Growing up

I love making list and checking things off. It is one of my ways of staying organized and feeling like things get accomplished. But I have noticed that lately, I don't feel like I am setting any goals for the long term but more trying to get out of where I am. So I decided to re visit my "Bucket List" and add some things to it. 

1. Graduate from TCU with my Bachelors

2.  Start taking more photos with A's Digital SLR camera 

3. Get Engaged and marry the man of my dreams 

4. Start a family

5. Run a Half Marathon (Started training for a 10K) 

6. Be comfortable with my body

7. Pay off my Credit Card Debit

8. Pay off my Student Loan 

9. Visit all 50 States (Check here for my progress)

10. Learn to cook 

11. Learn to Wake Board

12. Swim with Dolphins
13. Go white water rafting
14. Travel to Italy
15. Buy a new car

16. Learn to eat for my body, not to just eat 

17. Run 1 more half marathon and enjoy it

18.Find a Career that I enjoy (This really should be #1 right now. I am struggling big time with this) - I am looking into recruiting. Haven't had too  much success though. 

19. Spend my 30th birthday or Christmas in the snow somewhere I have never been before

20. Host more things at our house 

21. Enjoy Life 

Now, I know that this is an every changing list, but at the moment these are some of the things I am looking forward to accomplishing in the next several years. 

I have noticed that I am starting to shift my wants/needs for when A and I start a family and what type of mother that I want to be. It is so funny how up to one year ago, I never thought about things like that. I now notice how my friends take care of their kids, the things they do, and just their overall motherly ways. I am not any where near starting a family. But I can't help but start wondering about those things.  Am I alone on this? Or does this happen to women at some point in their lives? 

When was the last time you looked at your bucket list? Have you accomplished anything off of it recently?

Photography

I am not sure anyone even reads this blog anymore, I know I wouldn't. I rarely post. I have a hard time putting my thoughts into words. I would rather just read about everyone elses lives :)

I did want to start posting some things alittle more though. One thing that I have been working on is my photography skills. Considering I have ZERO, I have nowhere to go but up!  I am blessed that my husband has a great DSLR camera that he is letting me play/learn with.

So this weekend I decided to just take random pictures and play with learning things like the exposure triangle. I found a great website called Digital Photography School. It has been interesting/challenging to learn the different settings and how they affect pictures.

After taking about 200 pictures I came out with a good 6 or 7 pictures. I was hoping that if people still read this blog, I want some advice/criticism.   Here are some photos

I finally learned to move my fingers out of the way from the flash means this would have been a much better picture!! 

Please let me know what ya'll think. I NEED criticism and advice!!

Thank you

Update

Well well well, It has been a while since I have posted on here. I was doing so well, and then... life happened.  Here is a quick small update

1. I got married!!!! I will have to do a long post/update on that big event in my life. I can say that I am by far the luckiest/happiest person in the world to have married my husband. He is the perfect person for me.

2. I am looking to change my career in the next couple years. Nothing big yet but working towards it

3. It is finally an ER month. I love this time of the year. I am hoping that the weather will slowly start to get cooler and I can bust out the jeans and hoodie sooner rather than later.  Even though, I am trying to dress nicer, nothing beats jeans and a hoodie.

4. I am thinking about taking some photography classes. I want to be better at taking pictures and capturing moments. I current suck at it, but want to get better. Any advice? Luckily A has a really good camera and I can just use his instead of buying a nice big one.


That is all I have for now. Need to get back to work!! Hope you have a great day

Half Marathon

On Sunday, Jen and I completed our first ever half-marathon.  It was called The Divas Half in Sunny and Beautiful Galveston Texas.

Sunny and Beautiful my butt!! It was cloudy, overcast, 100% humidity and gloomy. Thankfully there was a nice sea breeze that was going on though.

We started training for this half in December. Training went as well as expected. Had some great runs, some okay runs, and some down right crappy ones.  But overall I enjoyed the whole process. It was new for me to run with someone. My friend Julie is a big time runner and way to good/fast for me to have every run with. I enjoyed the conversations Jen and I had during our long runs. So, on race day, I thought I would be good. I had someone next to me that would make it enjoyable.

I was wrong. I don't know if I just had a really bad run, or what, but it was bad enough of a race that I am pretty sure I don't ever want to run a half again in my life.

                                             That me... on the left. I look stupid when I smile that early in the morning.


Here is my mini break down of the race.

1-4 were okay. I started to get tired around 3. Not sure why, I had done some GREAT 8 and 9 mile runs. I am talking GREAT!!

