Fun little day off

The flies in our basement that get in through the garage and fly around the family room have been the biggest pain in the ass living here. They're so obnoxious when they land on you because it feels so dirty, you just don't know what kind of shit that fly had gotten into that day.

So today was a pretty good day. I finished the drawing I did of Jenipher, Kline and their baby and believe it's truly one of the best portraits I've done yet. I got my hour of guitar practicing in as well and am getting so close to having Aerials completely mastered and can be uploaded to YouTube. I've really been focused on NOT reading the music while I'm practicing-- taking off those training wheels that are separating me and guitarists that can just drop jaws wherever they go and pick up an instrument with 0 reference.

Katharine is coming up on Tuesday for her friend's wedding and we're planning on going to the Benton City bar for the first time ("the Tav" now I think, originally the Palm where I swear to God I'd never step foot in, ha ha ha). It's apparently a lot less of a dive now that there's new owners, but my mom said she and my Dad ordered a pizza and two beers there and their tab was about $30!! Lol that's means that their large pizza probably cost 4-5 times what the pizzas I'm making at Little Caesars cost and likely have the exact same ingredients. That's economies of scale at work-- we're creating a mass number of pizzas so we can sell them for $5 each and still make profit where at a bar if they sold them for that cheap they would make no money because of the time and effort a single person would have to put into making the pizza when they could be selling drinks. How business works is so fascinating to me.

So yeah taking a Benton city bar run will be a funny ass time, visiting with Katharine is pretty enjoyable in general and we've got a lot to catch up on.

Kayla and Kevin were going to the fair tonight and Kayla wanted to know if I was going (unfortunately, no. It costs $25 to just park and get in the door, not to mention the gas to get there and the fortune I'd have to spend to go on any rides). A part of me wanted to go of course but it just wasn't gonna happen. I've been trying to live as cheaply as possible lately to save some of the money regardless of the money I spend on gas just to get to work.

Here's the kitchen from the Brady Bunch. Veda W. posted this and it gave me a nice fuzzy feeling to look at this. I love the 1970's decor, reminds me of estate sales and time spent rummaging through dead people's stuff with my Dad! Happy memories. 

peace.

Just close your eyes, and pretend that everything's fine

Just close your eyes, and pretend that everything's fine

Just close your eyes, I'll tell you when 

Best. F^%$ing. Line. in this Mastodon song "All the Heavy Lifting" that I absolutely love to listen to when I need an extra push during my runs around town. I joke that with all the pizza and beer I've consumed this summer I'm not even running to get in better shape, I'm running to stay in the same shape!! 

Anyway, what's up guys? It's Wednesday morning. I had the last two days off which I spent doing the usual, but did have a nice evening last night for my cousin Graham's going away party so I'll start out by telling you about that. 

This might look like any other picture of cousins taken over the years (Minus Rachel who's in Mexico for a mission) but there's more behind the fact that it's being taken. 

I feel like things have changed for the better  in our family because of the effort I've made to keep in touch with my grandmother regardless of the painful situation that occurred primarily between my Dad and Ty a few years ago that basically took my Dad out of the picture entirely. I know my Grandma didn't intend for it to go as far as it did. I just think it more or less has comes down to my Grandma not wanting to deal with life alone after my Grandpa died and when Ty was willing to come in and take over the finances she was all for it. 

For about a year after that last cherry harvest where Ty wanted to fire me for messing up our already inefficient ticket system, I had no contact with anyone on that side of the family. I remember passive-aggressively making a point to my aunt how much I didn't like them by posting a status a following Thanksgiving when my Mom's side was visiting that it was "The best Thanksgiving ever." My aunt Teri and I got in an argument over Facebook shortly after and I deleted and blocked everyone on that side of the family for about a year. 

It wasn't until about Winter of my second quarter at Central when I started dealing with some major anxiety that I started trying to patch things up with my family. I started calling my Grandma when I was trying to come down from major panic attacks and her talk of mundane, day to day life would kind of put me at ease. She loves to talk so that kind of helped rebuild our relationship after not talking for two years. Since then my relationship with the rest of my family has been pretty good. We just entirely
avoid talking about the kind of sad and obvious stalemate that has occurred between my Dad and his family and just hope there can be some kind of resolution someday. 

