My Life Be Like...

Dearest Lovelies,

I believe there needs to be more happiness and laughter in everyone’s life. Laughing is good for you. Did you know laughter lowers the levels of cortisol in the body? Cortisol suppresses the immune system. Lowering these levels enhances the work of the immune system and may prevent disease. 15 minutes of laughter equals the benefit of 2 hours sleep.. One good belly laugh burns off 3 1/2 calories. Laughing for 15 seconds adds two days to your life span. Plus laughing is fun! I have been reading back on old journals and found some hilariously silly memories that I am going to share with you. You can’t make this stuff up. Here are five little stories in the life of me! I hope they make you laugh or entertain you in some shape or form…

     *MODEL MADNESS* Senior year of high school… my friends McHale, Brooke, Hannah, and I have always been fans of the TV show America’s Next Top Model. We would get together on Wednesdays and watch it religiously. So we decided to start our own little fan club. We went to the T-Shirt making shop and chose these hot pink T-shirts and had “ANTM” put on the front and the back had our names along the bottom (mine said Charley, Brooke’s said Brooke, you get the picture) and on the top we had the saying “Wanna be on toP?” If you watch ANTM you know that’s the theme song. It says that over and over. Welllll apparently creepy guys & immature high school boys didn’t understand this… needless to say we learned our lessons in the halls of our high school and on pop runs at gas stations at three in the morning when guys would try to hit on us and say comments like “I wanna be on top!” Eww. From then on, we always either wore jackets with the shirts (which we’d wear to school each Wednesday the show was on) or only wore them at home. We also got used to having to explain to all of our teachers/adults that “No we weren’t ever contestants on the actual TV show (I wish!)… we just love it!”

Brooke & I (yes my shirt says Wanna make out…almost as bad as the Wanna be on top? Shirts turned out!)

     *YOU’RE MY FAVORITE KID(S)* My dad always thought he could get away with things… such as a time about a year ago that I love. He sent me a text message that said “Don’t tell the other kids, but you’re my favorite. I love you.” Too bad my other three biological siblings were in the same room and our cell phones all went off at the same time with that same generic-supposed-to-be-heartfelt-and-personal message to the four of us! Thanks dad!

     *The Brady Bunch* FYI everyone I meet refers to my family as the Brady Bunch (little do they know it’s basically true minus the constant chaotic drama). Why you ask? I have eleven siblings… yes I said eleven! (Three biological, eight stepsiblings). Here’s the story… my mom Angie is married to my stepdad Robert Allen—he has four sons Tyler 22, Jordan 21, Colton 18, and Tanner 14. Then there’s my dad Ron who is married to Angie (confusing, most definitely)—she has two sons Kyle 19 and Jaxon 10 and two daughters Hallie 14 and Adilyn 8. Then there’s my real siblings (I’ve mentioned them numerous times but I’ll introduce them again) sisters McHale 19 and Jordan 16 and my brother Christian 14 (we call him my twin seven years apart because he was born on my birthday!). Now repeat that ten times fast!!

 STEPBROTHERS—Tyler, Tanner, Colton, & Jordan

STEPMOM & SIBLINGS—Hallie, Kyle, Adi, Jaxon, & Angie

 MY DAD & STEPMOM

MY MOM & STEPDAD

Some of the "Brady Bunch"… We got double takes everywhere we went in Vegas last November! And people were more in shock when they discovered this wasn't even all of us!

 SISTERS-McHale, Me (Charley), & Jordan at the Extreme Home Makeover VIP party.

BROTHER Christian & Me (Rude little brother won’t let me kiss him on the cheek!)

Silly Face in a Hole picture I made for my annual Christmas family newsletter last year.

(Since my parents divorce when I was 12, my parents have dated NUMEROUS people & been married & divorced quite a few times between the two of them ...I won't even get into that because I assume you are already having trouble keeping up... I still have trouble remembering everyone at times haha!)