Around my 5, I started to panic about how much was left. I even sent Julie a text.

Me: This is the dumbest shit ever. Never again.
Julie: You're done?!?!
I had to giggle.. I only WISH I was done 
Me: Nope. Thinking of giving up
Julie: Do NOT give up. How much do you have left?
Me: 5 (wishful thinking).... 6 I lied.

This girl is great. She checked on me several times and was very motivating.

Poor Jen though. I was in tears at mile 6 and she stood by me and pushed me along.

5-8 were run/walk. Mostly a shuffle on my end. I have been having some chest pain and wasn't to happy about it. (I am going to the MD on Friday. No worries)

About mile 8 I sent A a text message

Me: If I finish... it will be a miracle
A: I'm sure you will. You're doing better than I ever would :)
Me:

                                                             That's my nope face.
A: haha


Around mile 10 I had a high. You know when people get drunk and start saying " I love you" to everyone? I was there. I kept telling Jen, that I wouldn't be able to get this far with her blah blah blah. The cop got a kick out of it.

10-11 Jen and I pushed through some major winds, and made some friends. This was their 5th half. (Made my secret goal... I will beat them.. I did!!) They were pretty cool, gave me some advice for if I ever get crazy and think of doing another one.

11-13.1. Jen left me in the dust! She had stuck my side up to this point, and I could tell she had it in her to push through faster than me, so she took off. She kept looking back to make sure I was still moving though.

13.1- Time 3:21.

We had a time limit of 3.5 to finish the race. Our goal was to finish in time and NOT be picked up in the bus. We accomplished that!!

I found Jen after the race and we sat down in between two cars on a curb. I lost it. I just bawled. I was so dang happy that it was over.

This magnet symbolizes finishing to me. Sounds stupid, but it means alot. 

I swear, I am not constipated in this picture, I was on the verge of tears and didn't want to cry in front of this stranger that I asked to take our picture. haha

My pretty sweet medal. Only get this if you finished within the 3.5 time limit. I did that! 

All in all, I didn't enjoy it like that I hoped I would. We will see what the future holds for me with running after this. As for the days after, I was okay Sunday. I am notorious for getting dehydrated and I did not get dehydrated this time. I was sore and hurt. But nothing more than expected. Yesterday, HOLY SORENESS!!! Most moves were difficult, plus I didn't sleep very well at all.  As of this morning, I am a little sore. Not nearly as bad as yesterday, but sore.   I shall live!!

Yelp, that is my story.  Thank you for reading it. Hope everyone has a great day :)

Finish This

I read this from Sarah @ Tucker Up this morning and just loved the prompts. So sorry Sarah but I am now following in your footsteps. :)


1. I don't get enough.... play time with the dog and the cat.  I wish I could sit down and play with them more, but right now I feel like I am go go go and things are never ending. I have learned that when I just lay around on the couch before bed, that I have a hard time going to sleep. Hence, I have been trying to keep myself busy (which isn't hard right now), indulge in some PM Yoga then its straight to bed. So what if its 930 or 10 at night. 5 am comes early.

our dog Jude 

My lovely cat Blue 

2. My favorite indulgence is.... Blue Bell Chocolate Chip Ice Cream. That stuff is like crack to me. I can buy a half gallon and I promise you that it will be gone in less than 48 hours. I am obsessed with it. Not as obsessed as my mother. I went over there the other day and I stole a small bowl of the it. When I was putting the carton back in the freezer outside I noticed THREE other cartons of it!! CRAZY!


3. I made a major change in my life when..... This is TBA. I may have some exciting news after a meeting set up for this week.


4.You should read..... Linda Fairstein. She is the ex Assistant District Attorney of Sex Crimes in NYC. She has a series called the Alex Cooper series. Basically Alex is the Assistant DA for Sex Crimes and there is a case and they try and figure it out. Sounds like Law & Order- SVU right? Well the catcher is that Linda puts a ton of history into the case. For example;  Death Dance is about the murder of a Ballerina. But it goes in great depth about the Ballet and the buildings that they are performed in and around NYC.  Hell gate is about a sex trade crime. But it goes into the history of NYC and sex trade. All historical factors are true. So it combines my love of Law & Order + History!

5. My secret ingredient is ..... Paprika. I use it to season my vegetables all the time. It gives it just a little extra kick.

Hope you enjoyed this!! Thank You Sarah for the great post today.

Weekend

I am beyond lucky to have some of the most amazing friends a girl could ask for. This past weekend, A and I went to Las Colinas on Saturday for my besties wedding reception. She got married in Vegas in December, so this was her mini party back home.

