Time for Me to Get in Shape... and Maybe a Theme for my Blog?

   Hey all! I'm so excited that I apologize in advance if I over-do the exclamation marks! I've been trying to get ready for a 5k that I have in May for my 21st birthday. Whooooooooah stop there, I'm going to run 3.1 miles (?)... for my 21st birthday (!?!)... and give myself a whole 6-ish months to get ready for it? Well I have never been one to run, but I have been doing it for about two weeks now, and I have to say I'm starting to really enjoy it. I even took my mile from 13:27 to 10:07 in just over two weeks! Those pesky 7 seconds really irritated me though I just wanted to get it down to 10:00.

   Anyways,the past two weeks have been sort of a trial run period. Now that I know I can do it and stick to it, I'm going to kick my butt into gear. That means that I need someone to answer to when I get lazy and don't want to go the gym. So my bright idea was "well why not the world of the interwebs"? So here we go... you get to travel through the ups and downs of me training for a 5k, trying to eat a MUCH healthier diet (I'd say paleo or clean, which is what I want to aim for, but let's be realistic I love my pizza waaaaaay too much!), and be a healthier me mentally. I think I might post before/progress/after pictures, but the after might be hard for the simple fact that I don't want this to be something I do until the race and then just quit, I want this for LIFE!

   My game plan is to try to make separate posts about my food journal/exercise, my progress, and then just how I'm feeling in general every week. That means I should have three posts a week on this little sucker.

   So there it is, I'm going to be a "fitness blogger" HA! How about just a blog about a girl's attempt to get healthy while juggling a full course load at school, three jobs, and an almost non-existant social life.

Things I am not Above

 As is usual in my oh-so interesting life, I was perusing through blogs that are linked on the sides of other blogs (sorry no clue what that would be called) and found this little piece of heaven Borrowed Heaven. The first blog she had posted was "Things I am not Above" and I just couldn't resist jumping on that little bandwagon (does it have a bandwagon yet?).
Things I am not Above:

• Having Derek in my phone as "Hubby": If you would have asked me a year ago what I thought of people who did this my answer would have been plain and simple "pukefest who the eff does that ish". Now I can answer that question- me! I don't really know why I did it, I guess it could be sort of an inside joke as we always call each other hubby and wifey. Except that it's not really a joke because it's not funny at all. I also kind of really hate the word hubby, and honestly still can't manage to get myself to say it out loud. Nevertheless, Derek will forever and always be named "Hubby" in my phone and I'll be damned if it ever gets changed. At least I didn't add that little <3 thing that I will never in a million years believe looks anything like a heart, in my personal opinion it looks more like an ice cream cone- your welcome.

 

• Never Growing Up: Now by a show of hands how many people actually think that they will ever outgrow Disney movies. I personally am not seeing any hands so I'm assuming nobody put theirs up. I certainly DID NOT! How I do a pick-me-up after a long day. Get home and throw everything onto the couch, even though I am well aware that my roommates will later ask me to put it in my room, and let out a growl, moan, whatever you call it that if you put it in text form equals "ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh". Start a pot of hot water for some tea/locate the biggest wine glass that we have clean. Go to my room and kick anything that could possibly be laying in my floor, and lezbehonest there is always plenty to choose from. Pull the blinds shut because even though they were open with the oh so good intentions of letting in the sun that morning to show me it was going to be a wondrous day, well it just wasn't and all I did was lie to myself. Turn on each fan in my room and turn them on HIGH as to completely freeze my ta's off. Find every possible blanket I have. This usual means moving the junk around in my floor to find my sheet which after 20 years of life I have given up on trying to figure out how, even though it always on the very bottom of all of my blankets, it is always the only blanket that ever ends up on the floor. Turn off all of the lights in my room so that it is just cold and dark. Jump under the covers because by now I am borderline hypothermic. Switch on the ol' Mac and find Netflix. Pick first Disney movie I find on Netflix. Get that warm fuzzy feeling and take a nap. Long story short- none of the warm fuzzies after a particularly ish-tastic day would be possible if it was not for Disney.

