Love and Adventures

This picture reminds me perfectly of last summer. Days spent at the beach with good friends, my love and the bright sunshiny days of summer. It is why I love living at the beach and why I love everything about my life. (Well, most everything. But nothing is perfect.)

I'm an adventurous person who comes from a long line of adventurers. I mean c'mon my great grandparents did trek over here from Ireland, and it takes a lot of adventure to do that. My dad joined the navy and traveled literally all over the world and fought for his country. My mom joined the navy, left her family in Connecticut and went to Spain, went to Italy after an earthquake and coordinated a rescue team and met her future husband in Spain.

My Aunt Judy has always been an adventurer, even after her husband died, going to see her daughters in Florida and California at least 3-4 times a year and her daughter who lives in California is taking Aunt Judy to Ireland for St. Patrick's Day and then they are going to Paris. Proof enough for me that you can have adventures whether you are young, old, with kids, without kids, whatever.

I'm already making plans for more adventures, on top of everything else going on. The Summer Olympics are in 2012 in London, where my Aunt Claudia lives, who is extremely excited that I'm popping out a kid. So even though the baby will only be two and won't remember too much of it, i'm trying to figure out a way to save enough money in the next two years to travel to London that summer so that we can go see my Aunt and go on adventures. I want to take the baby to Colombia when she (or he) is four, just like I did. I'm already making plans for the torturous adventure to Disney World and I'm sure there's other stuff I'll come up with as I sit here, getting chubby and glorious.

I just want to go on adventures with people I love and experience life and prove that just because you get older, doesn't mean you get boring. It just means you move a little slower.

My First Baby Photo Shoot

I've been a pretty avid photographer for a long time. Even when I was young I was taking pictures and i realize that even though I didn't have that many friends in high school I still have a lot of pictures from high school. I didn't ever really refer to myself as a photographer until college, when I invested in my Canon Rebel my freshman year.

Photography is apparently something i'm just kind of good at, without really trying. If I could, I would have Photoshop and other such programs and would probably have a digital camera by now and I might even freelance from time to time. But right now, I have bigger things to deal with first. But one day, I will have it. And i'll be nerdy and do photoshoots and what not.

But even with only have a little digital Sony camera, I still get some pretty awesome shots. And I did a photo shoot with Baby Alex. These are some of my favs...

No, these are not edited yet. I really need photoshop. Bad.

This one is just my favorite, because his smile is just so damn cute.

The 2010 Self-Improvement Quest Update

Anytime any major self-improvement project comes along in my life, unless I am really into it, I need a motivator. I can handle the career improvements and educational improvements on my own, but unless I basically have someone slapping my ass and telling me to "GO GO GO!" or unless I have a really good reason to do something exercise or health wise, I probably won't do it.

As it turns out, being an expectant mom is quite a motivator. Yes, I should do these things for myself, but part of my problem is that I like to help people and by eating better and exercising, I'm helping my baby and then once the baby's born, I can set a good example by continuing to eat healthy and lose weight. I'm weird, but hey, I'll take what I can get.

While browsing my favorite bookstore, I stumbled upon two books that are quite helpful so far in my self-improvement quest "What to Expect When Expecting" and "The 50 Best Jobs for Your Personality". Along with common sense and a changing appetite, my diet has thoroughly changed over the last month and a half. "What to Expect" helped guide me along into learning exactly what I need to make sure I need to get in my system and how much of it to help my baby, but even before I got the book, I started to find myself leaning towards eating better snacks, better meals and drinking different items. Its tough. I had to give up my freaking coffee (because there is no freaking point in drinking Decaf, i might as well just drink hot water and tea, which helps with nausea, my freaking mortal enemy right now), I am trying to get myself to drink more milk everyday to increase my intake of calcium, which is not one of my favorite drinks. One of my bestestes' favorite meals includes yogurt, granola and fruit and I've been tearing it up! (OH MY GOD, Strawberries are awesome right now!) Salads have become a daily part of my life and I'm learning about the good fat I need to intake to help the baby grow. The worst part of all of this right now has been the nausea, which leaves me not wanting to eat at all and having to work past it so that I don't starve myself or the baby, but i don't make myself sick.

