thebabyperks

A few days ago I compiled a list of "newspaper things"--sayings, memories, and moments. Newspaper has been my favorite thing about high school and I don't know what I'm going to do without everyone next year. This is just a really casual, old-school list blog post I thought I would post for fun. It's also for me to reflect on at the end of the year.

I don't know if these apply to everybody's newspaper staffs or just mine, but I thought I'd give you a little insight into my (our) lives.

1. Who's going to the gas station after school?
2. Are you going to Starbucks?
3. Three fonts per spread MAX
4. Comic sans, yellow, and hashtags are Hoffmann's favorites
5. "How much does dinner cost?" *Five minutes later* "How much is dinner?"
6. Crying from laughter or too much stress (mainly me)
7. The Eagle Squad
8. Mr. Steal Yo Girl (thanks Brandon and Tristin)
9. The quote wall and its infamy 
10. Trying to explain to someone what you want for a last minute infographic
11. Jamming to One Direction even though the guys hate it 

12. Listening to more Disney music than you thought one person could possibly listen to
13. Bread Co runs
14. Last minute page changes on Thursday at 9:00 :)
15. The overwhelming amount of sarcasm in the newspaper room (which may or may not border on the line of cruel)

16. Being at school until 10:00 pm and then being back at school by 6:45
17. Not even caring how awful you look on layout or the day after
18. Basically eating your weight in Walmart $3/52 cookies
19. Really bad bonding games that end up with us sharing our weird dreams, travel plans, and goals
20. Overall, just being as close as a family


Until next time,
Taylor xx

Last year I made a blog post about what my family put in our Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. This year I decided to do it again, I meant for this to be up last week but you know how that goes. 

Operation Christmas Child is an event through the organization, Samaritan's Purse. People pack shoeboxes for either a boy or girl (or both) of an age they select. At my church our Operation Christmas Child event ended but some other churches may be doing

We selected both a boy and girl in the age range of 5-9 and here's what we got:

For Both the Boy and Girl (5-9 years old):
1. A toothbrush/toothpaste set. If you are participating in OCC make sure you get a kit with a toothbrush cover because the kids most likely don't have clean countertop or cup to store their toothbrush in without it getting dirty. This kit also is in a plastic package, as you can see, which offers another layer of protection.
 2. Dove Sensitive Skin Bar of Soap. This soap is unscented which is what you want because it has less (if any) risk of irritating the kids' skin.
 3. Crayons. Kids love to color and we got the kids notebooks (below) so they can draw or write whatever they want.
 4. Mini Notebooks. See explanation above. 
 5. Washcloths. Each kid gets their own wash cloth. I read a story about a now-adult man who once lived in a Russian orphanage and was so happy to get his own wash cloth because everyone usually had to share them but because of the washcloth in his shoebox he could claim one as his own.
 6. Gummy Bears. Personally, one of my favorite snacks but gummy bears don't spoil and these ones are in Christmas colors to add to the festivities. 

Boy's Gifts:
1. A rubber ball to play with.
 2. Hotwheels cars because every little boy loves toy cars.
 3. A (Plastic) Christmas Ornament full of Legos. The plastic "ornament" doubles as storage for the Legos.
 4. A plain blue t-shirt. We got it a little big because we weren't sure if the boy was going to be 5 or 9. He can grow into it if he's five or it'll fit great if he's nine.
1. Jumprope. In elementary school I loved to jumprope. This particular one's handles light up. 
 2. Mini Doll. They say to try to get a brown hair/brown eyed doll. I went to the Barbie section but the Barbies are too big to fit into a shoebox. These mini dolls work perfectly.
 3. A plush stuffed bear. We saw mixed reviews on getting stuffed animals but I think that as long as the stuffed animal is friendly you are good.
 4. Sparkly Hair Clips. These hair clips come in a variety of colors and work in a variety of hair styles/textures.


Okay so that is everything we got for the kids. We bought all of these items from Target because they are higher quality materials. These are the only things these kids get for Christmas and it's worth it to my family to spend a little bit more so the gifts last. I hope you all got to participate this year and if not, you can next year.

