Making It

Well, I'm not sure if I was ever all that clear about this, but I've returned to work.   My schedule for the past week has been pretty dang crazy.  It's like I haven't had time to do much of anything at all.  That's part of why I got stuck on a little Travis Hiatus. I'm not allowed to see the boyfriend all week unless I complete everything on my to-do list...   Scary right? I don't know if I got behind or if my teachers are just sadistic and tried to make this happen to me. Regardless...Dis is ma lyfe.   However, it feels good to be back at work. I'm working with the same company where I started my first job:  CaptionCall.  It's a pretty awesome company that works to caption phone calls for those who have a hard time hearing.  The only reason I really left was, well, boredom.  But it feels pretty great to be back. I'm surprised how much I actually missed working for them!   Balancing work, school, boyfriend, and the band is going to get increasingly difficult.  I already registered for my classes next semester and I can feel the head ache setting in.  I just keep telling myself that all of this is an investment in my future and worth it.  All the time and money spent on this little life of mine...it's worth it.   Do you have anything you tell yourself that gets you through the day? I have a few little mantras that I say that help me succeed.

The Midterm Blues

Right now, my brain is so fried from writing an essay (that still isn't done, in case you were wondering...Due in exactly 24 hours) that I simply had to take a break.  I had to write something that isn't horribly labored. Maybe blogging a little will help the creative juices flow and make it easier to crank out a stupid "evaluation essay".
That whole intro was basically just me trying to convince myself that this procrastinating is necessary for my mental health.  It's most likely a lie I generated to make me feel better, but...maybe it will work. 
This is the part of the semester were everything sort of...seems to fall apart.  On Saturday, I cleaned my room down to organizing my drawers to avoid working on this paper that has been giving me so much trouble.  If you know how I am about cleaning, that should be a pretty impressive thing.  I guess I should hand it to myself, at least I'm being a productive procrastinator.  I don't only not do what I need to, I complete something else that I was putting off. 
However, Travisland is still fantastic. 

On Sunday, he stopped by my weekly gig at the Arts Factory. After that, we went out for pizza at the Four Queens hotel on Fremont Street.  Let me tell you something about this pizza...It was freaking amazing.  It cost about $18 for a 16 inch pizza that we demolished...The coolest thing about our little pizza excursion, is that the place is really quite unsuspecting.  You wouldn't even really think to order pizza at the restaurant.  Luckily, we know a pizza connoisseur that sent us to the right place.   

Well, now that I have stayed up too late and made some progress on my paper, this blog post can come to a close.  I hope that you all have a wonderful rest of your week. 

When We Make Plans

October is a big month for me.  It marks an anniversary that sometimes I want to forget altogether...But other times, I remember as being a huge life changing event that sent me on a path I wouldn't have picked.  And it's better than the one I did.
In October of 2011, I was preparing to leave for Marine Corps Boot Camp.  I was so ready.  I was going to make it.  I wasn't scared.  I knew I was doing the right thing for me.  Unfortunately, I made the decision to go for a little bike ride.  That little bike ride down a mountainside completely changed my fate for the rest of my life.  At that point in time, my plan was as follows:   Marine-->Wife-->War-->Mommy etc.  
Well, it has been three years now and I'm none of those things and I don't think I could be any happier that my plans didn't quite work out.  Sure, sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to be an active duty Marine, but I found something else.  I created a new career for myself.  One that I'm almost definitely better off in.  Not only that, I was inspired to go to college after my little break from life.  Part of the reason I chose to join the military was that I wasn't ready to go to college.  Breaking my arm gave me some time to grow up and get ready for it. 
I didn't end up marrying that boy and living with him happily ever after.  Again, sometimes I wonder what it would have been like...but where I sit right now, I'm happy that we didn't stay together.  We probably would have had a few months of wedded bliss before the realization that a mistake had been made... Right now, my injury is a faint scar and a distant memory.  Sometimes my fingers go numb or my arm tingles...but I don't really notice any limitations. My plans that didn't work out are lessons that I've learned.  Life is amazing for me.  I don't think I have ever been so happy.  If I could go back, the only thing I would do is hit myself on the head.  The bike ride was a pretty stupid idea.  But hey...shit happens.  I suppose this is where I say that I'll chalk it up to better luck. 
I suppose the only thing that's left to do...is ride a bike.  I haven't in three years.  If I ever do that again, I'll let you know how it goes. 