• Not liking Taco Bell: Sorry Meg, but I just can't. I don't know if it is for the fact that I really only like Mexican food from Mexican restaurants, or that I ate entirely way too much Taco Bell one day and got miserably sick, but honestly I just can't. There is no other way to describe it. I will on very rare occasions go in if Derek really is craving some and get me a cheese quesadilla which I load down with hot sauce, but if I had the choice? No, just no.

• Cyber-Stalking: I hereby charge myself with Cyber-Stalking of the 5th degree. When I find a blog I like love it isn't uncommon for me to just scroll and scroll and scroll. Once I even found myself scrolling for so long that I ended up at their very first post- almost a full year and a half before I started. At this point I obviously have to drag myself away from scrolling long enough to hit that follow or join button that every has these days. Sometimes I'll even take a bathroom break which more times than not I decide I should probably take a break and chose to stalk the ladies on the sidebar, because obviously if she follows them they have to be great. Usually I'll scroll through a couple days/weeks of these blogs before going right back to where I left off with the blog that started it all.

• Being Clueless When it Comes to Blogs: Hopefully one day this will not be so, but I really have no idea what I'm doing here. Really I just get on, read my news-feed, and then write some nonsense blog about whatever is on my mind. How do other bloggers make their layout, or is it called a template, so darn pretty. And what about those title things at the very top? I can't figure out for the life of me how to do those to-die-for description things that everyone has under their names. How do people go about having a blog post literally every day? Seriously I'm lucky if I can figure out something worth talking about once a week! Come on guys really, somebody please help a sister out. Lord knows I need it!

While I honestly could probably top this list off with quite a few more "Things I am not Above"s I think I should give your eyes a bit of a rest. That's it for now.

She Works Hard for the Money

Well it's official. I put in my resignation for the Desk Assistant job that you have all heard so much about. It's not really something that I wanted to do at all, but with the way my classes are scheduled on top of the shifts I was working, I was a forever zombie. I just can't live my life always waiting for the moment that I can climb into my bed. I will still be working the rest of this semester and through winter break, but come January 13th I'm out of here!

The main reason I didn't want to quit this job was for the steady $350 paychecks I was getting every other week. Then my hours got cut which I already discussed here. I still tried to make due, but realized that I couldn't manage it. The amount that my new paychecks were coming out to was not worth the stress of working these crazy hours. So I asked around, and found out that the Hardee's in Murphy was hiring. Derek has a connection with the manager from when he worked there in high school, and she said she would try to help me.  With a backup plan now in place, I sent an e-mail to my supervisor explaining that come spring semester I wouldn't be able to come back. Before I had decided to quit I had told him that I would be staying in SoIll for Christmas holiday and, considering 99% of the campus goes home for break, I didn't want to force him to scramble to find someone willing to work the shifts I would have otherwise been working. I also figured that the extra month would give me time to use what I am getting from my paychecks (which should increase significantly come December 15th) to buff up my savings account a bit and a month or so to find another job if Hardee's doesn't work out.

So there it is. I have officially worked at the first place that I have decided to quit. That sounds crazy considering how many jobs I have actually had, but in all honesty all of my previous jobs (other than McDonald's) have just been a "I'm going to school for a few months but I'll call as soon as I come home" or vice versa with my campus jobs. The only reason I don't currently work at a total of 8 or so places is because they ended up hiring more help after I left and I wasn't needed anymore. That being said... what would that be considered as? Would you call that being fired or quitting? When applying for a new job, I just tell them that those jobs were just "temporary" or "seasonal". Then again, it probably looks bad that every single job I've ever had has either been temporary or seasonal. Heartland is my one exception though considering that I'm going on 4 years this month!

Anyways I digress... I have officially resigned from my Desk Assistant job and although I really don't want to work in fast food again, I'm really hoping I get this job at Hardee's. Otherwise, I sure hope that Lonestar can work me a whole lot more!

