Distractions.

Over the past year, I've become involved with a lot of things.  Between work, softball, running, my women's group, now archery and golf, and just hanging out with friends, I have very little free time.  I get stir crazy with too much time on my hands, so keeping busy has been great.  At first I didn't think much about taking on so many things, it was more just so I would have things to do.  I was creating a life that was my own.  They are still fun.  I still like to do them.  But they're not just things to do anymore, they've become distractions from the things that bring me down.

I think too much when I have time on my hands.  I feel like now I'm keeping busy, so I don't get down about certain things in my life.  It's one thing to go about it and be clueless, but another to recognize it and be completely aware of the reasons why.  It's almost more depressing, but I'll keep doing what I'm doing.  I have my moments where I just need to break down, then I can pick myself up and move on stronger.

I may feel my life is full of distractions, but they are good distractions.  Right now, I need them.  They keep me going, and they make me happy.  That happiness leaves me with a positive attitude knowing, that this too shall pass.

PBR Fresno

March 18-20, 2010

**Side note - I know my Wednesdays are supposed to be like "flashbacks," but I haven't had the time to go back into old pictures, scan them in, and get a good story going. So I'm sticking with events that are fairly recent, but still in the past. It's kinda cheating, I know.

Annie the Dog.

Have you've heard about the man who lives in AG who lost his dog Annie when she ran away from him when she heard a gun shot?  Annie was picked up and taken to a shelter, where she was adopted out a few days later.  Now the new owners are refusing to give Annie back to her rightful owner.  The owner Chuck said he as no children and Annie is like his child.  He's completely devastated that the shelter adopted her out while he had been searching for her, and the new adoptive family won't give her back.

This is exactly why I love living in a small community, so many people have rallied in support of Chuck.

  

There's even have a Facebook page dedicated to getting Chuck and Annie reunited.   People have even donated money to the adoptive family, so that they can get a new dog and give Annie back.  It's such a serious issue that legal action is being considered.

The poor guy.  He must be absolutely overwhelmed with sadness and gratitude for the people who have shown him support, and who are helping him fight to get his dog back.  This picture breaks my heart.  To lose a pet is one thing, but to lose her and know she is alive, and that the new owners are just too greedy to give her back is so sad.

The family who adopted Annie is currently on vacation.  Which makes me ask, if they are on vacation who is taking care of Annie?  Hopefully when they come home they will see they are in the wrong.  

Sunshine Day.

I just want to point out that the weather turned really beautiful, and nice, and summery, and warm after I complained about it.  I am LOVING it.  I mean, it's about freakin time the gloom went away.  I love waking up to sunshine and warmth!

Except now, I'm really sad that it's so nice, and I'm stuck sitting at a desk all day instead of enjoying it.  Ugh.  Can't win them all, I guess.  Life's just so unfair sometimes!

Gloomy.

What happened to the sunshine?  Honestly, I'm so freakin' sick of this weather.  I'm one of those people, where the weather can really effect my mood.  In Winter, I start to get really down and almost depressed.  It's dark when I get up in the morning.  It's dark after I get home from work.  It's dark during the day.  It's cold.  It's rainy.  It's foggy.  It's downright crappy and a big pain in my ass!

In the mornings, there's fog.  In the evenings, there's fog.  The sun only shines when I'm at work, and I can't enjoy it.  But I can clearly see others enjoying it from the window in my office, it's totally unfair.  By the time I get off work, the wind has picked up.  The sun is shining, but it's cold.  It's windy.  It's not pleasant at all.

I just needed to get that out there.  I've been so edgy, because of this (and yes, other things also, but that's not the point).  Because when I said the weather effects my mood, I wasn't kidding.  Perhaps, you can tell?

Lee Brice.

Saturday, June 26 at the Ranch in San Miguel.  

A few days earlier a friend and I were talking about how Lee Brice was going to be performing locally.  I didn't really know any of his songs besides "Love Like Crazy" which plays on the radio at least 3 times a day, (and that's just while I'm at work).  She asked if I wanted to go, and I said sure, why not?  For like $10 more you could get a VIP ticket.  We had no idea what that entailed, you just had to be 21 to buy it.  VIP?  We're so there.

On Friday my friend went and bought his CD, because neither of us had it.  We had 24 hours to learn his songs.  We listened to it on repeat over, and over, and over, and over.  By Saturday night, I knew maybe 2 songs, including the one that's always on the radio.

The VIP seats were right next to the stage.  We had our own little table with our name reserved on it, and a waitress to take our orders. Right before the show Lee (like I know him) peaked out the curtains right behind us to check out the crowd.  We tried to get pictures then, but some crazy solo chick swooped in and tried to pick up on him. Watching that was actually more entertaining than if we had gotten a picture with him. 

 We hung around at the end of the show, because we were waiting for our ride.  It really worked in our favor, because he came out to take pictures and sign autographs.