Because No One Wants to Stare at the Back of Your Phone

Do you ever look at your blog and realize that you haven't written in a century and you really don't know what the reason is? Yeah...That's me right now.  I've been way too busy living life to write here on the blog.  Believe it or not, I have hardly even looked at my phone in weeks. 
I think I have Travis to thank for that.  If you're just joining me, Travis is my boyfriend.  He's a great guy that I'm ridiculously happy with. When Travis and I are together, our phones are not present.  Yeah, it's okay if we need to send a message here or there to Momma or Auntie or whatever, but in general, we have an unspoken rule that phones just don't have a place in our relationship unless we're using them to communicate with each other (or our mommies or whatever because we love them)
On Sunday I played a gig with that bluegrass group I've been playing with.  P.S: if you live in the Las Vegas area or you're visiting on a Sunday, the Hangover Brunch at the Arts Factory Bar + Bistro is on point (and I play there!) 
Anyway...There was a couple sitting up close to where we play...The girl had her phone in front of her face the entire time the sat there.  Literally the entire meal he boyfriend or husband, or best man-friend stared at the back of her phone...
I know I just said the other day that you shouldn't really trust the internet for all of your relationship advice, but trust me, this is a good one. 

\  I wasn't always super great at this.  Ask my family...I sucked at putting my phone away...Don't get me wrong, it still goes everywhere that I go, but instead of pulling it our every five minutes and scrolling through Instagram or Facebook, I spend time with Travis.  We take our phone out to show each other funny pictures or laugh at something we read, but in general, they just aren't there and it makes our relationship better. 
Give it a try.

You're Telling Me...What?

I shared an article the other day about how fast love moves in the modern relationship.  It was basically saying that part of why they move faster these days is because technology and more constant contact with whoever you're dating at the time.  It's only natural that a relationship might progress a little fast.  The article, though, was saying you may want to slow things down.   I see a lot of articles on my news feed about relationships, marriages, dating etc. Prior to being in a relationship, I typically passed over them.  I didn't really care what they had to say about my non-existent relationship.  But since starting to exclusively date my adorable man, I glance at them.  I liked the one linked above.  I think it had some good things to say about a relationship and how if you can help it, get to know someone very well before you tie the knot.  I liked the article and it had some good things to say about a relationship in general But here's the thing: 

If you are counting on an article on the internet to tell you where your relationship should be you might have bigger things to worry about. Sure you can read 10 articles with titles like "12 ways to please you man" or "15 ways to tell your relationship is on the right track" but if you're depending on some random article to tell you how you should be feeling or what you should do...doesn't that sound like it might be...well, wrong? 
I'm not saying that there is no way you can get good advice from something you read on the internet.  I read stuff all the time that reminds me to be nicer or give me some money tips that help me better handle my finances, but when it comes to my man, I think I'd like to leave the learning to experience.  If anything, I think reading these articles and blog posts make me feel less secure in my relationship that is going really well...therefore, I have no reason to feel anything but secure.
What do you think? Can something someone else wrote determine where your relationship should be?  Do you worry if yours isn't like the articles say? Should we pay any attention to all those articles we see on our news feeds and Pinterest?  Is it any different than chatting with your girlfriends and having them tell you where your relationship should be?  

The Red Bull Air Race

Oh my gosh.  If you ever have the chance to go to an air race, freaking go.  It cost Trav and I $58 total for two days worth of tickets to the race and it was so freaking awesome to watch.  Here we are at the entrance of the race.  It was a really hot, sunny day in the grand stands, but still so worth it. 