Confessions of a Shopaholic

If you could scroll through the majority of the blogs in my feed, pinterest boards, YouTube, Tumblr and just about any other form of social media out there, you would realize that I have quite the addiction to fashion. This means I spend entirely way too much time browsing said sites and even more time browsing online stores and saving item after item into my countless wish lists. Obviously with the holidays coming- Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve- it is of the utmost importance that I waste even more time to find the very best outfit for each occasion. This brought me to a conversation with my sister over in England as she was stuck in the dilemma of needing to pick out the perfect dress for all of the Christmas parties coming up on base. I was obviously an amazing sister who loves any excuse to Facetime and told her to just call me up and we would go through every single item in her closest, but nooo her dilemma wasn't finding a perfect dress, it was picking which one she should buy. I've obviously had this problem and simply told her that she should go with the cheapest and most re-wearable (is that even a word?) dress. Problem numero dos- they were all only around $20 and could definitely be re-worn. My next fix would be to just buy them all, and when she sent me the pictures of them that is exactly what I wanted to tell her to do- and then she could go ahead and ship them on over here when she was done wearing them because lezbehonest, I fell in love. I obviously had to figure out where she was shopping so that I could add no a few extra hours of online shopping. So now that you have read through this mostly pointless back-story which you most likely scrolled past in order to see all of my latest obsessions I guess I should probably let you in on what exactly this little shop of amazingness is.ModCloth has honestly taken up the majority of my scrolling time lately and it has so many amazing items that I could wear to just about anything- which comes in handy considering I really need to build a new wardrobe for PRSSA/my future career, going out clothes, and should-probably-stop-wearing-sweats-and-hoodies clothes. So without further ado, because we all know how I love to ramble, here are my top picks for various occasions:

I can just picture myself wearing this shirt to class or for the many flights I find myself in. I'm not sure why I love it so much but I sure do!

These shorts are in my first to buy list. I plan on pairing them with a black body suit and some booties for New Year's Eve.

This skirt is the definition of perfect for PRSSA and the unbelievable amount of conferences I find myself going to.

Again, perfect for PRSSA and conferences.

I love animal print and these shorts just look so comfy that I feel like I could wear these daily and still look put together.

Anybody else have any amazing shops for me to check out?

Happy Birthday!

Even though I went to the Marine Birthday Ball a good couple of weeks ago, today is the official birthday of those oh too sexy stud muffins. Of course I think I got the best looking out of all of them and we all know that I am far from biased! Out of all of the Marines I have met to date, I've never met a bad apple. Honestly, they are the sweetest guys (and a few girls) that I have ever met, and it definitely doesn't hurt that they look damn good in uniform. So in honor of the 238th birthday of the United States Marine Corps, here are just a few pictures that either somehow make me giggle or so incredibly proud every time I see them. Semper Fi!

 

 

 

Who Needs Prince Charming When You Have a Marine in Dress Blues :)

You lucky readers get TWO posts in one day since I'm finally sitting down and putting all of my amazing weekend in Jacksonville, North Carolina into words (and some pictures). It was honestly the best weekend I've had in such a long time, which I think is mostly thanks to the fact that I got to see Derek after a very long four months. I think it would probably be easiest to break it up into days.