He put on a really good show.  Considering he only has 1 cd out, he played a long set.  He did a few covers of songs he wrote for other people.  I was surprised to find out he wrote "Still" for Tim McGraw and "More Than A Memory" for Garth Brooks.  I handed him my concert ticket for him to sign, and he said "What's your name?"  I told him, and he said "L. A. C. Y?"  He didn't add an E to my name.  It scored him a few extra points, I'm not gonna lie!

Going Back.

Now that I've started blogging, I keep thinking about all these things that I've done that I'd like to share.  Some happened a few months ago, some happened a few years ago.  Whatever.  I thought about doing like a "Flashback" post weekly on a certain day.  Problem is, I can't guarantee I'm gonna have time to post on that given day every week.  I'm gonna try though.

Wednesdays will be the day.  Check for it tomorrow.

Avila Lighthouse.

A few weeks ago I went on the Avila Lighthouse tour with my parents and my sister.  My sister had been before, and my dad really wanted to go.  I didn't really care one way or another.  I had always kind of been curious about the lighthouse but never enough to plan on going out myself.

You start out near Fat Cat's and are guided through Diablo land by a docent.  Honestly, the hike would have been much better without being guided, (but it has to be because of the Diablo land).  If you follow the trail, you can't really get lost.  It took us nearly 2 hours to hike in, because we had to stop and learn about every, single, little, plant.  And we didn't have just one docent, we had three...and another one in training.  I could care less what the names of plants are, and I know what a tick looks like.

It was pretty cool being on the other side of what I see everyday.  I never realized what a big cove we are in.

I love old houses, and instantly fell for this one.  I didn't take any pictures of the inside, but a house is a house.  You can pretty much guess what it looks like.   This house is now a museum, restored back to what it was like when the light keeper and his family actually lived there.  Now, there's another house not far away that they live in.  It's definitely not as cool as this one!

These are the steps you have to walk up to to get to the light tower.  It's obviously no longer in use . You should have seen the bulbs that it took to put out the light that they used a long time ago.  I should have taken a picture of it.  There's like a 127 pieces of glass that reflects this flame burning from a gigantic wick.  The whole thing was I'd say at least 3 feet tall and a foot and half in diameter.

Today, the light is a little more modern.  It's that little box just to the right of the antenna and right above the post.  

I don't know if you've ever noticed the ray of light it puts out, but one streak is brighter than the other.   I actually asked why, because it's something I've always wondered about.  Each port has it's own signal, and the two different brightnesses of the light is the signal for Port San Luis.  If that even makes sense.  I don't know the correct lighthouse terms!

After a nearly 2 hour hike in, a little over an hour at the lighthouse museum, we charged it back out in 45 minutes.  It was a pretty cool little tour, it just took up all of our Saturday morning and went into our afternoon.  Still, I'm glad I did it.  For living here my entire life, I guess you can never learn enough history about the area.

Wedding Wear.

I have two weddings to go to in October.  I have not been to a wedding in like 2 years, and I have absolutely nothing to wear.  Although my wedding etiquette may be a little unknowledgeable, I do for a fact know, it is a huge NO to wear white/cream/beige, whatever.

But I really, really, really, really love this dress!  I have no need to buy such a nice dress, because I'd have no other place to wear it besides a wedding.  Sadly I think I'll have to pass on this one.

I like the style of this one too.  It's cute.  It's different.  It's not something I would probably ever normally pick out.  I like the color, but I'm a neutral kind of person.  This will stand out, and I don't know how I feel about the boldness of it.

I love the little red pieces poking out of this dress.  But I'm not a huge fan of anything strapless.  I will also be photographer at one of the weddings, so I don't want to be uncomfortable.  I think I'd be constantly worried about it sliding down or something.  My mom said that we could sew on straps.  I think some thin, skinny little lace straps might be kinda cute.

This dress is super similar to the one above (obviously).  I just don't like it as much though.  The yellow just isn't enough pop of color.  Even if it was red, I still think the strapless style fits the dress better.  

I like the uniqueness of this dress.  I don't know if it would look bulky on though.  I know I said I lean more towards the neutral colors, but this one just seems kind of blah.  But it can always be dressed up with jewelry and maybe a pop of color with the heels?  

I'm not sure if this one is real wedding wear.  I like that I could wear a regular bra with it and it looks a little longer, so I wouldn't have to worry about bending over or something while taking pictures.  And it isn't so dressy that the only place I'd feel like I could wear it is a wedding.  I like that it could be worn for other occasions also.

Votes are needed.

The Birdhouse.

Back in April my sister moved into her house. (I know that was kind of a long time ago, but I really want to show what we did)! She was having a housewarming party, and I really wanted to get her something special. I was also looking to find some sort of little project, so I figured with my Nana's help, we could make her a pretty top-notch birdhouse.

My extremely handy and creative Nana went to the hardware store and picked up some sturdy, weather proof wood. She cut out each of the sides to make a 10" x 10" house. The way we designed it was that it will have 2 openings (doors) one in front and one in back. The 2 sides will have windows.