I started Yoga! It kicked my ass. I found the DVD at Wally World for 9 bucks and after reading and talking to my baby doctor, I went ahead and started working it out. I had to take a break a few times the first day I did it to get a better idea of what position I was doing and also because I am not the flexible yet (which leads me to worry about how i'm going to do this at 6 months when my belly is popping out more and my balance is not nearly as good). But I felt so much better stress wise and health wise. I'm going to have to find another DVD to watch because I think I'm going to get bored doing the same thing after a month or so and once the temps warm up around here (which should be within the next week to two weeks), i'm going to go walking around the lake near my house every other day and mix that up with the yoga. I'm impressed with my motivation right now and am totally running with it for all its worth. (Haha.)

Career improvement is so hard right now. I can't believe i'm saying that! But there is nothing more frustrating than going on job interviews at a temp agency, only to find out you are competing against 30 other people for a job! Its hard to be optimistic. I've also come the conclusion that I need to come up with some back up plans for future careers I can have in my life, but I have such a hard time coming up with stuff for myself, because I've been in such a rut the last several years that I don't even know what to do anymore. So while I was walking around the bookstore this weekend, I stumbled up "The 50 Best Jobs For Your Personality" and immediately grabbed it and ran home. In it, it tests your personality traits and breaks down where your interests lie in terms of realism, artisticness (?), research and 3 other categories. Its really helped me to start think outside the box in terms of things I might like to do in this next stage of my life. I still think I would like to find a job I can do from home for the next 5 years or so, so that I can raise the baby and get the experience all the cool stuff, so I've been doing research and trying to get through all the crap and scams and hopefully I'll find something legitimate soon.

Organization/ Minimization is going ok. The boy is pretty positive that I am never going to actually minimize my life down because I have a tendency to keep certain things that remind me of certain times of my life. I'm emotional and this is not my fault, it makes me a well-rounded person, damnit. But I have thrown out a lot of stuff. I think its going to be a constant work in progress until we move out. Whatever, I'll be happy if I get organized to where I know where my stuff is at.

Education is being turned on its head constantly. I have my two books that i'm reading through and my baby doctor gave me three different magazines which are giving me all kinds of ideas and knowledge on the little munchkin inside me. I'm pretty positive that I'm going to end up going back to school, which I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to do, except hoping that I'll be able to take a lot of my classes over the internet. A girl can dream, right? I dunno. We'll see how things go.

I have to say though, that I think my progress is way awesome considering its only a month and a half into the year. Onward and upward!

Snow, Babies and other such Nonsense...

Hate me all you want, but I live at the beach. No seriously. I love the beach. After recent developments in my life, I've discovered I will never leave this area unless I am moving to another beach, because I want the new person in my life to be a total beach bum, just like me. But, I love snow. It makes everything magical. This is a picture of my front yard a couple weeks ago, covered in 8 inches of snow! I loved it! Oh joy! And it'll be another 7 years before we get a snow like this again, which is the beauty of living at the beach. But I digress.

This was going to be my year. The year where I changed everything about myself that I didn't like and by the end of this year, I was supposed to sigh in contentment, lighter in weight, eating healthier, more knowledgeable and with a better job. Apparently, God heard me making plans and decided to remind me once again, that no, you are not completely in control of your life.

I'm pregnant. And believe me, nothing is more shocking than discovering that you are pregnant while sitting on a toilet at your local Target and one of your friend's 2 year old son is peeking his head underneath the bathroom stall door while you inform him "No, sorry, this is so NOT a moment I want to share with you." Its a very complicated emotion right now. But my family and the boy's family are extremely excited. My parents are going to be grandparents and most of my extended family members are so excited, which is helping me become more excited about it. Its not how I planned it at all. I was going to do things different. Get hitched and then get knocked up, but I suppose in the end, you gotta roll with it all. I'm hormonally deranged though. Its real bad. I've recently discovered the cream cheese is amazing, especially on Nila Wafers. I almost leaped through a drive thru window in a fit of anger when a customer started yelling at me for something that was not my fault. I showed up for my first baby doctor appointment a week early. You might as well get used to this. We've got a lot more of it to come.

