The Art of Volunteering

So I haven’t blogged in a while, I was home for the turkey day! After battling all the holiday traffic, I finally got home to see some of the friends I hadn’t seen in almost 6 months or more. It was great to catch up with everyone. Share the stories of our apartments, the stories of our jobs or lack thereof. So we chatted up, drank ‘em down, and enjoyed each other company. It was definitely a lot of fun.

The next morning I woke up very early…it might have been around 9…to get up and volunteer at a soup kitchen to provide people who were unable to make their own, with Thanksgiving dinner. It was definitely an all day affair, but it was definitely emotionally satisfying. Some of these people didn’t have much money, but some people came alone, which made me feel very fortunate to have people to share the day with. From there I went to see Four Christmases with a friend. I thought it was hilarious and I love Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn, so really it was an amazing movie for me. Predictable, yes. Still funny, yes.

So after a fabulous weekend home with the family and friends, I sat in an extra hour and a half of stop and go traffic…booo. But while home, I stopped at an art shop and picked up some new art stuff for my painting hobby. So tonight when I got home, in order to relieve all the driving stresses, I painted…it was amazing, well maybe not the painting itself, but the stress relief of painting. Very odd that something that doesn’t require running until you want to puke or beating the shit out of a pillow, basically straight aggression, could be a stress reliever.

But anyway, I love the process of painting. Figuring out a good background color, maybe blending two colors together. Working it until it is the perfect shade of the color is there on the canvas. Then finding the abstract shape and the color of that shape that will suit the background color. This process is usually started by visualizing something on the canvas itself, and then drawing that imagine. Usually I finish it up with some accenting details to make the image really pop, but without making it too frazzled. And then finishing it off with my initials!! So that’s my process. Something tells me that most other people have about the same process. Maybe others have some more details, but I’m still new to this whole thing.

Any who, here is the fabulous painting:

Its back to work tomorrow. I really miss those long breaks of college, oh well maybe at some other point in my life it can be like that again!!

*ALWAYS BELIEVE*

I Think I've Figured It Out!!!

I did it. After YEAR AND YEARS of trying to figure out what the hell I want to do with my life I believe I am on to something with this idea. Every week I think I should do something else with my life, but this idea has stuck to me for a while now. I have always fiddled with idea of being a nurse but at the same time I knew I wanted to work with children. I discovered this past summer that children are so innocent and un-jaded about life which is why I had decided I wanted to have a child’s influence in my everyday life. Which explains why I’m doing what I’m doing with my life right now. So how do I put the two ideas together?? I could be a pediatric nurse and work in a doctor’s office, taking blood pressures and heights and weights every day, but there’s no way I wouldn’t get bored after about 2 days. I need more variety in my life than that. So I was thinking about all the different things I could do with the two interests, and I decided that I think I want to work with children with cancer. I feel this could be very difficult, emotionally. On top of the fact that this means 2-3 more years of school. I can deal with the school though because this is something that I will truly enjoy. Bbut how will I know if I can handle it emotionally? …well I’ve decided to volunteer at a local children’s hospital and try to get involved as much as I can to see if having to see children in such a sad environment is something I can handle. I feel that in such a sad environment, someone like myself, who is cheery and happy 98% of the time, would be good in an environment like this. Maybe that is because these children could use someone to put a smile on their face, to change up the depressing environment they are constantly in. I will keep you all updated on that goes!

So on a more random note, the holiday Starbucks peppermint mocha latte is effing AMAZING!! It is one of the only things I drink from Starbucks, but I think it is fabulous. Any who…….

My sister has XM radio so every now and then we listen to channel 4. For those of you that have XM, you know this is the 40’s station. I’ve come to like some of the 40’s music. Particularly the music that has no singing. I just like the instrumental and no vocals, which is odd because I love to sing along (even though I can’t sing for anything). Every song I hear reminds me of something that is absolutely obscure and is not related to the 40’s at all what so ever. Except every now and then a song comes on that reminds me of the movie “The Notebook”. When I first watched that movie I realized that I would have loved to be alive during that time period. I felt like there was just so much freedom and much less corruption. So when I hear some random 40’s songs I always wish I were alive then and sometimes I let my mind wonder and think about the kind of person I would be in that time period. As I sit here listening to the Beetles, I think about how I also wish I were alive in the 70’s and 80’s and well I guess I was alive in the later part of the 80’s but I couldn’t really appreciate it because I was so wee little. I guess I should say I wish I were 20-something in the 70’s or 80’s. I’d truly take either decade. I feel like those times were pretty awesome to be young in and be able to appreciate it. I’m sure that when I’m older I will think the time that I live in right now was pretty awesome to be a part of, but its easy to take advantage of right now while I’m living in it.

Well I’m off to help my sister made a phenoooooooooooooomenal dessert.

*ALWAYS BELIEVE*

They say change is necessary...

“You've changed so much. I guess that's what happens. I wish you knew how much you changed me. I wonder if I changed you, if your life is different because of me. Because mine's different. My God, you taught me so much, and now we don't even talk to each other. I guess that's what happens.”

Change. The word has been ALL over the place these past few months because of the elections. But I’m talking about personal change. People changing. Places changing. Jobs. Apartments. Lifestyles. Living in college was easy. Zero responsibility beyond being sure you got your homework done. If you accidentally over slept and missed class, no big deal. No bills. No nothing.

