Sunday, March 18, 2012

i'm a little more country than that.




Last night I went to my first real concert ever. BLAKE SHELTON. I'm a recent convert to
country music; it started about two years ago. I used to hate it. I literally despised country music. And I don't actually know why. It's not like I listened to it enough to be like, "yeah, I actually hate this kind of music." I knew nothing about it, really. I was just ignorant I guess. But since being properly introduced, I would probably be content if there were no other music genres in the world except country. I love it! It tells stories. Not all country music is about dogs dying and breaking up. I think it's cute music. And, it certain country songs make me feel super patriotic and love America. It's awesome.

But anyway, I reallllly decided I love Blake Shelton when one of my managers introduced me to The Voice. It's that one TV show that is better than American Idol. Blake Shelton is one of the voice coaches on it. And the first episode I watched of this season I knew him and I would get along if we ever met. Haha. But seriously. He's hilarious, chill, down-to-earth, country. I fell in love with him. Not to mention I always have his Honey Bee song stuck in my head, so much that I bought a Blake Shelton Honey Bee shirt for $5 of his website. Not obsessed. Don't worry. Anyway, I saw a billboard a few weeks back that said Blake Shelton would be at Mandalay Bay on March 17. I was like, "oh freak, I want to go so bad!" But I knew my roommate wouldn't be able to go even she wanted to, because she works nights. So I was talking to a girl my age at
work, Jessica, and I mentioned it, and she was like, "ooh, I'll go." So I was like COOL. That was a few weeks ago. We didn't really talk about it again for a while. Then one day at work this last
week, I was really grumpy cuz my boss kind of pissed me off, and Jessica was asking why I was grumpy. I said, "I dunno dude. I just need some happy medicine. Blake is gonna be in town this weekend. I wanna go. Blahhhh." She said, "if I get my boyfriend to buy us tickets will that be good enough happy medicine..." And it was. And he bought them for us. AND WE WENT
YESTERDAY. And it was seriously incredible. THE funnest night I've had in Vegas so far. His opening guy was Justin Moore, who sang "If Heaven Wasn't So Far Away." (Great song, btw. I jammed out). And then when Blake Shelton came on, he opened with his own version of the Footloose theme song. Seriously, how cool is that. I don't know if someone told him that I LOVE
the Footloose soundtrack. Ever since Tallen's musical in high school, I've absolutely loved the
Footloose music. It got me so excited. A couple songs later he did a rendition of Michael Buble's
"Home," which also happens to be one of my favorites. It was seriously just so awesome. I can't put into words how much fun I had. I felt like a little kid meeting Santa Clause. Only I didn't meet anyone and I didn't get any presents out of it. Although, I DID buy a shirt. Of course. But I sang along with every song. Danced with my boots on. It was just the greatest thing. I WANT TO DO IT AGAIN. And now I want to see all my favorite country singers in concert.





My Boots :)




Oh, just Blake Shelton singing to me. I mean.....



AGH it was seriously SO FUN.



Country music FTW

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Hummmm


I always wonder if I've already met the person I'm going to marry. Who knows.



Monday, March 12, 2012

Confession post.


I don't know why this is a confession post or what I am confessing to, but just go with it. Let it happen.

So let me just say this, I'm not an idiot. Sure, I have my dumb, clumsy moments. Sure, I've been asked more times than I can count if blonde is my natural hair color. Sure, I've hit a parked car. Sure, I make stupid, brain-dead mistakes. But I'm no dummy. I'm actually a very observant person. I catch on to things that people don't sometimes realize. I know when something of mine has been stolen from my room or if something is not where I left it. I'm pretty good at reading people. I hear bits and pieces of conversations from across the room. I notice things. Sure, I sometimes don't acknowledge or act on my observations, especially if it's not necessary. But I catch a lot more than I think I am sometimes given credit for.