THURSDAY

As always I had to work from 12am-3am, so as soon as I got off work I ran to my car and plugged in the Swansea Metrolink Station into the usually reliable GPS on my older than dirt Crackberry. It said I should be there at 5:30am. Not saying I'm a rebel or anything, but I got to Swansea at 4:45am. Thank God I had made up all of that extra time, because it had me take a turn at a stop light that I could have sworn was the wrong one, but hey it was what the GPS said so I followed directions. Let's just say I was right. It had me pull into some extremely sketchy abandoned parking lot with some decrepit old building sitting at the edge. As I couldn't just stop in the middle of a highway, I had to pull in. However, after I was off the road I realized that I had no way of turning around other than to follow this little beat down path right into a canopy of dead trees. Let's just say I had to talk myself out of the fact that I was undoubtedly going to experience a real-life Wrong Turn moment. Luckily I just have a flare for dramatics, and found myself back to where I started and sped back onto the highway to retrace my steps. This time, I followed my gut, and since I'm just so smart and all quickly found the station. With my suitcase I made my way to where I bought my very first Metrolink ticket and waited. After boarding, I only had one more hour until I finally made it to the airport. Security was surprisingly quick, so I decided to grab an Iced Chai Tea Latte from Starbucks and work on some homework. The homework didn't work out very well though considering I didn't have a computer to look up anything. People watching it was. Luckily I didn't have to wait too long and we boarded. While I was hoping to take a nap, I was just too excited. In just a few short hours I would finally get to see Derek again. So I sat in my seat and just set my head back and waited. When we landed in Charlotte, I had a good two hours to kill so I grabbed some pizza and a Nicholas Sparks book. I had thought ahead to pack my phone charger in my purse since my GPS always drains my battery and it was beeping red. Found myself a cozy corner and snuggled up with with the book while my phone recharged. Finally it was time to board and I only had one more hour left. I got off of the plane and immediately started stripping off my scarf, coat, and sweater as it was an amazing 75 degrees- amazing considering when I left Carbondale it was 28 degrees. I found Derek when I was waiting for my baggage, and finally felt at home.
We headed straight to the hotel where, like the wonderful girlfriend that I am, I passed out almost immediately. I woke up about 4 hours later and Derek talked a groggy Molly into going to his favorite place to eat- Arbys. I ordered my usual, a Reuben with a small curly fry. Derek on the other hand ordered two of some new sandwich that they had and a large fry. He's lucky I love him considering he ate all of my fries! I won't complain too much because at least I had somebody to eat all of the food that I know I wouldn't have otherwise. We headed across the street to Best Buy where he spoiled me with a brand new camera! Don't ask me the exact kind because I'm not very smart and all I know is that it is a Canon, a DSLR, and I had heard amazing things about it from all of the students in my RT classes.
We went back to the hotel and cuddled up in bed since Derek had to be up at 4:30 so he could make it to work in the morning. Is it me or should they get to take off of work when they have girlfriends in town?

FRIDAY

I woke up to Derek's alarm and him getting ready for work. I didn't mind to much since that was the first night in forever that I remember sleeping so good. I even got a goodbye kiss and wasn't sad because I knew I would see him in a few hours and not weeks. I tried to fall back asleep, but my body wasn't about to let that happen so I decided to lounge in bed and watch Real Housewives of Beverly Hills instead. Brittany was supposed to pick me up when I checked out at 11:00 so I had plenty of time to kill. I pampered myself a bit with a nice steamy shower, took my time on my hair and makeup, and even re-painted my nails. Soon enough it was 11:00 and Brittany and I were off to Panera (or Bread Co if you're from the St. Louis area). Brittany wouldn't let me take any pictures of her because she claims that she didn't get ready that morning even though I thought she looked great! I did get this little dandy though and it made me just that much more excited about my new camera.

We somehow spent two hours just catching up on just about anything that we could catch up on before Derek was texting me that he was off of work and on my way to pick me up so we could head to New Bern for the Ball! It was only an hour drive, but it was the best drive I could have asked for since I was next to my drives-like-a-ninety-year-old-grandma of a boyfriend as he blared his country music. He got irritated with me quickly as I loved to take pictures like this one... and had to resort to selfies.

                  

A trip to Walmart for some last minute makeup essentials, and so Derek could buy a pound of potato wedges, we were off to grab us some drank. We chose to get Apple Pucker since Derek had never had it and I was shocked as that's what used to be my go-to drink. Back at the hotel and it was time to get dressed. And let me tell you, all the hype about Marines in their Dress Blues? It's for a very good reason! My evidence:

I mean just look at him! Anyways we headed to the ball for strong drinks, great friends, and lots and lots of dancing! Sorry I have no pictures of the actual ball, I was having too much fun and was too nervous to take my camera with me as we all know how rowdy those Marines can get. Back to the hotel to curl up with some scary movies and the rest of our Apple Pucker.