The above picture shows the 2 sides with windows. We got a thin, flexible piece of plastic to act as glass in the windows. The bottom piece of wood is how we designed the base. The birdhouse will slide inside the middle and the birds will have a little "deck" to walk around on.

My uncle came up with the idea of creating the birdhouse to resemble a Starbucks. Because honestly, who doesn't like Starbucks?

This is the front and one of the sides. I found myself making excuses (if you can really call them that) to go get some cold drinks, so that I could save my cups. We cut out the logos and glued them to the plastic of the windows.

I have to say, I think the ending result turned out pretty damn cute! It was a joint effort too. My Nana cut the wood, did the measuring, and the technical stuff I didn't know how to do. My Uncle came up with the creative Starbucks theme and even welded the post for the house to sit on. I painted, and glued, and hammered, and drank lots of frappuccinos!

And you know what? Even the birds love it!

School.

Yesterday I was talking to my boss about school. For me, this is a touchy subject. I really like to learn, especially when I'm not distracted with, you know - life. I nearly every day hear about how important it is to have an education from the ladies in the office. They each have kids in college or who have graduated, so I never really thought they were implying much when they talked about it....until today. My boss straight up looked at me, pointed her finger at me and said "You need to go back to school!" Um, thanks boss??

School is always in the back of my mind. I, on nearly a monthly basis think about going back. But for what?? I've gone back and forth with college so many times I've lost count. I never had anything I wanted to be, therefore nothing to work towards. I took graphic design, photography, journalism, business, music history, art history, engineering, nutrition and who knows how many other different types of classes. I took any class that I thought could spark my interest just enough that I'd want to learn more. Instead all I got was nothing, nothing, nothing and nothing again.

I really want a degree, mainly for myself. It's would be such a huge accomplishment for me considering how many times I've tried and never stuck with it. I want to feel educated. I have a lot of college education under my belt, but to everyone else it means nothing without that stupid, freakin piece of paper! I just hear everyday how important it is. It makes me feel less equipped to handle life - or something. I'm not really sure what it is. But I don't want just a general degree, that really means nothing to me. It's like general education in high school, you do it because you're supposed to. In college you have the option of learning about something you're really interested in. But what am I really interested in that I really want to learn?!

I stress over how I'm ever going to be able to support myself. I need to know that I can take care of myself without the help of my family or spouse. That's something that's really important to me. I have a really good job, that I can grow in now, but I don't think I'll ever make enough there to make a decent living. Even though most people who have a degree, don't even use it, it is a fact that they do get paid a higher wage.

So here I am, seriously debating going back to school.....again. The thing is, I hate school. I hate driving there, walking to classes, waiting in lines at the bookstore. I hate the stupid college atmosphere of girls who wear either their pajamas or not enough clothing at all. I hate the immature boys who have the lamest come on tricks I've ever seen. And I'm going to be older than most of them now, that makes it worse. I hate listening to lectures. I hate participating and being called on. I hate when you have to work with others. I hate stupid classroom rules. I'm an adult now, ya know?

This takes me to online classes. I love the internet! It's like the perfect solution! But I don't know if I have enough self discipline and motivation to take online classes on top of working full time. It sounds like a much better alternative to actually going to school though. So if I'm gonna go back, I think this is probably the route I'll take.

I am a little bummed I didn't get the whole college experience. I didn't make lifelong friends. I didn't live on my own. I didn't have just school to focus on. I always had a job. And when you're making money, you just want to make more money. School went to the back burner, because I had other responsibilities. I had too many balls in the air, and school became less important.

My boss said that it's not really a regret that she didn't go to school, it's just a choice she wishes she had made differently. A choice she has overcompensated with in her kids, because they have to go to college. I just don't want to be her age, overcompensating my decision with my kids, wishing I had done something I had the opportunity to do.

If I'm gonna do it, I know now is the time. I live at home. I'm single. My only real expense is my car payment and insurance. My job, I'm sure (since my boss would have talked me into it) would be more than willing to work with school. Now my only problem is deciding what to focus on. I took a journalism class at Cuesta. I liked it and did really well in it. The problem with journalism is it focuses a lot on broadcast journalism and I'm not into that. Still I think to write for newspapers or magazines or whatever, I think journalism is the best degree. Hancock doesn't have a journalism program, and Cuesta doesn't offer any of those classes online. Thus, making my decision even more difficult!

Still, after a lot of thinking and discussing, I think I want to do something with writing. I love to write. I'm a creative person, and it's my go to. I could write all day, everyday, about anything and everything. The problem with the other creative outlets I've looked into such as graphic design and photography, is you're creativity can dry up, quickly. I wouldn't feel comfortable handing a finished product off to a client knowing it's not my best work, just the best I could come up with. With writing, there is always something to say.

I've discussed this with my mom and my sister, but no one seems to really support me in any direction. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of support, maybe just not enough encouragement. I need a real push, okay, more like a giant kick in the ass in the direction I should take. I'm just not getting it from anyone. Except for yesterday...from my boss, of all people.