     *My-Oh-My* A few months ago, my family on my mom’s side held a family lunch at my greatgrandparents-Fenton & Elsie-home. It was a joy to see and hug them because they are in their late seventies and we don’t know how much time they have left. They are the sweetest. It was their 67^th anniversary (now that's a true love story). That’s inspiring. Love can last forever. My grandma Annette & Grandpa Curt Selders were there, as well as my gram’s brothers Bruce and Larry. Larry flew down from Illinois. His daughter Trisha, she’s 25, came down from Idaho Falls. My mom, McHale, Jordan, and I were the only other ones there. It was a lovely lunch and nice to spend time with the family. Trisha, McHale, and I talked for hours about life, boys and everything. Well onto the craziness which is Bruce (who looks like Dog the Bounty Hunters twin).

     Right before we ate the anniversary cake, Bruce pulls out a boombox and makes an announcement. He said he wanted to play a song in honor of great grandma & grandpa. Everyone was thinking, okay maybe it will be a song they danced to in the fourties or a love song…wrong, oh-so-wrong, dead wrong.

     The room was silent and all of the sudden this hillbilly sounding song starts playing and a lady with this yodel-like voice starts singing while halfway through all these children join her in the background as a banjo plays. Bruce was standing there as serious as can be while everyone else in the room is looking around at each other, our eyes communicating a resounding “What the hell?” We all tried soooo hard not to laugh. I was literally biting my cheeks, Jordan and McHale were covering their mouths with their hands. You could tell everyone was trying their hardest to not laugh.

     My mom texted me “What the hell? Is he serious? Seriously?!”

     I texted back “Our family is BEYOND dysfunctional…”

     Then all of the sudden, these baby kids start singing “I love you! Yay!’ over and over and over again, and that’s when everyone burst out laughing. We laughed harder than I can remember laughing in the longest time. Wow. And the best part was when grandpa Fenton asked “Can we turn this off?” Haha priceless!

     I found out the song was called “My Oh My” by Kasey Chambers, Poppa Bill, and the Little Hillbillies. I hope any of out there who are fans of this song/band don’t take offense! Everyone has their own taste. I am not trying to discredit their talent, I can't sing to save my life (no matter how much I wish I could). It was just unexpected and unfitting for the situation to play that song, a moment out of Napoleon Dynamite!

Listen to it for yourself! http://www.thelittlehillbillies.com/multimedia

Just scroll down the list of songs that appear after you click the above link for “My Oh My” and you will understand the hilarity of the situation.

     Wow it wasn’t even near December and I gained so much material for my annual newsletter. (For the past four years, I have been writing a family newsletter with funny moments and pictures that I distribute at our family Christmas party! It’s always a hit. We read it aloud.)

Doesn't he look like Dog? Do you see the resemblance? 

     *Don’t Throw Your Number Out The Window To Cute Boys* OKAY.... Last summer. Soooo McHale and I were driving and had the windows down, music blasting, the usual. A mosquito that was HUGE flies into the car. We freaked out and pulled over and got out to let it out. Well these two boys rode by on bikes and slowed down when they got near us and were talking about us being cute. So they waved and rode down the road. We laughed and then decided to be crazy and chase after them! Haha so we did and found them and I hurried and put our numbers and wrote "TEXT US" with a heart on piece of paper and threw it out the window as we passed them!!! Hahahaha. Oh my they were shocked and McHale and I saw them chasing after it and grab it. We laughed our heads off. Well they texted us later.... yeah they were like 15 and in high school!!! Eww haha. No bueno. So we told them they were way too young and gave them our little sister Jordan's number. Moral of this story.... DO NOT throw your number out the window at boys (even if they look old because they most likely aren't... or they could be creepers/killer/you-don't-know... and do not spend your summer in Pocatello because you will get bored and do crazy things like that!!

     I hope you are all having a magnificent summer. And I hope you enjoyed these few stories (out of the million that occur in my life).

With love,

Charley Brooke

Unable To Stay, Unwilling To Leave.