Graham's going away party was actually a send-off for bootcamp with the Navy. He's going to Illinois to get his ass kicked, basically. But we're all really proud of him and he seems more than ready. It's pretty incredible, Graham lost 90 lbs in the last year by keeping a food diary and exercising in order to suit his recruiters needs. Only someone who really wants something could do that because losing significant amounts of weight is so hard, especially when you've had kind of the same build your entire life. So yeah I have no doubt he'll do great. 

The party was at my aunt Teri's house and she was cooking a lot of Dominoes (here I am eating pizza again!! I swear to God this summer I've been on the pizza diet...!). Teri, Traci, Grandma, Tiffany, Avery and I were all standing around the table chatting. One thing that came up a couple of times that stood out to me was the sudden death of a young Benton City woman that suffocated sleeping on a memory foam mattress. My Grandma went to the funeral because the family of the woman that passed is LDS and she is actually the older sister of a guy I graduated with. Very sad. 

....I can't help wonder if they'll file a lawsuit against temperpedic. 

I think the biggest highlight of the evening was that my uncle John and I actually related on something-- and this is a family member I've honestly never talked more than small talk bullshit to in my life! He asked me if I was returning to Central in the Fall and I told him that I'd decided to stay back and work full time for a quarter instead. 

When I told him I'd be "returning to business school in the Winter..." he asked me "So are they going to raise or lower the prime rate soon?" He was trying to see if I knew my shit and I wanted to seize the opportunity. I paused for a second... my mind was like 'God, think, Prime rate, interest, Carbaugh's class..." and I responded "The interest rate the federal reserve charges to borrow money? I'm not quite sure what they're doing now." 8-) Ha ha ha, Hell yea. I could have just bullshit and said they were going to lower it to increase spending if I wanted to sound like a real hotshot but I honestly don't know the REAL answer to that question. 

I told him that someday I want to go into forecasting stocks and portfolio building and he said he wanted to be an analyst himself if he hadn't become an engineer. He's bought and sold stocks before so I could probably learn a lot talking to him about his experience with it. 

I'm just dying to start playing around with buying and selling stocks on E-trade but before that happens obviously I've gotta MAKE some money. As of right now I'm flat ass broke and have been for a couple days. I've got a paycheck waiting for me at Caesar's but it's not worth the drive to Pasco to get it when I can just pick it up today when I go to work. 

With my little 3 and 4 hour shifts my paycheck is going to be puny as all Hell. I'm probably just going to keep out $40 in cash, try and stretch that as long as possible and put the rest of it away. I really need to start applying for other jobs. Things have just been coming up so I haven't had a chance yet but I think seeing my first paycheck will *really* motivate me. 

peace. 

Has it really been two weeks already?

Goodmorning.

I can't tell you how many times I've sat down to write and have to stop to do something.

Today is Saturday. I'm working at 2 pm which means I've got some time to practice guitar this morning and what not. Days that I have to work tend to be more productive because it motivates me to not sleep in because it puts me in a better mood to have accomplished things before I go. Anyway lets talk about what's been going down in my life lately.

Not much has changed between Jared and I since he returned to work. After we'd hung out I had wondered if he'd continue to be as interested in me as I was in him after that night and I felt happy that meeting didn't make him reconsider. We have been texting and snapchatting off and on for the last couple weeks. Jared always tells me about the crazy shit he does and the military has him do to maintain his physique and become a killing machine if nessasary (10 mile runs, hours of target practice, etc...).

Anyway he sent me a text a couple days ago saying he was going to be MIA for two weeks because he's going to be guarding potential world detonation machines and isn't allowed to have his phone. I won't lie, not being able to talk to him at all is going to be a bummer and test my patience a little bit. But at the same time I know that this is what I signed up for having feelings for someone in this line of work and I should just be happy he's still in Washington and not shipped off to Hell somewhere. He's too handsome, smart and sexy to have his head blown off in Afganistan, you better keep him here God damnit (lol, but seriously...)


Alright enough about Jared. Let's talk about work and some of my new friends a little bit.

Me and Kayla W. have become pretty good friends this summer! Ha ha I never realized how much we had in common until I hung out with her a few times and saw some of her badass interests. First of all she has a great taste in music. She's also the type that likes to listen to music a lot which I think is admirable. She listens to all kinds of badass old rock like Rush, Pink Floyd, Rob Zombie, The Doors... She also likes to watch the same cartoons that I do. The Simpsons is listed on her top TV list on facebook and my Dad just gave me this Simpsons drawing book which I've got really no use for. I'll probably give it to her if she wants it. 