Until next time,
Taylor xx

P.S.:
Operation Christmas Child 2014

It has never been my intention to bring politics to this blog because I don't believe I should be forcing my beliefs on any of you. Sure I'll suggest how I feel but you are your own person and you can make your own choices. Today some things came up and I need to address them.

If you did not know, terrorist have killed 120 (and counting) people in Paris in a planned attack. Five different locations were under the threat, and over 100 people were held hostage in a concert hall, according to Buzzfeed. That's just a general quick synopsis.

As I was scrolling through social media, Instagram and Twitter all offered up hugs, prayers, love, and support to everyone in Paris and everyone who is being affected by the attacks. But then I turned to Facebook and was completely and utterly disgusted with what I was reading.

There are Muslim extremists in the world who perform terrorist acts. But here's the deal not every single Muslim is a terrorist. For someone to even group all Muslims into being terrorists actually disgusts me. This is like saying that because one group of pastors rapes children that all Christians are terrible people. NO. One group of people's actions cannot account for everyone who identifies as a certain religion. Terrorism holds no religion. Plenty of non-Muslims commit terrorist acts and for anyone to ever lump all Muslims into a degrading group is awful. Especially because people who are crying out that all Muslims are terrible identify as "Christian" even though Jesus called on us to love one another. Instead of hating on a group of people, pray for Paris because Paris needs all of our love and support.

Taylor

I scrolled through all the blogs I follow earlier hoping to find something to inspire me to write because my last post here was on November 2. A blogger whom I follow, Alita Joy, posted something today that I read just a few minutes ago entitled "The Unrelenting Nature of FOMO". First I want to recommend you read Alita's blog post (here). 

I'll give you a small synopsis. If you don't know what FOMO is don't worry because I literally just learned about it. FOMO stands for fear of missing out. Basically you over-commit in multiple aspects of your life in fear of missing out on something. In Alita's post she talked about how in high school she didn't get as involved as she may have liked to and when she entered college she wanted to make sure she never felt like that again. In her case she overcommitted to clubs, activities, jobs, etc. This year she cut back but she said she's still overwhelmed (but likes the busyness). She has 4 campus jobs, 2 internships, and her social media accounts/blog to run. 
Here's the deal, I do this, but to an extent. My freshman and sophomore years of high school the only thing I was involved in was swimming. Junior year I tacked on DECA, newspaper and a job, although it's seasonal and runs from March-November. Senior year, I've dropped swim but I've taken on way more with DECA and newspaper, and I still have my job. I'm weird because I have this "fear of missing out" in the form of social anxiety. Sometimes I wish that I could be the person who wants to go out every night and have a flaming social life but at the same time I've learned to accept that it's okay that I enjoy staying in with a good book and Netflix. I watch people's Snapchats and "like" their Instagrams on Friday nights asking myself how they can even bare going out after going to school all week. That's just the thing though, we're all wired differently. I'm sure a lot of people question how I'm fine with just lounging around the house all weekend with my family.

I'm notorious for saying yes to everyone because I'm a HUGE people pleaser but I've definitely been working on it. This year especially I've put into practice saying no to things and I can already see/feel the positive effects. For the first time in my life I can honestly say I'm happy. So much so that I had to stop a few days back and try to pick out what was "off" in my life and then I realized it was that I didn't have any worry in it for the first time. I'm so excited that I can finally enjoy winter and I'm just in better spirits over all.

Try to eliminate the "FOMO" from your life. If you're feeling overwhelmed identify and eliminate the most toxic things in your life and start to cherish the great moments in your life more. From personal experience I know it's easier to say than to do but once you actually do so, life becomes so much better.

Until next time,
Taylor xx

(I feel like this was choppy and I didn't mean for it to be so, I just kind of rolled with my train of thought)

For the last year or two years (I don't honestly remember) I've been apart of the hour of prayer event at my church. If you don't go to SunRise or you don't know what the hour of prayer is, the hour of prayer is where every hour of every day in October someone is in the prayer room at church. 

You can click on the picture to make it bigger so you can read it, or zoom in