I'm trying to figure out what direction my life is heading in right now. Now that I'm about to become a mom (WHOA!), my whole outlook on what I was going to do with my life has changed. Career wise, I'm not sure where I stand anymore. I want a career of some kind, but I also want to raise my child. I want to be there when she (or he, to be fair) rolls over, sits up, talks, smiles and walks. I don't want to be a part time mom, which means I may have accidentally just turned myself into a part time career woman for the next 5 years or so. I really don't know for sure. I have to do research and figure things out. I guess its a good thing a woman is pregnant for 9 months. Gives her time to figure out where the hell she is going.

2010: Let's Try Again

New Year's Resolutions are silly and well, a pain. For the most part I think most people have good intentions, but end up getting caught up in the day to day of life and forget about what they swore they were going to do to change, while they were half-drunk on alcohol and euphoria and 2 months after the fact, you say to yourself "Eh, I'll try again next year."

I'm hoping this will be the last time I have to say that. I'm going to try and actually accomplish some goals for myself this year. One at a time. Not all at once, I think that's how you end up saying "Next year." In my head, its called "One Woman's Quest to Self-Improvement". That's probably a bit overly ambitious than what will actually happen, but one step at a time. There are several different departments I'm going to work on over the next year.

• Career Development
• Financial Stability
• Health and Wellness
• Education
• Minimalization/Organization

Gosh. That seems like a lot when I write it down. But, some of it is not nearly as complicated as it sounds. Some of it is going to coincide when other areas actually improve some and some future changes actually come through. In the mean time though...

-Career Development
I simply refuse to settle for crappy ass jobs that are way below what I'm worth and what I can actually accomplish. I also need to figure out what exactly I want to do with the rest of my life. I think Radio is over for me for the most part. I've spent the last year mourning it in one way shape or form and accepting the fact that the way it used to be is gone and will probably never be again. I'm OK with that. I just am not entirely sure what I want to do for the rest of my life, or at least the next 10-20 years, until I get bored with it, sell all my possessions, move to Tahiti and spend the rest of my life living on an island as a bartender/ vacation photographer. Yes, I'm still planning to move to Tahiti. No, I'm really not kidding. I just have bills to pay first before I can leave.

-Financial Stability
This is in part going to come with finding a better job, but I still am starting now. I'm working on better handling my money, so that I not only can pay my bills, but have a little bit left over to contribute to gas and food for two weeks. Its hard and complicated and required a serious breakdown of taking a look at my bank statements (bletch) and really looking at what I spend money on and then deciding what I can afford to cut from my spending, so that I can live more within my means. Once I can get in the swing of doing that consistently, then I'm hoping I'll have enough money to start saving money for things I need (items for place, car parts etc) and contributing more to my Roth IRA account I've had since I've had a job at 16, that way, when I'm ready to retire, I have enough money to do it.

-Health and Wellness
No, this does not mean I'm doing Weight Watchers, Atkins or severely changing my lifestyle, though that might come into play eventually. Right now, I'd like to go see my doctor, get a general checkup and make sure that I'm doing at least OK, health wise. I found a gym I'd like to join, but need Financial Stability to improve some before I enact that plan, so for the time being I still go to the Rec Center, along with light cross training at home (Sit-ups, push-ups and things of that nature). I move into my new apartment in a month, so once I do that, I will officially be buying food for myself and the boy, which means I can keep my food for myself and make food for myself and not worry about either (a)people eating it or (b)how much of it I have to buy.

-Education
This is going to be a long one, but one that will hopefully be worth it all in the end. Part of it is working on going back and getting my Masters in Public Administration or some other degree to further my career and it'll be great as soon as I figure out what I'm doing. The other part of it though is self-education on basic things in life. For instance, the other day, my mommy friend and I were standing in front of my car while I tried to tinker with the oil measuring stick thingy when she asked me if I had a manual for my car. The boy's car mechanic uncle had told me months ago to get one if I wanted to learn more about my car, and I really need one for several reasons. One, if something goes wrong with the car and no one is around to help me, I at least want to be able to try to figure out what's wrong with it. Two, I have no intention of getting rid of this car until it falls apart. Definition of "falls apart" - I'm sitting at a red light. Suddenly, the engine falls out from underneath the hood, the tires fall off of the spokes that hold it on, the doors fall off and there has to be absolutely, positively no way that I can fix the car, for me to get rid of this car. So I need to learn about it, so I know how to fix it and what to do with it. There are other things I need to get books for so I can learn how to fix them. As soon as I remember what else I want to learn how to fix, I'll know what else I'm educating myself on.

