A-Z

A-Z about me :)

[from Bekah and Kayla]

Age: 22

Bed size: Full. I can't wait to have a big king size when I have a family to cosleep with :)

Chore that you hate: I HATE SWEEPING. SO MUCH.

Dogs: None. We had fish and turtles as pets only :P

Essential start to your day: Stretching in bed

Favorite color: Purple, teal, yellow

Gold or Silver: Silver.

Height: 5' 5"

Instruments you play: I used to play piano then I quit. Sometimes I wish I hadn't though!

Job title: Chartwells and Taco John's employee?

Kids: Hopefully two then adopt one. Not for another 8+ years or so though ;)

Live: Winona, MN

Mother’s name: Angie

Nicknames: Lisha, Lish, Squish, Alu (to the Nepali guys :P)

Overnight hospital stays: Only right after I was born. Otherwise I'd probably kill someone if I had to stay over night now.

Pet peeves: Fake tans, bad Christians, rude people, crumbs

Quote from a movie: "I know where you live and I've seen where you sleep! I swear to everything holy that your mothers will CRY when they see what I've done to you!" -- Michelle from Tommy Boy, when the little boys are being obnoxious while they're on the boat. Haha.

Right or left handed: Both. I write with my left and do pretty much everything else with my right!

Siblings: Two amazing younger sisters! One's a sophomore in college and one's a senior in high school!

Tattoos: Three (for now)! One on my foot, ankle, and under my collar bone :)

Underwear: A pair I stole from my sister Emilie. Oops :)

Vegetable you hate: Cucumbers. I hate them. HATE HATE HATE.

What makes you run late: Existing. I just can't be on time. Ever!

X-Rays you’ve had: My back, my head, my mouth... They're pointless for me though since no doctor can ever figure out what's wrong with me.

Yummy food that you make: Homemade egg rolls, soup, homemade pizza, vegan alfredo

Zoo animal: I love rhinos. They were in the African zoo in California when we went and they're just like, giant walking boulders. So cool. Also, butterflies. Haha :)

Water.

Water is SO good for us. It's tasty, refreshing, can fix some of our physical and even emotional issues. But what about other water: showers, sprinklers, pools, etc? I'm sure you don't really think about this because we've always had water, and always will. Done.

I've been thinking a lot more in depth about this lately though. As Andrew and I were walking home one night, we passed through the WSU campus and noticed the sprinkler system was on, no big deal right? WRONG. There were sprinklers watering poles, curbs, sidewalks, things that clearly do not need water.

Reading my aunt Michelle's blog [Thomas Belizian Adventure] about how they had NO water for a week got me thinking: what would I do if I had no water?!

I've asked my Sri Lankan and Nepali friends if they think we take water for advantage here in the US and they said yes. There are places all over the world that have no water- even for months or more at a time! I can't fathom that at all. We have pools, sprinkler systems (don't even get me started on how wasteful those are), long showers, long baths, etc. and most of us don't think anything of it. We are lucky enough to have access to all of this. But it's taken advantage of! We (obviously not everyone) are so wasteful with water here, and it kills me a little. Even just leaving sink water on for too long, making sure every house in perfect suburbia has a perfectly green lawn and a huge in ground pool, whatever the reason is- it's most of the time not even necessary!

So with this, I just want you to start noticing how much water you use in your daily life. Notice if it is being wasted at all. Imagine your life if you had NO water for a long period of time. I can't even think about going a day without it, I love it so much! Try not to waste so much. And if you're one of those people who just HAS to water your lawn all the time, give it up! Who cares if your lawn doesn't look chemically modified like your neighbor's? You're saving water and that is what's really important. (Plus, so many lawn things have nasty chemicals in them that are already bad for the environment!) Let's enjoy our water as much as we can! Not abuse the privilege of having it!

Sleep. Time.

I am so tired right now as I write this... So I figured since I haven't blogged in a while, sleep is my topic.