That being said, the last couple years I haven't been oblivious to my body and lifestyle changes. I'm the most observant person when it comes to my body. There's not anything you can tell me about my body that I don't already know. I know I have no butt. I know I have big feet. I know I have alien fingers. I know I have a mole on my right ring finger knuckle. I know I run funny. I know I have two similarly shaped birthmarks on the back of each of my legs. I know I need to re-shape my eyebrows. I know my abs could use some work. I know I have extremely bony knees. I know all that. It's my body. I'm aware of it. Here's a little fact about me: I've always been sensitive about comments that are made toward my weight or body image. Comments about my body image, like my feet or my big nose, or whatever, don't really get to me, because those are things I can't really change. So I don't really care. But when someone makes a comment about something that I have complete control over (i.e. my weight, my unibrow, my mumbling voice, etc), I try to hide the sting a little, because it makes me feel like a failure a little bit. Granted, I laugh about how I used to be fat, because, let's be honest, I looked like an ogre. And I'm not sensitive to the point where I've contemplated an eating disorder, or even a diet (ha), but I've always struggled with how my body looks. I don't think I've ever been really satisfied with my body. Throughout my life my body shape or image has never stayed consistent. I was a normal kid, then in middle school I got fat, then sophomore year I got super skinny, then I toned out, then I maintained a healthy weight, then I gained weight, etc etc etc. It's been a roller coaster. But here's the thing, up until about 2 years ago I led a very active lifestyle. From the time I was 4 when I started playing soccer, I did something active every day. If I wasn't playing an organized sport, I was outside with my siblings playing basketball or roller hockey or jumping on the trampoline or juggling my soccer ball or riding our bikes. I'll forever be grateful to my parents for making us play outside and introducing us to an active, healthy lifestyle at such a young age. Even when I got fat in middle school, I was super active. I played soccer, basketball, and volleyball during the school year, so I was playing a sport every day of the year. In the summers I did swim lessons with my siblings, volleyball or soccer camps. In high school I was constantly active. Even after high school, I had the opportunity to play a couple years of college ball. I had access to the gym or track practically whenever I wanted it. My teammates and I would go work out together during post-season. I was in really good shape.


When my sophomore year of college volleyball ended, I kind of hit a wall, physically. I didn't have any kind of practice or camp or early morning training to go to, for the first time in my life. My friends and ex-teammates and I were all busy with our new-found "grown-up" lives, so we couldn't ever find a consistent time to work out together. I got into a relationship. I was working full-time and going to school full-time. I lived with roommates. I hated sharing a kitchen so I rarely cooked for myself. Which meant eating out. I would stop and get fast food between school and work. My lifestyle completely changed. And here's the part where "I'm no dummy" comes in: I gained weight. Surprise surprise. I did, it's no secret. Everyone could see it, but of course no one said anything. My mom was nice about it, asking if I'd been running or whatever haha. But
no, I hadn't done anything in ages. Well, actually that's not true. I played volleyball here and there. I went to a few open gyms that my old college coach invited me to. I did Ragnar. Which I didn't train for at all (and I literally mean, AT ALL). So even though I ran two 10K's and a 5K within a 24 hour period, I don't count that. I just literally didn't do anything active. I think my saving grace from becoming obese was the fact that I ran around at work for 8 hours a day. (sidenote: during my period of intense physical inactivity, I DID gradually train myself to do a pull-up, at work nonetheless. I would try to do one every day on this bar we had in the warehouse, and eventually I did a perfect pull-up. After that I would do a pull-up every time I went into the warehouse. I give myself credit for that).


So there you have it folks, I've gained weight the last couple years. I've since lost some of it, but I'm still not where I want to be. I haven't talked about it with anyone really, not even Adam, who I was in a relationship with the whole time this was going down. Him and I would talk about working out together and whatnot, but I'm more of a solitary worker outer, or I work out with girls. It's a mental thing. Ha. But I really didn't even talk to him about it. I know he noticed, but he was nice enough not to say anything. Probably because he knew that I was aware of it. My family didn't really say anything about it. Last time I went home my mom did make the comment, "you've lost weight!" Oh, mother.


I've been telling myself since I stopped playing volleyball that I need to do something to stay active. I'd seen other former college athletes who now have kids and that sort of thing, who are just big. And round. And I don't want to be like that. I want to be a fit mom. I want to be able to go on bike rides with my kids. I want to be able to go running with my husband. And I've been telling myself forever that I'm going to get back in shape. My problem is, is I am a headcase. I
am. About everything. If I get something in my head, that's the only thing I focus on until I am satisfied with that or something changes my mind. For example, if I am jogging, and I think to myself, "oh shoot, my calves are really tight right now, I don't know how far I'll be able to run today." And I will start to contemplate when I am going to stop and turn around, until I think to myself, "hey, idiot. People don't get in shape by running a mile and stopping cuz their calves are tight." And then I tell myself that only panty-wastes stop running because their calves are tight. That sort of thing. Another example of why being a headcase is a major setback for me, is that if I have had a stressful day at work, or a long day, or whatever, I tell myself that it's okay to shower and go to bed at 7pm rather than get a quick jog in. And for that reason, I have never stayed consistent at exercising on my own.

And then I had an epiphany. A couple things I have recently discovered have led me to change my lifestyle. The first one is, a paraplegic moved next door to me a couple months ago. We finally have neighbors! Anyway, a paraplegic and his friend currently occupy the condo next to ours. His name is Jeremy, and he lives in a wheelchair. He is pretty young, I would guess in his late 20's. I have talked to him a few times, my roommate and I baked them cookies a couple weeks ago, he's real nice. But I can't help but feel bad for the guy. A lot of times when I'm leaving the house and walking to my car, I see him outside in his wheelchair, just cruising around, getting some sun. Other times, when I am walking into my house, I can see him through his window, just sitting in his chair reading a book. And I can't help but think, how boring of a life that must be. Not being able to use your legs at all, trapped in a chair for your entire life. I would literally go
crazy! That's insane. Seeing Jeremy and all that he CAN'T do, has inspired me to take advantage of what I CAN do. Using my legs, walking around, going for a jog.