We fully planned on leaving early Saturday morning, like 8 am. But in reality, we got on the road about 11. Which is fine with me. We took our time getting to the hotel, checked in and then took a trip to Cabelas. I found a perfect jacket for our honeymoon cruise, plus it was on sale! A made a comment that he thought I would get hot in it. Too bad the weather decided to prove him wrong, and Sunday morning was cold, rainy and in the LOW 40's. Considering I didn't pack anything but spring clothes, I popped the tag off that jacket and wore it!!

Saturday night was a blast. The reception was held at a restaurant called The Ranch. The food was amazing and it was an open bar. Considering that this was the 2nd time in 3 weeks to see this group of girls, the conversations never stopped and it was just a complete blast. A finally got to meet most of the girls, and of course his beard took over every conversations!! (I love his beard)

There is a random picture of  my shoes, because I wore those to a wedding, and this was the first time I wore them again. They were too big for me. Bonus- I tripped on the way to the bathroom and a random couple at the bar saw me, and bought me a shot of Firefly because the boyfriend busted out laughing when I tripped.

Sunday morning, A and I made a stop at a really cool Fuzzy's that had just opened. It was an old gas station converted to a restaurant. I loved it, and I loved the food. Their chicken quesadilla totally hit the spot of my hung over self. (Open bars are never a good thing). We stopped off at my besties parents house for brunch and then it was back to Houston we went.  Several hours later we finally made it home. This was my "It looks like the Walking Dead" moment. There was a wreck and the freeway was shut down for a while. It was kinda creepy when you reference The Walking Dead to it.

I started my 24 day Advocare challenge several days before we left for Las Colinas. So I made sure to pack all the necessary things I needed for the trip. I was impressed with myself. Has anyone else done this challenge?

All in all, It was a great weekend. This weekend, is my 1st Half Marathon and I am nervous and excited at the same time. Wish me luck!

April 1st

April 1st. Pay Day. STAAR Testing Day. April Fools Day. Random Tuesday.  There are lots of great things about today. I can't not believe that it is already April. This year has just been flying by 


I made some goals for the month of March. Lets recap them and see if I did any better than I did in February. See here, if you don't remember how absolutely CRAPPY I did that month. 

MARCH 

1. Address AND Mail out invitations - Done

2. Send Thank You notes from my shower on the 22nd- Done

3. Actually do my training runs. Half Marathon is in April. Not much time to slack - I'll give myself a half and half. I did fairly decent. 

4. Fix my IRS crap!- Half and Half. Waiting on the IRS to do their part

5. Book Cake - Done

6. Book Hotel for wedding night -Done

7. Take dress to be altered - Done. First fitting is Thursday. 

8. Actually follow a cleaning schedule (does anyone have any good ones?) - Semi. I really started it last week. Its taking some getting use to 

9. Start buying bridesmaids gifts. - Have one more thing to get for them. 

10. Get an A in my 2 classes - 2 A's. 4.0 for this gal right here. 

Wow. I did way better than I originally thought I would have done.  Go me!!  Now lets see what  my goals for April should be. 

April

1.Finish Bridesmaids gifts

2. Follow cleaning schedule 

3. Finish my 1st ever half-marathon on the 13th. 

4. Go to Skyes Reception 

5. Stick to my Advocare 24 challenge that starts April 1st. 

6. Decorate our mantle in the living room

7. Find a chair for our bedroom. 

I think those are some pretty great goals. Hopefully I can get them accomplished. I have a TON of wedding goals that I would like to get accomplished in April. But I wont bore you with all those details. That will be another post at another date! 

Crawfish and Cra Cra weather

Weekends are by far my favorite time. I love when we have nothing scheduled, and we can just sleep in, and be lazy all day. This was not a weekend of free-time.

Friday night I had baseball and softball games scheduled to play. The weather great for most the afternoon. But BAM game time = crazy storm that moved in. We had to move softball to another day and baseball had to play on Saturday.  The storm that moved in produced some crazy clouds and even some hail. 

Saturday morning we went to pick up the crawfish from the dealer guy and ended up seeing our neighbors waiting for the same guy. It is so funny where we see our neighbors randomly. A's company had their annual crawfish boil and it was a complete blast. There were a total of 4 batches of crawfish and I got uncomfortably full after each and ever batch. But free crawfish makes me happy and full :)

I could go on and on about what a great weekend it was, but I have to work on some wedding things.  So here is my photo dump of the weekend. 

Hope everyone has a great day. 