Delirium & Before I Fall

I can sense a new book addiction coming…

I am excited to read “Before I Fall” and “Delirium” by Lauren Oliver! I just learned about these books and if the following quotes are any indication of how the books are, I’ve found amazing reading. I discovered the movie rights have just been sold for “Delirium”. I Can’t wait to start reading both books! I will be sure to let everyone know how they are. I am obsessed with reading so I’d love your recommendations for new books to add to the list! Thanks lovelies and I hope you love these quotes, I sure do!

"Maybe you can afford to wait. Maybe for you there's a tomorrow. Maybe for you there's one thousand tomorrows, or three thousand, or ten, so much time you can bathe in it, roll around it, let it slide like coins through you fingers. So much time you can waste it. 
But for some of us there's only today. And the truth is, you never really know." 
— Lauren Oliver (Before I Fall)

"I guess that's what saying good-bye is always like--like jumping off an edge. The worst part is making the choice to do it. Once you're in the air, there's nothing you can do but let go." 
— Lauren Oliver (Before I Fall)

"Love: It will kill you and save you, both" 
— Lauren Oliver (Delirium)

"You can't be happy unless you're unhappy sometimes"." 
— Lauren Oliver (Delirium)

"It´s so strange how life works: You want something and you wait and wait and feel like it´s taking forever to come. Then it happens and it´s over and all you want to do is curl back up in that moment before things changed." 
— Lauren Oliver (Delirium)

"I'd rather die my way than live yours." 
— Lauren Oliver (Delirium)

"And now I know why they invented words for love, why they had to: It's the only thing that can come close to describing what I feel in that moment, the baffling mixture of pain and pleasure and fear and joy, all running sharply through me at once." 
— Lauren Oliver (Delirium)

"Love: a single word, a wispy thing, a word no bigger or longer than an edge. That's what it is: an edge; a razor. It draws up through the center of your life, cutting everything in two. Before and after. The rest of the wrold falls away on either side." 
— Lauren Oliver (Delirium)

"I guess that’s just part of loving people: You 
have to give things up. Sometimes you even have to give them up." 
— Lauren Oliver (Delirium)

"How is it possible, I think, to change so much and not be able to change anything at all?" 
— Lauren Oliver (Before I Fall)

"Sometimes I'm afraid to go to sleep because of what I'm leaving behind." 
— Lauren Oliver (Before I Fall)

"The most dangerous sicknesses are those that make us believe we are well 
- Proverb 42, The Book of Shhh" 
— Lauren Oliver (Delirium)

"I know that the whole point—the only point—is to 
find the things that matter, and hold on to them, and fight for them, and refuse to 
let them go." 
— Lauren Oliver (Delirium)

"That's the way I feel, at least: like there's a real me and a reflection of me, and I have no way of telling which is which." 
— Lauren Oliver (Before I Fall)

"Hearts are fragile things. That's why you have to be so careful." 
— Lauren Oliver (Delirium)

"I shiver, thinking how easy it is to be totally wrong about people-to see one tiny part of them and confuse it for the whole, to see the cause and think it's the effect or vice versa" 
— Lauren Oliver (Before I Fall)

"The deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and 
when you don’t." 
— Lauren Oliver (Delirium)

"He who leaps for the sky may fall, it's true. But he may also fly." 
— Lauren Oliver (Delirium)

"Everything looks beautiful. The Book of Shhh says that deliria alters your perception, disables your ability to reason clearly, impairs you from making sound judgments. But it does not tell you this: that love will turn the whole world into something greater than itself." 
— Lauren Oliver (Delirium)

"Sometimes I feel like if you just watch things, just sit still and let the world exist in front of you-sometimes I swear that just for a second time freezes and the world pauses in its tilt. Just for a second. And if you somehow found a way to live in that second, then you would live forever." 
— Lauren Oliver (Delirium)

"It's like a razor blade edging its way through my organs, shredding me, all i can think is: It will kill me, it will kill me, it will kill me. And I don't care." 
— Lauren Oliver (Delirium)

"I know that life isn't life if you just float through it. I know that the whole point- the only point- is to find the things that matter and hold onto them and fight for them and refuse to let them go." 
— Lauren Oliver (Delirium)

"Now I'd rather be infected with love for the tiniest sliver of a second than live a hundred years smothered by a lie." 
— Lauren Oliver (Delirium)

"Happiness is found when no one is looking" 
— Lauren Oliver

"I vowed after that day that I would be your hero too, no matter how long it took.- p. 340" 
— Lauren Oliver (Before I Fall)

Do You Know [No]

“Boys ,if you like her, if she makes you happy, and if you feel like you know her, don’t let her go.”