-Organization/Minimization
I have one month until I move into my new apartment. I look like I have no intentions of moving out of my 22 year old room for another 20 years. I'm moving into the apartment with 3 other boys and I'm sharing a room with one of the boys. Its time to minimize down. Right now, I'm on the Clothes minimization phase of things, going through my closet and taking everything out that I haven't wore since I took it out of storage last summer. Whatever I don't want I'm letting the boy's sister look at first to see if she wants it and then whatever she doesn't want I'm giving to either Plato's Closet or Goodwill depending upon quality. Then I pack what I do keep away for the next two months and pull all my winter clothes out (since it finally go cold about 3 weeks ago) and same thing. I'm bad about minimizing things down, because for me some things hold significant meaning. I've just had it though. I'm tired of tripping over clothes that I no longer want or no longer need and so I'm forcing myself to organize and get rid of stuff. Much easier said than done, but its actually happening, so I feel this is good progress.

We'll see how it all pans out in the end. Right now, I work on the things I can and hope that I can tackle other parts as the year goes on and then update this regularly, so I can see how I've progressed.

Happy 2010! Things can only get better from here.

Project Find Another Job Update: Take this Job aaaand...

shove it, shove it, shove it up your butt! Yahoo!!

I put in my two weeks notice last Thursday. Oh my god, I can't believe I did it. Finally. Its still taking time to sink in that after next Friday, I will no longer have to return to my personal job from hell. Right now, I'm counting it down by shifts (currently 3 to go) and stitching my pants together everyday, because I absolutely refuse to go out and buy another pair of khaki pants for 3 shifts, and then will never wear ever again. I probably won't believe it until Black Friday is over (for me, 11:00 at night) and get into my car. I will probably clap happily. I might even run over my apron a couple of times in the parking lot and then go screeching off into the night. I have never been so happy about escaping from somewhere before. And yes, this is an escape.

Its an escape from baseball caps, khaki pants that don't ever seem to fit me right, a broken down for the SEVENTH TIME this year espresso machine and from burning my fingers off. Its an escape from feeling and knowing that i'm 27 years old and responsible, yet treated like a 7 year old who doesn't comprehend the meaning of responsibility. From having people roll their eyes at me when i make suggestions for improvement and then being told "That's just not possible." An escape from crappy hours, stinky pay and yet being worked like a farm animal. Mostly, its an escape from a situation that is just not fixable. In three shifts, i get to say "This is not my problem anymore!" I can not wait.

My solution for getting out of the job is not perfect and not without its flaws. But its an improvement. If nothing else, there will be the opportunity for advancement, benefits and the closest to 40 hours that i've seen in the last year and a half, on a consistent basis. Leaving my current job has now given me the opportunity to focus on something I want to focus on...my career. On top of that, I have an interview with a TV station for their sales department. And, i've found two other jobs to apply for that I might actually semi-enjoy. We'll see. I still don't ask for much.

I feel like i've moved forward in the right direction. I feel like my soul died a lot within the last year of having to be at this job and feeling like there was no escape. I guess there always is an escape. Sometimes, you have to step back, ask yourself how much you are willing to take, willing to put up with, before you say "This is just not worth the paycheck." Money is important, especially if you want to live. I've just hit the point where I refuse to stress myself out when I can be somewhere else I am appreciated.

So, i'm still in food service. It won't be fantastic. But it will be better. And I can continue to look for another job in my field, figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life and maybe accomplish some life goals before I die. Unless I give up entirely and just sell my car and move to Tahiti. Tahiti could be good.

Limits...

Everyone has them. If they say they don't, they are lying. No one is that patient.

The point, where you feel your blood boil, your eyes cross and you're 99% positive that the next person who crosses your path is going to be strangled, because YOU HAVE HAD IT!

I knew my limits were being reached. I knew that I was starting to lose patience and that the mantra that I had been repeating to myself for a month and a half was starting to be listened to less and less. I even told the boy and his cousin this. That I knew it wasn't going to take much more before I was going to be pushed over the edge and the person in question was going to see a side of me that not many have seen, well, ever.

