Awesome April

Oh Bloggy Blog I didn’t forget you, not even a little bit.  April has just been a busy month at work (and at play) that by the time I’ve gotten home at night the last thing I’ve wanted to do is get on the computer and type.  Getting on my iPhone and checking FaceBook is entirely different.

So what has happened in April that has kept me busy, out of (or into) trouble, and has me counting my blessings? All kinds of stuff:

·         Spending Easter with my mom’s family and getting to listen to my 10 year old cousin rock the house on his piano. He’s crazy good.

·         Springtime Concerts with my brother Frank. We saw DIERKS BENTLEY at the Pozo Saloon and a few other acts. Will Hoge has changed my life, okay that’s exaggerating a bit, but I really like him and I would have never heard of him had I not gone to the Stampede. So that’s one thing I can scratch off my New Year’s Resolution list. I wanted to find new music to fall in love with, and I did exactly that.

·         Crashing Bridal Fairs with Meggy, it’s like the pregame to Wedding Crashing.  Baby steps, baby steps.

·         Cousins’ Weekends in Los Angeles (and minimal traffic on the way down).  I got to escape reality for a couple days and go visit Walter and Jake for the weekend, experienced red velvet pancakes, and then my buddy Tess crashed the party in Long Beach for a little girl time after the boys left to other engagements.

·         New Gadgets, I was able to get my hands on a Kindle Fire last week and I don’t think my reading list or library will ever be the same.  I love technology.

·         Shopping days with mom.  Nothing beats Mother/Daughter dates, even at nearly 31 its still one of my favorite ways to spend the day

·         Discovering my own strength.  I finally found it in me to purge some people in my life who were nothing but cancerous tumors on my soul.  I stopped making excuses for them and I stopped allowing myself to torture my heart by trying to keep them in my life.  I have to say my shoulders are lighter, my eyes are drier, and the bruises on my heart are healing nicely.

·         My job. I really like the people I work with (most of the time ;-) ) Plus on Administrative Professionals Day, they bought me flowers, candy, and a Starbucks gift card. They sure know how to make a girl feel loved.

There you have it April in a nutshell. Talk to you next month (or sooner if I get inspired)

Hey March, you were pretty cool!

Okay, so its early April and I never did my grateful blog for March, and it’s not because I don’t have tons of things that were awesome that month, its more because I’ve been in a slump and haven’t felt like writing… I have felt like sleeping, a lot. So it’s a little late, but this is for March.

·         My job:

o   I got a raise and my boss started a quarterly incentive program, so assuming I meet all the demands of each quarter, I’ll get a bonus. So yay me!

o   Also because of work contacts I’ve made I was given two free tickets to PCPA’s musical “Little Women” it was so beautifully done, I cried throughout the whole performance.  I really am lucky to live in a place where we have some really amazing shows.  I can’t wait to see Legally Blonde this summer.

·         Birthday parties:

o   My awesome friend Karla had a kick ass 80s themed party and I danced my face off for at least 4 hours straight, I was sore for a couple of days, but it was totally worth it. I swear dancing is the most fun cardio ever…. Way more fun than Spin Class (which is super fun when you make it Karaoke Spin).

o   My baby sister turned 20 at the end of the month and we took a Sister Shopping Trip in Santa Barbara.  It was an amazing day (even though we had to weather a storm), lots of window shopping, some actual shopping, a visit to Tiffany, so many laughs and just a couple sentimental tears.

·         Star Gazing in the hot tub with Tess and a bottle of wine (and tormenting my brother) was all part of an amazing Girls’ Weekend. It also included manis/pedis, shopping in SLO, Thai food and ice cream, Sunday Brunch...did I leave anything out? Grown up slumber parties are the best way to spend a weekend.

·         Best Friends (and their mommies) coming to my rescue when I had a near panic attack because I didn’t know how I was going to frost 120 cupcakes and a mini birthday cake by myself… Meg and Terry I love you guys!

So this is a short/sweet post, but I do want to say thank you for everyone who has made my life as great as it is. I know that I complain and vent a lot, but seriously? Things could be so much worse, and even my BIG problems will seem small when I look back at this.  I'd rather look back on happy memories with great friends and family than dwell on the things that have upset me.

Are you who you thought you'd be now?

I was looking at my blog, searching for an idea of what to write about this month, and I came across this draft, I'm not real sure when I wrote it (because I forgot to look at the date before I clicked "edit") but I still like it, its still relevant, and while this isn't my official March post, I am going to share it with you.

Its weird... I've been scanning through friends and friends of friends' facebook pages and I'm finding out more than I ever really wanted or needed to know about some people. I had to stop. I had to look away. We live in the information age, but sometimes there IS a such thing as too much information.

I look around and I see that I'm no where near where I thought I'd be at 30.  It's not a bad thing, dreams change, priorities change, and life sometimes takes a different path. I'm okay with that for the most part.  If you would have asked me 6 years ago where I thought I'd be today, I would have told you married with kids and living in the Houston suburbs. God, that dream is so long dead and buried I often wonder if it was real. Did I ever really want that they way I thought I did? A year ago I would have thought that I'd still be chasing the crush I had but that maybe we finally found a way to make it work the way I wanted it to instead of the way that had been convenient for him... That dream is gone too, although that one had kind of turned into a nightmare itself, so its probably good for my mental health that I've woken up from that too.

When I was in college I wanted to set the world on fire. I want to shake things up, I wanted to make changes, I wanted to be a part of the greater good. Part of me still wants that, I just don't know where to start. There are so many things that are wrong with our society that it overwhelms me. There is so much injustice, inequality, and a general suckines in the world that I don't even know where to start. I guess I do a small part in raising awareness by forwarding and sharing news articles trying to get people fired up about the problems, but I don't know how to be part of the solution.

When I started working at the gym and later managing it I thought I was in it to help people feel better about themselves, get healthy, have fun, and just enjoy life more... but it didn't really work out that way. That place was such a stress ball of depression and irresponisble ownership that I didn't even want my name linked to it by the time it was all over.

I'm still looking for my purpose, trying to find my way... I finally have a job that I like and where I actually respect my bosses (it has been too long since I've had that). I adore my family and friends... but I guess I'm still like that Disney Princess who is still looking for that "something more." I'll get there some day, I know it, I'm so close.