-Nicholas Sparks

“All that I know is that I don’t know how to be something you miss.”

-Taylor Swift

“At any given moment you have the power to say this is not how the story is going to end.”

“I’m moving on. No more waiting. No more hurt. If you wanted me, you could’ve had me, but you didn’t. You blew your chances. Now I hope you’re happy living your life wondering what would have happened if you took a chance with me cause I’m not longer here. I’m no longer waiting.”

“I think that you find your own way. You have your own rules. You have your own understanding of yourself and that’s what you’re going to count on. In the end, it’s what feels right to you. Not what your mother told you. Not what some actress told you. Not what anybody else told you but the still, small voice.”

-Meryl Streep

“No one can tell you what love is. They can only make you feel it.”

“Never be someone’s something when you could be someone’s everything.”

“So little of what could happen does happen.”

-Salvador Dali

“You spend 99 percent of your life looking for 
the other 1 percent. But it’s worth it.”

“If you believe in fate, fight for it.”

-The Adjustment Bureau

“We have nothing, if not belief.”

-C.S. Lewis

“Why do people have to be this lonely? What’s the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?”

-Haruki Murakami

“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

-Oscar Wilde

“So many things become beautiful when you really look.”

-Lauren Oliver

“Today is never too late to be brand new.”

-Taylor Swift

“Seven days without love makes one weak.”

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but
shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but
have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller
families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less
sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems,
more medicine, but less wellness.
 We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little,
drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too
little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.
 We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too
much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We’ve learned how to make a
living, but not a life. We’ve added years to life not life to years. We’ve
been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street
to meet a new neighbour. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We’ve
done larger things, but not better things. We’ve cleaned up the air, but
polluted the soul. We’ve conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write
more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We’ve learned to
rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to
produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.
 These are the times of fast foods, and slow digestion, big men and small
character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of
two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are
days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night
stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to
quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and
nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to
you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just
hit delete.
 Remember, spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going
to be around forever. Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to
you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your
side. Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is
the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn’t cost a cent.
 Remember, to say, “I love you” to your partner and your loved ones, but
most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from
deep inside of you. Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for
someday that person will not be there again. Give time to love, give time to
speak, and give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.
 Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

“Never love anybody who treats you like you’re ordinary.”

-Oscar Wilde

"Everyone, at some point in their lives, wakes up in the middle of the night with the feeling that they are all alone in the world, and that nobody loves them now and that nobody will ever love them, and that they will never have a decent night’s sleep again and will spend their lives wandering blearily around a loveless landscape, hoping desperately that their circumstances will improve, but suspecting, in their heart of hearts, that they will remain unloved forever. The best thing to do in these circumstances is to wake somebody else up, so that they can feel this way, too."

-Lemony Snicket

To My Future Husband:

I have spent so much time wasted on guys that turn out not to be you. Sometimes I’m afraid I’m either too picky, or something is wrong with me because I haven’t found you yet. But I know God will put you in my life right when I need you. And when that happens, I’ll be glad I was picky…because I’ll have you. You’ll finally be the one who just gets me, and I’ll do the same for you. I get so impatient, but I can wait. For you, darling, it will be worth it.

To My Future Husband

I have a little secret. I rarely share it with anyone—not even my closest companions. But here it is:

I am insanely excited for our future. It absolutely astounds me to think you look at the same moon as I do. It amazes me that you could be anywhere in this world, one in six billion and a half souls.

Time and distance cannot restrain the arms of love.