Now that college is over, its all responsibility. Bills. Rent. Being sure I have enough money to pay for those things. Being sure I get up on time to get to work on time. Being sure they kids that I’m teaching are learning and they are happy. I don’t have a family or kids or anything but I have friends I like to stay close to even if we are far in distance. I’m always trying to be sure to remember everyone, keep in touch with everyone. As time goes on and I’m apart from more and more people, I’m just realizing I’m changing, they are changing. How will our personal changes affect our friendships? What happens next? Will we change too much and not stay as close?

I think I’m trying to be good at growing up (even if I’m not happy about it) and I’m trying to take responsibility for everything that I do. I could easily just go through the motions of my job, but I want to go above and beyond and really make a positive difference in the company that I work for. This is not who I was merely 6 months ago. I loved the parties and the no responsibility and trust me, I was really living the life. But don’t get me wrong I still love partying and I’m not a fan of responsibility but I’m doing what I gotta do to get by right now.

I sometimes think I’m handling it well. I’ve changed, but I’m staying true to who I am at the same time. I haven’t made any crazy changes in my life and I haven’t started doing things I never would have done a few months ago. And as I sit here thinking about all the people that have come into my life in the past years (even the past months) I can easily think of ways that each person has effected me, changed me, made me to be a better person, brought out the best in me, brought out the worst in me, made me happy, made me sad, made me re-think my life and what I’ve done with it thus far.

I don’t really know where this is all coming from today, but I sit here with only my thoughts and think about how everyone I know has changed since college, whether college ended for them in May with me or it ended 4 years ago. Some for the better and some for the worst. I think some people have just made choices about growing up or not. Some have decided to linger on the past (and maybe I’m doing a bit of that too) and some have decided to go the other way, completely shocking everyone with what they are doing. I expected this sort of this would happen, but I guess I never truly believed it until today. Sometimes I think, it’s not the change that’s shocking, it’s who is changing and how they are changing that is shocking to me.

“Even though we've changed and we're all finding our own place in the world, we all know that when the tears fall or the smile spreads across our face, we'll come to each other because no matter where this crazy world takes us, nothing will ever change so much to the point where we're not all still friends.”

…Right?

*ALWAYS BELIEVE*

A Slight Update on the Last Week

So working in a preschool environment lets me have days off like today…Veteran’s Day. And today on TV I saw so many specials on soldiers coming home. But what is ironic, is that I’m reading the book “The Lucky One” by Nicholas Sparks, which is about a marine that went to Iraq three times and there’s a love story of course. But that’s not the ironic part…even though I know this may not necessarily be a true story, the story about his time in Iraq written by Sparks is quite vivid…and I can maybe slightly imagine the environment and stress over there. Granted I don’t know if what I’m imagining is what it’s like, which is why I say “maybe slightly”. So I salute to you veterans and current armed forces. Thank you! You are some of the bravest people I know.

So Obama is our new president elect. Wow…can you say progress. YAY America!!! I really think it’s amazing that we’ve come so far. I’m not gonna lie. I really thought he was going to take it. All the numbers were pointing to him before the actual election.

So I had a mis-hap and fell of the horse for a week or so but I’m getting back on. I’m going to the gym everyday to train and I’m also eating better. And since I had the whole day off today..it was definitely hard not to munch today, but I found ways to keep myself occupied. I started counting my points again and writing it down. Sometimes as much as I count I somehow seem to forget the bad things I ate that day!!! Oops!

Last weekend my broski came to visit the big city and I think he really loved it. He liked having so many options and that there was just so much to do…beside the fact that he got to see me!!! And this weekend I have a couple friends coming to visit and I’m just SO excited to hang out with them. I haven’t seen them since the day after Nationals in May. Therefore I can’t wait to spend time with them and possible cause trouble!!!

Happy Election Day!

Today is Election Day!! So I’m sitting here on my couch watching how things are unfolding and I realize how happy I am. Not because “my guy” is winning or anything…I’m truly happy because I can’t wait for the effing politics to stop! No more commercials, no more debates, no more news about polls. Its all over in the day or so. All that stuff is exciting, but I feel as though these two candidates have been battling each other and other candidates for the past 2 years or so and I’m sick of hearing about it. Woohoo election day is here, this shit can stop!! But don’t worry, I’m excited to see how things unfold.

While I’m watching all of this I’m realizing no matter who wins, I think things will start to change very quickly once in the White House. I just hope that no matter who wins, America can stand behind the president, because as we’ve seen in the past, when the president fails, America fails, and well I’m sick of our country failing. Therefore, since my vote is already in, I will support whoever wins.
(If he loses...sometimes I will say he would have done it better, but I’ll try real hard not to!)

Just so that everyone knows, there was a preschooler today at school telling people that Santa should be president. It was hilarious!!

So Halloween was on Friday night and I decided to go out…in style…from the 80s. And at this party I went to, Guitar Hero was busted out. I couldn’t help myself but to start talking shit. I rock at Guitar Hero. It was in my apartment all last year and I played multiple songs on a daily basis. I love that game. So I took on a few competitors, and I won. People were very impressed with how much I rock, (I know because Guitar Hero told me so…a lot!). It’s cool, you can call me a nerd, dork, loser, etc. I am very aware that I am all of these! Here are a few pics of me kicking ass:

I’m getting slightly sickly, so it’s time for the nester chester!

*ALWAYS BELIEVE*