Our society is SO crazy, hectic, and BUSY. ALL. THE. TIME. What the heck? It shouldn't be like that! When I went to Spain, so many American students would call the Spaniards lazy for wanting to take long lunches with their families, walk slowly everywhere, etc. But once I adjusted to the Spanish/ European speed of life, I fell in love with it. I was never stressed, hurried, rushed, etc. I got about 4 or so hours of sleep there, and maybe a one hour nap towards the end of the day. Besides that and strong coffee, I was never tired there! I haven't really comprehended why this had happened until right now. It is more accepted and encouraged to be late to things rather than early. I know this sounds weird to people here. But now that I think about it, that's awesome. I mean, what IS time anyway? We invented it to be able to tell when morning/ night were, etc... But still. Wouldn't things be so different if we didn't have schedules and constant rushing routines?

Don't get me wrong, I love being busy. I'm terrible at relaxing, meditating, and being calm. It's a flaw I am not proud of, let me tell you. :P But I have recently started to make a conscious effort to fix that. Stress and being rushed and freaking out about everything all the time is hard on our bodies! If you look at other cultures, more slowly paced ones, they're almost always a happier culture or society. (Obviously I don't have stats or physical evidence of this, whatever though, you get my gist!)

Now, because of all our hustling and bustling, I think this is why we're always so tired and drained. I mean, I feel like I need almost 9+ hours of sleep a night to function properly! In Spain they had THE BEST coffee ever... so I had a caffeine addiction there, on top of my no sleep. But it wasn't like I would fall over and die without the caffeine. Here I've weened myself off of it but lately I've had coffee almost everyday... :/ I'd love to get more sleep. Really, I would. But with working two jobs, having buckets and gallons of homework/ reading (I'm basically the slowest reader in the world), making myself work out, being the co-president of a club, and volunteering- sleep just isn't in the picture!! Plus I need a social life or I would probably kill someone. Luckily I love my job on campus, so that de-stresses me a bit.

Anywhoozle, I've been rambling. That's what happens what I'm tired, eh? ;)

I want to start meditating more, making working out a routine to help me calm/ re-energize, and I suppose I should try and start sleeping more.

cafe con leche... la segunda mañana en España :)

mi corazón esta en España para siempre <3

My favorite brand

So as I've mentioned, I am gluten intolerant, almost always vegetarian, and am 90% vegan (mostly because eggs and dairy make me sick anyway)! It hasn't always been easy-peasey to eliminate all these gluten, dairy, meat filled products- lemme tell you. When I first started being g-free, I had no idea what gluten even was or what it was in! Luckily my mom is also g-free, so she knew a thing or two about it. Finally, after a year or so of eliminating it from my diet, I became a compulsive label reader, and can spot ingredients I can't eat in a heartbeat.

Now, being a member of the Scott family, it's kind of a requirement to love cereal. For Christmas each year we each [grandkids aka my sisters, cousins, and me] get a box of cereal as a gift then eat it all weekend with our family. We grew up mowing down on all cereals, all the time, anytime. Then after becoming g-free, I felt like I couldn't eat any of the good cereals that everyone else was eating, and it sucked. :(

While grocery shopping with my madre one day, we came upon this green box of cereal with a jungle animal on it... after a few seconds of figuring out what it is, we saw it was a cereal made by the brand Envirokidz. I immediately fell in love. There are five different kinds of Envirokidz cereals:

Gorilla Munch (similar to Cap'n Crunch)

Koala Crisp (similar to Cocoa Crispies)

Leapin' Lemurs (like Reese's Puffs... Which is Andrew's, My best friend's, and my favorite!! :) )

Amazon Frosted Flakes (similar to Kelloggs Frosted Flakes)

Peanut Butter Panda Puffs (also a favorite of ours!)

So now that you know how amazing the cereals are, here's the best part: 1% of the sales goes to wildlife protection and habitat conservation! On each box there is a type of animal that is endangered or struggling, and it gives information on that animal!

Not only dooes Envirokidz sell cereal, it sells cereal bars as well! Which is are just as tasty. :)

Oh and each product they make has always been gluten free- it says it on each package. ;)

Even if you're not gluten free, you should try some of these products. Andrew loves them!