SATURDAY

It was a pretty relaxed day, we just laid in bed for most of the day and when it was time to checkout headed back to Jacksonville for our other hotel. Yeah three hotels in three days we're high-ballers like that. Derek went to go get his hairs cut and buy some scratch offs. I sat in bed and watched some more junk tv. About 5:00 we headed out to Cheddar's for dinner with Brittany and Bradley. We were supposed to have a nice romantic night of movies and wine and all that jazz after, but I was once again a horrible girlfriend and fell asleep within the first 30 minutes of the movie. So Derek decided to make himself a bubble bath drank all of the wine and sang to himself. I hate myself for missing that!

SUNDAY

My least favorite day, we went and packed him up for his trip to Virginia for school, stopped by the MCX to buy Carter, Keaton, and Emma their USMC shirts because we all know they have to represent. Then it was off to the airport. Not sure what upset me more, the fact that I had to say goodbye see you soon again so soon or that I'm actually getting really used to it. I was a big girl though and didn't cry. I may have teared up, but I did not cry- until I got home at 2:00am the next morning.

So that is my trip, nothing too spectacular but it was so so so amazing! Now I only have a few shorts weeks until I get to be re-united again. Plus, not to brag or anything, but I should get to see my amazing sister sometime awfully soon as well. I might hate distance, but boy do I love being reunited with everybody! That's all for now.

When Life Throws You For A Loop...

Hey all. I know I promised on Friday that I would write about my trip to North Carolina to see Derek, but there is something that I need to get off of my chest much more right now. I do promise that by the end of the week you will get a post and/or picture overload of my trip.

As a full-time college student, I am pretty used to being broke. Don't get me wrong, working two jobs and not having much of a yearning to go out every night has assisted in not being quite as broke as many college students, but still money is tight about 99.99% more of the time than it's not. I know you have heard me complain again and again about how lousy this Desk Assistant job is on campus, but let's just keep the ball rolling in that court. This weekend we found out that some random from the community is going to get hired full time from 8:00pm-4:00am Friday-Sunday. That's not that big of a deal really for normal people, but for me that is roughly every single one of my shifts. I lost a grand total of 10 hours per week off of my schedule. To make matters worse, there is only one other girl who had this change of hours make any impact on her schedule as she lost roughly 6 hours per week. There was one girl who lost 3 hours per paycheck (which is every other week). In case you aren't very good at math and aren't aware that I get paid a measly $8.25 an hour, that means I'm losing about $160 a paycheck! As I person who likes to be overly dramatic think of my future budgets, that means for the rest of this semester I will lose $640 if my math is correct. Do you know what I could do for $640? Let's make a list why don't we?

• Well for starters, that could probably buy me quite a bit of groceries, which by the way I haven't quite had the funds to do lately. I think it has come quite apparent as I have had cold cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the past 4 days. No worries though, I do still have a few other foods stuck into my little cubby in the pantry I'm just saving them for a really desperate day.
• Other priorities would be the fact that I could buy a whole new plane ticket to see Derek, preferably for my Spring Break? Whether he is in North Carolina or down in Texas/Arizona/New Mexico like he might be, Alyssa and I would love to go see our Marines together considering that our Spring Breaks start the same day. Plus any excuse to get away to somewhere I could rock a bikini and see the love of my life at the same time? Oh you better count me in!
• Or I could make Derek buy my ticket for Spring Break and use that money to buy my plane ticket to go see my sister when she graduates from boot camp for the AIR FORCE! Have I mentioned how much I love this lady? In all seriousness she may be younger than me, but she has done so much in the past two years that just shock and amaze me, not mention make so incredibly proud of her. She is honestly the best sister, wife, aunt, daughter, and just about any other label you can think of that I know. It truly is amazing how much she can make me feel better by a quick message on Facebook, and somehow she always randomly messages me when I most need my sister. Sadly she is all the across the Atlantic Ocean and I'm stuck over here counting the days until I get to see her again (which is really hard considering if you know anything about any military branch… making plans sucks with them!). Which brings me to my last point...