I'm a really patient person. A really forgiving person. I give people a lot of chances, sometimes at a cost to myself, because it allows me to be taken advantage of. Because that's the kind of person I am. I help people. I'm really good at it. But, as I've gotten older, I've started to debate whether its good for me.

So I excused the money owed. I excused the late nights of being woken up to arguments and yelling and partying, because I reminded myself "You were 19 once." I excused the irresponsible behavior as a phase that was going to pass and told myself "you are at fault too" more than once, when I took him to work and ended up late for work myself after I told him I couldn't do it, and he gave me the pleading eyes and I gave in, after I was really proud of myself for standing my ground. I even excused the night of having to sleep in a smelly, stinking of beer room because he and his girlfriend were drinking and spilled beer in the room I sleep in. (Not my bedroom at home obviously, because I would've lost patience a long time ago.) I excused a lot of things.

Last week, I woke up groggy and confused. Without looking at the time I knew something was off. The boy was lying next to me "What time is it?" "I don't know" "Has your alarm gone off?" "I don't know." "Well, look at your phone." "O---------k, where the hell's my phone?" Panic button pushed at 6:02 in the morning. I know I had my phone last night. I pulled it out of my purse, set the alarm, put it by my pillow and went to sleep. The night before was long, but not long enough for me to forget what I did with my phone. Its been a long few months, my purse had been stolen, which has led me to not think the best of people anymore, and take into consideration whether my phone had been stolen, which was the only conclusion either of us could come to, after calling it and not hearing it ringing anywhere in the house. The boy immediately got upset and went to talk to his mom about what happened, while I ran to my car and my parents house in hopes that maybe I had just left it in one of those two places even though I knew i hadn't. Even though I knew that friends had been in and out of the house the previous night and I knew that the friends are suspect, and that's horrible to think, but honestly, what else am I supposed to think?

I manage to get the boy to work at 6:40, while I have started simmering in a slow rage thinking more and more about the situation and how dare they take my phone! Mothertruckers, I'm kicking somebody's butt to the moon and back. And its not about the phone itself, I have insurance and so the phone itself is replaceable. Its about peace of mind. Its about being able to go to sleep and not having to worry about locking everything I own in a box, so I don't have to worry about it being taken. AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!

By the time I get home, I already have a plan. Look in the house one more time. Maybe it got kicked and put on silent or something. If I can't find it, call work, call out sick, call the cops, call the phone company and get my phone turned off and then have the situation looked at until somebody is busted. I'm downstairs, tearing pillows off couches and moving couches away from the wall, when the boy's brother walks downstairs, around the corner and then asks "Are you looking for something?" "No, I tear all houses apart before I go to work, it helps me center myself, of course I'm looking for something!" "This?" and out appears the phone. DEEP sigh of relief and then "Where did you find?" "In the bathroom upstairs." "I never went up there last night." "Oh, well so and so must have mistaken it for theirs and took it up there and left it." Boy's brother walks away. I'm left going "what?"

I sit at work all day and process the situation and continue to get mad. I'm pretty positive I'm being lied to and am feeling taken advantage of. I'm staring at cups and if I had lasers shoot out of my eyes, paper coffee cups would've been on fire all morning long. My co-worker wanted to know what the cups did to me. I call a friend to discover that my suspicions have been confirmed, that I have in fact been lied to, and I am in a rage all over again. But this is the quiet plotting rage. Its the not good rage. I need to fix this, now, and I know it, or it will be impossible to repair the damage that has been done in my head.

The situation remained unfixed for two days. Not good. It only allowed me to continue to think and to get my thoughts together, to get them more coherent. I finally get a chance to deal with the situation, but I don't think it did me any good. I'm still angry. Worse yet, I'm continuing to be lied to, which is only making the situation in my head worse. I'm becoming more quiet, I'm being allowed to stew, and I'm telling you right now, that's not a good place for me or for the person I'm angry with. I'm not prone to vindictiveness, but its become too dramatic. And when things become too dramatic, I either become vindictive, or I walk away from it, and do my best to keep it at bay, because I'm trying to be the bigger person. I really don't want to react in either of those ways. I really can't in a way. He's almost family, and that's a problem. But he's thrown my life into an upheaval, and I am at a loss as to how to handle it.