Before going to this race, I was totally confused about how we were going to watch an air race and a NASCAR speedway.  It didn't matter that Travis had explained it to me multiple times, I still couldn't quite wrap my head around the idea.  Once we got there and I actually saw it, though, I felt stupid for not getting it in the first place. 
They have these big pylons set up up and the planes have to fly a certain way around or through them.  They also have other rules regarding how how they can fly in certain places, how much smoke their plane has to emit (I'm assuming it's just for aesthetics), and of course, they have to do it all very fast.  It's very hard to see in the pictures where the planes are.  The camera just couldn't quite capture the magic,  Luckily though, like I said in my last post, Travis is in flight school...the plans were in a hangar at his air port.  We just got to walk right in and check out all the planes for ourselves. 

I didn't fully understand how cool it was to be able to do this until the race on Saturday.  I'd imagine people paid some serious money to go check out those planes and we did it just passing by the air port.  Too cool. 
Here's a couple pictures of the race its self. Again, sorry for the photo quality.  One, we were watching the race more than taking pictures.  Two, those planes fly fast...

Overall, it wasn't a bad day! We cooked in the grandstands and Travis ate a very overprices hot dog.  After the race, we went out to Metro Pizza and discovered that the individual size would have been plenty.  If you ask me, it was a pretty great weekend. I hope this isn't the last air race I ever get to see. 

Big Plans

Remember when I used to be a 5-days-a-week blogger? Those were the days huh? I can't believe how much of a slacker I have become. But as I always say, I'd rather be too busy living life to do my regular blogging than blogging about all kinds of things and not be out there living life. 
Ya feel? 
So this weekend Travis and I have some big plans.  I don't know believe I told you this, but Travis is going to school to be a pilot, therefore, he love air planes.  Well, this weekend the Red Bull Air Race is in town.   You can best believe we'll be in attendance.  Believe it or not, I think I may have wanted to go regardless of having a plane-nut boyfriend.  The planes are actually in a hangar at Travis's school...so we went and saw the planes the other night.  It was pretty awesome, even to me who knows little to nothing about air planes. 
I'll let you know how that goes.  Maybe we'll even take pictures with the real camera again! 
On top of that, I'm playing with neat little local bluegrass band at the Arts Factory Bar & Bistro on Sunday.  I'm pretty excited to do that "officially."  I've been looking forward to it for a couple of weeks and I can't wait to actually get to play with them.  I'm not exactly sure what to expect, but I'm excited about it.  
On top of that...I'm going back to work on the 20th! It's crazy how excited I am to get back to work.  Yes, money is nice, but it's about so much more than that.  I know I'm going to school and working hard to become a contributing member of society, but I feel like such a scrub when I'm not working...It's going to make my life pretty crazy, but I really don't care.  We can sleep while we're dead, right?
Well, I'd best be heading off to lunch, but until next time! 

The Important Things in Life

A few wonderful things happened this weekend.  Let's start with the most important one:

photo cred

Gilmore Girls is on Netflix.  Don't panic.  Just go to the nearest smart TV, computer, laptop, tablet, etc...and watch until you feel like you can't take any more quick-witted humor and Emily Gilmore.

Okay so maybe that isn't the most important thing ever, however, my life is about to get very hermit-like because of that fact, so it's at least a little important. 

Also this weekend Trav and I went out to First Friday.  It's on Fremont street.  Basically they hold this thing on the first Friday of each month. We honestly weren't all that impressed. It was basically normal Fremont Street except you had to be 21 to enjoy.  You also had to wait in line to get in. They do have bands and such playing on the street, but they do that every weekend...so we didn't really get it.  

Instead of spending a lot of time out there at "First Friday" we decided to go grab some food and listen to an awesome little one man band.  I even brought my real camera. There is a noticeable difference in the pictures we took...