• It could put me more than HALFWAY to being saved up to go to Lakenheath to visit that same sister and my amazing brother-in-law. Lakenheath in case you were wondering is in England, only the one country I have been obsessed with since I discovered Harry Potter and Pride and Prejudice.  As I've already gone on quite the tangent of my sister and how amazing she is, I'll just say that seeing her pictures and hearing about all the fun British things she has been doing the past year just makes me pretty jealous, and I would like to join in on the fun. Ok one more picture to show how absolutely adorable she is! :)

Alrighty, well now I feel much much better! Next post will be of the ball… pinky promise!! :)

Some Everyday Musings & #backthatazzup Friday!

For something a little more light-hearted feel free to skip right to bottom :)

     Sometimes you just have to write and see what comes out. Honestly, the reason I haven't been posting anything lately is because I feel like I have nothing to say. On top of that, what I have posted, I feel like it's complete crap. Sorry to put it so bluntly, but let's be real shall we? I started this blog out as as a way to keep my family in the States updated on my goings-on while on a two week vacation in the Netherlands, and decided to come back to it when I was in a wild search for a hobby that didn't include sleeping. I started reading blogs. Every now and then even finding myself so lost and fascinated in them that I'd look at the date and realize I had successfully creeped to posts from months ago and it would no longer be acceptable for me to comment and anything else- prime example here. When all else fails I even catch myself popping back over to my tried and true blogs like this lovely lady and just re-reading them over and over.
     I can't help but wonder what it is about these blogs, and a countless list of others, that I love so much. If you browse through my reading list you will see everything from Mommy Blogs to Lifestyle Blogs to Fashion Blogs and even some Organizing Blogs, so I don't think that it's necessarily the genre of blogs that I'm attracted to. That got me to wondering though. I feel like it's a really big taboo to not really have a set niche in which your blog can neatly fit within, and I don't know where I want to aim mine towards. No babies, so I'm obviously out of Mommyland. I honestly feel like my life is so incredibly boring full of nothing but class, work, assignments, work, and then if I'm lucky I'll add some sleep and maybe even a glass of wine to that. There goes the realm of the Lifestyle Blogs. If you had a glance in my wardrobe, you would laugh at the thought that I would even think about thinking about thinking doing a Fashion Blog (yes I did mean to repeat those "thinking about"s). While I am regularly plagued with some serious moments of OCD, I doubt I could ever manage an Organizing Blog.
     So where does that leave me? Lost, confused, and not sure if the blogging world is really made for me. The more I thought about that though, the more upset I got. I don't want to give up this blog. When I do feel like I have something to say I love having a free place to just spew everything that is stuck on my mind that, most of the times at least, I don't feel comfortable opening up about to those in my real personal life. That being said though, I feel like I have been filling the interwebs with such depressing or angry vibes that I honestly start to question my own mental state. I have actually been looking into possibly finding a set of prompts to write weekly to get me started. I just want this place to be one where anyone who wanders onto this space knows that they will get the truth from me good, bad, and ugly. Hopefully a place that they can go to escape for a few minutes from the monotony that everyone claims is their lives.
     I promise I will not be giving up on this little blog of mine. I may decide to make some changes, and that may take me a little while to figure out, but I will keep on keeping on. In the meantime, any suggestions would be so greatly appreciated.

     To lighten things up a little bit, and hopefully make some new friends, I decided to partake in my first ever #backthatazzup Friday! I promise, if for a while these linkups are the only posts I make for a while, at least you will get some nifty jams out of it.
     Sooooo without further ado… here is the song that me and the boo-thang rocked out to together nonetheless all weekend! Want a little more on that story? Well maybe that's my idea for next weeks posts (yes I said posts as in plural because I kind of feel like it could potentially take at least two to cover the amazingness that happens when you finally get to be reunited with your love after 130+ days).