion moments that you thought were cool at the time. Just go along with it. Whatever makes you feel confident and comfortable!

The braces, glass, and bad fashion moment. I think you can see the blue fuzzy stuff stuck on my pants.

It’s okay to change your major. The average is 4 times for college kids. I did twice. I almost wish I went in undecided and just let life take it’s course and figure out what my passions really were instead of what I thought they were or what I thought would be easy or a good fit. And just because I like to try to plan everything and know where I am going. This is also a fact of life. You can’t plan everything. And a lot of people don’t know where they are going next.

Taylor Swift was right when she sang, “You will do greater things in life than dating the boy on the football team.”

And when people tell you college is some of the best years of your life, they aren’t kidding.

You will change. Always. Change is one of the few things that remains constant. So you might notice your friends have changed or you might get accused of changing. Your style might change, your taste in music, thoughts, opinions, and more. But that is fine. Who would want to remain exactly the same anyway? High school and college are huge grounds for change. Let yourself evolve, grow, and explore. And don’t feel like you need to apologize for it.

Please, please, please study abroad if you possibly can. I never did and I am still wishing I had.

You will not continue to be best friends with all of your best friends from high school. Luckily, technology and social networks can keep you updated on their lives. But it’s fine and normal if you aren’t close with every single one of them. You will make more friends in college too. And when you graduate, you won’t be as close with some of them either. But you can stay in touch from time to time. Some come in and out for seasons or lessons. Other’s might stick around forever and that is pretty cool.

Get involved. In high school and college. The benefits are endless.

Give Greek Life a consideration. It has changed people’s lives, but if it is not the right fit for you, don’t feel bad. There are other organizations and opportunities out there that can change your life too.

I don’t think many people will notice the breakout on your forehead, the scar on your leg, or the white mark on your tooth. Most of the time they are probably not paying attention or might be worried about their own flaws wondering if you have noticed them too! We all have them. But we don’t seem to notice them most of the time.

Always dance full-out at dance practice.

Don't not do something you enjoy doing because you think people will think it's uncool or nerdy. You most likely won't see them again years on down the road. Do what YOU love or what YOU think is right.

Try to speak up for others that might be getting bullied or picked on. None of it is cool. Strive to be kind to anyone and everyone because there are already enough mean people in the world.

Your super duper crush on the boy in the 7^th grade will eventually fade. And when he likes your Facebook pictures ten years later, you won’t feel much of anything. So just cherish that one time you guys slow danced at the boy/girl party with sweaty hands and butterflies in your tummy. And smile.

Please don’t think something is the “end of the world.” It might be an end of a chapter or an era and can possibly be a new beginning and a lesson learned. Try to always turn anything negative into a positive. Maybe you didn’t get that job because there is actually a better one out there just around the corner. Turn a bad breakup into writing to help other girls. Possibilities are endless.

High school and college are tough, but enjoy every little bit of it. Because, why not?

 

Fondly,

Rachel Marshall

Sparkle&Shine.

@theglitterylife

Rachel Nicole Marshall

Hi, my name is Rachel Nicole Marshall and I got a picture with Rachel Nicole Marshall. I am not typing about a selfie either.

Confused?

In March 2007, I was 15 and received a messaged randomly on Facebook by Rachel Marshall. She told me that we have the “same government name.” Even down to our middle name. Spelled the same too. She was 18 at the time.

Over time, we have had fun telling each other “happy birthday” on Facebook, getting confused when we like each other’s stuff, letting others think we like our own things, and completely getting people mixed up when we start commenting on each other’s posts back and forth. It doesn’t help that we resemble each other, both sporting brunette hair and gracing brown eyes. Not to mention about the same body shape too. She is from Michigan and we have gone all these years as “Facebook friends.” We finally met this week for the first time 7 years later and I guess you can say we are actually friends without Facebook tacked before it. She was in town for a business trip and asked me if I would be willing to finally meet. Both of us, I think deep down wondered if we were actually who we say we are online. Because, you know, that is a thing.

I would have to say it was an amazing experience to see her in person for the first time and not in a picture online. We sat at Chicago’s bar, had a drink, and just chatted. And it didn’t feel weird. We even tried to have fun and show people our I.D.’s because we thought it was cool. And who would have thought that we also share an addiction and love for nail polish? She organizes hers too!

As we sat there chatting, we had to marvel at the world and how fascinating social media can be and how it can bring two strangers like us together. And even more; two girls who share such a big part of our identities, our full names.

I am glad I was able to finally meet Rachel Marshall. I feel like we are connected in a way. Kind of like sisters somehow; awkwardly. And I am confident we will keep up on each other’s lives through Facebook just as we have done all these years. :)

Never a dull moment.

Sparkle & Shine,

Rachel Nicole Marshall