You don't even know how hard it is for us to make normal faces, but somehow, we pulled it off.  Honestly, Container Park might be my favorite part of downtown.  It might be totally new, but it's such a great addition to the area. We at the barbecue place and listened to the music while little kids (and adults) played with giant Legos and ran all over the play area.

The next morning a few of us from ROTC did some volunteering at Shade Tree.  It's a homeless/domestic violence shelter for Women.  Some of us helped organize their supply room with their clothing and toiletries, other served lunch, some did laundry...It was an overall, very rewarding day that I'm really glad I got to be a part of. But I think we need to talk to the guy on the end about looking like he's having a good time...

Well, I've got to get over to Travis's to go make some pumpkin cookies.  I've been craving them for a week, and although I'm not much of a baker, I think I can pull this off. 

Haaaaaave you met Trav?

Here it is Thursday and this is only my second day of blogging this week.  There is something wrong with that picture.  For that I apologize.   I blame the boyfriend.  Yep.  I said it.  I'm no longer a single lady. Being single was fun, but I suppose I wasn't planning on being single forever.  I was hoping that eventually someone would come a long that would make it so I didn't really care about going out to party and all that.  And that has finally happened.
Meet Travis.  Neither of us can just make a normal picture face, so this is what you get. I met Travis a little while ago and now I really just don't want to let him get away.  We've been having all sorts of random adventures through out Las Vegas since the first day we went out.  We went to my favorite bar, (atomic liquor), went for a night hike up Mount Charleston, found out that swimming at the Palms is free Sunday through Thursday, went to the shooting range, and basically discovered that the other is the coolest thing since sliced bread.
Travis is goal-oriented.  Smart.  Cute.  Exciting. Funny (but not funnier than me of course.  I'm the funny one.)  And way too much like me. 
 I never thought I'd say this, but I'm really happy to be out of the dating pool and wading in the waters of a relationship. I can't wait to see where life takes us next. 

Surviving The First Day of College

I scheduled this post and forgot to finish writing it...smart, but now it's all fixed and actually ready for the public's eyes.  That's a little embarrassing...Oh well.  Hopefully I'll be back in the groove next week getting all my posts knocked out like normal.  Sorry...I suck. I'll be better, I swear.  It's time for some more of these babies. 

Let's be honest, college is scary.  Last year, my first day was terrifying.  I knew where my classes were, but I was still about to have a coronary the whole day.  I hadn't bought my parking permit, I didn't have my books, I was a couple years older than all of the "kids" around me...It was scarier than my worst day in basic training. 

I feel like that first day of college set the pace for my entire year. It started it off on the wrong foot.  This year though, I got back to my dorm at the end of my first day and I felt so great.  I got in a work out, I had some lunch, found my classes without a problem, chatted with some people around me, and get this, I even had all the required text books.  Again, I feel like that first day set the pace.  Lucky for me, that pace was a good one.  I learned a lot from my last year of college and I'm so excited for the year to continue. 

As I've had both good and bad experience, I thought I'd share a bit about it and continue on in the college chronicles!

1.  Find your classes before the first day! My school has an app that has a satellite view of the campus.  I would be lying if I said I didn't consult it today! It was a big help and I'm glad I used it. 

2.  Make conversation! I promise, it doesn't hurt to talk to strangers in college.  In fact, it's a good idea.  

3.  Don't freak out if you don't have you books yet.  Chances are, half you class hasn't even considered looking at the syllabus let alone getting the required text.

4.  Figure out your parking situation well before your first day of school! There is nothing like a ticket to ruin your bright and shiny attitude on the first day!

5.  Get notebooks and folder that are designated for each class...I mad the mistake at first of taking all my notes in one notebook for all my classes.  Now I have all these notes that are out of place and I'm having to re-write them all and it's stupid. 

6. Don't goof off! You get a syllabus in all of your classes that probably has all the important dates and big papers due.  Get ready with those awesome time management skills and make it so you don't get overwhelmed right off the bat.