The second thing that has led me to get back into an active lifestyle, is my current situation. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I'm single. I'm alone in a foreign town. I'm not in school right now. I work full-time. On top of that, I work a really weird, inconsistent schedule every week so I rarely have time to call up the few friends I have here and see what they're doing. My roommates and I are rarely all home together so we hardly spend any time together, and when we do it's just watching a movie at home or something. My car gets terrible gas mileage, and that combined with the outrageous gas prices, I have no desire or intention to take unnecessary trips to explore the town. So, I am sort of stuck in this little bubble right now. My days have been
routine. I go to work, come home, watch a TV show on my computer, shower, eat, go to bed. That kind of thing. I go to FHE most Mondays. But besides that, our institute or even just my ward doesn't do any bi-weekly or even monthly activities like Tucson does. So I have no church activities or anything like that to look forward to. I haven't really met any LDS people here because my ward is tiny and, like I said, I haven't heard about a single combined institute activity since I've been here, and one of my roommates is strongly against ward-hopping. So it's been kind of weird here, church-wise. So I haven't had a chance to go out much. I go shopping here and there by myself, but I'm sick of feeling lazy. A few months ago I realized that I want to develop new hobbies, or just get back into the old ones that I used to have. It gets boring being in a city where you don't know anyone besides coworkers and your roommates. I have a sewing machine that I've been wanting to put to use. I don't have a piano anymore. I haven't ridde
n my longboard in months, because I don't know anyone else who has one (trust me, I've asked around). I've played volleyball a couple times, talking to people about getting into a league with them, but my work schedule has prevented me from going back and getting details. So I haven't even played volleyball in months. So I decided, I have all this free time to myself after work. I'm not in school right now. I'm sort of a loner in this town. I'm not dating anyone. When I'm home, about 75% of the time I'm home alone. And, here's the real good part, I have a county rec center right down the street from my house. I've been telling myself for a few months that I would go get a membership to the gym there, because it's super cheap. I just had a hard time getting over there. But last week I actually did it. I've gone to the gym every day since I've had the
membership. Except Sunday, duh. I've also been eating a lot healthier. I haven't eaten out for at least a couple weeks, I can't even remember the last time, which is big for me. I've been on a fruit kick. I've been eating tons of apples, pears, oranges, bananas. And with that I've been eating a lot of lean proteins- egg whites, ham, chicken. And I'm excited. I'm excited to feel healthy again. I'm excited to be able look at pictures of myself and not think, "ugh, do I really look like that?" I'm excited about having to wash more clothes than just my work clothes. But mostly, I'm excited to get my body into shape again, and take advantage of the simple fact that I have the ability to be active. Because that's such a blessing. And whenever I have a hard time motivating myself to get up and go to the gym, or run just a few more minutes, this is what I think of:




And I don't wanna be the one just chillin' on the couch.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Children make the world go 'round.

Today at work a little girl named Crystal, probably 4 or 5, told me I was pretty! It was so cute. And it was SO much more flattering hearing that from a little girl than it is hearing it from the 45- or 60-something-year-olds that I get hit on by every day. Not trying to toot my own horn or think my poo don't stink or something, because I'm sure the guys that hit on me hit on every other female with even a hint of femininity in their appearance. It just gets annoying! It's to the point where I don't feel the least bit flattered when old men hit on me. Or when Mexican guys hit on me. Or coworkers. Or anyone, really. I sometimes feel sort of rude the way I respond to it, and sometimes I feel bad about how I react to it, but sometimes it actually feels sort of degrading. And that's what bothers me.

I may or may not be being a little dramatic about the whole thing. Fact is, I know every girl will get hit on by guys wherever they work. It happens. To everyone. I get that. But for me, I feel like I'm in a little bit different situation. I work at a tool store, where about 90% of our clientele are males. On top of that, I work at a cheap tool store, so you can probably imagine the demographic of the majority of my customers. Low class, drunks, racists, veterans, druggies, government-assisted, Mexicans (not being racist, we get tons of Mexicans who take our cheap tools back to Mexico. TONS of them). So, a lot of them don't interact with people very professionally, or even considerately. It is hard to be patient with my customers. And it's even harder to maintain a polite demeanor and bite my tongue when they make comments about my physical appearance. Let's just say, it's a good thing my momma don't work with me! She'd go all Lorena Bobbit on they a$$es! Joking. Well, not really. Lorena Bobbit is my mom's hero. Oops, tangent.

Anyway, this little girl made my day. It was an honest, innocent compliment, that meant so much more to me than the other bullcrap I hear every day. I told her she was pretty also, and we had a perfect little conversation after that. I explained to her what a debit card was. Haha.

I LOVE KIDS.