Five on Friday

Friday could not come soon enough. This week has been just dragging on. But it is Friday, and I am so excited.

Five on Friday Link Up

{one} 

Wedding invitations are in the mail!! I put them in the mail Wednesday afternoon and I am so relieved that they are finally out. I got a couple text messages from people yesterday,  saying that they received their invitation and how pretty they were. For some reason, I stressed majorly over the invitations. The biggest stressor was addressing them. I made quite a few mistakes. I didn't want anyone to get addressed in the wrong way. There is one invite that I made a mistake on, and still sent it. I thought it was a funny little mistake, she reads this blog so I am curious to see if she finds it. I swear, it was my sub-conscience who wrote it that way!! :-)

{two}

Bridesmaids gifts are almost done!! I lucked out  big time last night. I went to Target and was just browsing along. I found a part of the gift that I was going to buy somewhere else for my more expensive. I ended up having to drive to The Woodlands store because the Conroe store only had 2 and I needed 4. But that is one more thing I can knock off my list!! There is one more small part that I need to get next week, and then they are done. 

{three} 

Do you ever read your fortune cookie at an Asian restaurant and think it doesn't relate to your life at all? Well the above fortune, plays right into my life. I had recently sent an e-mail asking for a response. The e-mail that I got last week, in response, was a GREAT e-mail. I know this is vague. But I don't want to talk to much about it, till everything is official. Pray for me that it will happen. 

{four}

A's company is having its annual crawfish boil tomorrow. 150 lbs of crawfish. I. AM. SO. EXCITED. I love crawfish. This will be free crawfish. No other description is needed. Who else loves crawfish? 

{five}

I get married in 51 days, and there is still so much left to do. I feel like it is a never ending task. But I love it, and I am so excited to be able to marry my best friend, and spend the day with some of my favorite people in the whole world.

3:30 Am

What a weekend!! 

I went to Fort Worth on Friday afternoon to spend the weekend up there. For as little sleep that I got, it was a refreshing weekend, with a wake up call in life thrown in there.

Friday and Saturday morning were spend hanging out with my mom and brother. I love them. It was great to just catch up and talk about life. I wish my dad could have been there, but he is away on a business trip.

Let me start off by saying that I had my first bridal shower and it was so much fun, and strange. It was great to see some old friends, and family that I haven't seen in a while. My aunt and grandmother threw me the shower at the club house of their condo residence and it was gorgeous. Very simple and elegant. It was a recipe shower so people sent in their favorite recipes. I am trying one of them this week, and will have to let everyone know how it goes. I wish I had taken ONE picture while I was there, but I didn't. I was too wrapped on seeing people and catching up. I say that it was strange, because all the attention was on me. It was awkward opening gifts and having to show everyone what it was, it was awkward when people would ask me about A and the wedding. I never really know what to say.  Does anyone else ever feel that way?

Saturday night was an experience. I have this group of girlfriends in north Texas that are just plain awesome. We all know each other from difference experiences but yet, we all get along and just have a blast together. I was not in the mood/idea that it was going to be a "Night out on the town" but I was wrong. We started off with dinner at Mannys, proceeded to a really cool place called The Rustic and ended the night as the wild and crazy dancing old women at some bar called 6th street.  By the time we got back to Euless it was almost 3:30 am... AM!! But it was a night of laughs, and great memories made. I didn't realize how much I missed those girls until that evening.

Yes, there is a picture of two of them on their phones because for some reason, this group LOVES snap chat (and group chats in general)We would have conversations with a girl at the other end of the table, thru snapchat. It is quite hilarious and I have some GREAT screen shots that I promised I wouldn't put on Facebook :)

I mention in the beginning that there was a wake up call involved in the weekend. My bestie and I woke up Sunday  morning to some bad news. One of the girls that was with us, had been pulled over on the way home and was currently sitting in jail for a DWI. I didn't drink enough to be worried about me, but it seemed to really punch me in the stomach. Should I have done more to stop her from driving? What could I have done differently?  I thought about it the entire way home and the consciences that she will face and how it will change her life, and it really made me be thankfully for my life.

Overall, I would give the weekend an A. It was MUCH needed for my overall mentality of life. I have been struggling with my job/career and it was good to change it up and remember the good times in life.

We are about 55 days away from the wedding, so things are about to get CRAZY BUSY and I am SO excited for it. It still all seems surreal. But I am ready. If all goes right, invitations will go out sometime this week, and I can start working on the small details of the wedding. EEKKK

Well, I need to get some work done. Hope everyone has a great Monday.