Last Sunday I also had a good time hanging out with Brianna and her friends (almost all coworkers at Little C's) at Justin's mom's place in Richland. Being able to hang out with and get drunk with some of the girls from work was cool because I got a chance to get to know everybody in a relaxed scene versus while we're all trying to step over eachother to get stuff done at work.*

*Since I've just started my boss has been scheduling me when there's enough people that there's not a huge amount of pressure on me to be speedy. Now that I'm getting better at my job it occasionally seems like there's too many people trying to accomplish the same goal and I end up doing busy work like washing the dishes and scrubbing furniture to ensure they don't send me home early. 

I know they're doing their best with hours and I wholeheartedly appreciate just having the job as it is but unfortunately because I'm the newest my head is on the chopping block first when they get slow and start sending people home. That being said I'm probably only getting about 10-12 hours a week and need to start looking for a second job when I get home today. Right now is a really good time to be applying because a lot of people are leaving their part-time jobs for school or whatever.

I'd still really like to get a job at the Conoco in Benton City. I know they've got students leaving and they said they would keep my resume on file so I'll try to drop by before work this morning and let them know I'm going to be around until January. This is for sure now. 

I finally got the courage to drop those three classes on my "perfect" schedule-- I say perfect because I was signed up for the best combination of professors: Finally getting a spot in Tenerelli's not impossible Finance 370 class and Human Resources with Avey who's won awards. But it's just not gonna happen this Fall and maybe if I'm lucky I can take them in the Winter or Spring.

The good news is however that I'm going to be taking Cost accounting online in the Fall so I'll be better prepared for Finance 370 when the time comes... That way if I DO get stuck with Young "the anal orifice" I'll be waaay more prepared this time. Because a Finance class is basically the same thing as cost accounting class, but requires arithmetic and doesn't give very thorough explanations of the concepts because they assume you already know. This cost accounting class with help solidify these concepts and give me working knowledge for working for the State auditor next summer.

So yeah, regardless of that fact that I'm still going to be living at home trying to master the perfect pizza crust I'll also be slaving over my accounting book and taking these babysteps every day to continue toward my major goals.

peace.

Dazed and exhausted

Today's been kind of a useless hangover day.

I had quite a long and interesting day yesterday for Andrew C.'s birthday and simply felt exhausted today. Not surprising considering how much I actually drank and was still coherent enough to make conversation with Andrew's kind of serious mannered friend. I had talked to a number of Andrew's friends that night who would go in and out to smoke cigs but it wasn't awkward or anything because it was kareoke night and I was a little preoccupied picking songs.

Here's some of the songs I can sing relatively well:
Before He Cheats by Carrie Underwood
Good Girl by Carrie Underwood
White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane
Redneck woman by Gretchen Wilson (*Granted I haven't actually sang this at a bar before-- last night the bartender sang it and it gave me the idea)

And I'm going to keep an ear out for other songs by female country artists and maybe Hailstorm. I've never even been a country fan but I can sing it a Hell of a lot better than my whack at any female pop voice I can think of. It would be even worse if I tried singing practically any of the metal music I've known the lyrics of for years.

Oh! Out of the blue I got to meet Jared.

Bllllaaghhh I admit I really like his pictures.... He posted this the next day before going on a 5 mile run and swim with his friend. 

Taken by Maeleena D. who I know also took a pic of me and my Mom at her vendor stand that I've been waiting for her to upload. Still, look at the mayor of Benton city, ha ha ha ha..... God my home town cracks me up. I didn't actually make the parade but I saw Little Miss Benton City Daze that was pretty damn cute this year. It was a lot longer than usual, pageants have become popular enough that some of those girls seemed VERY well composed. 

This is Cody V.'s wife and daughter, Koty that won second place in her "division"-- that's new, it used to just be one group of really little girls but now there were three separate age brackets, including preteens. When her name was announced that she was the daughter of Brittany and Cody V. it was kind of a "woah" moment because I went to highschool with both of them and now they have this beautiful little daughter with her own personality and dreams. 

She was the first contestant announced so I was excited to see if there would be any other parents names I'd recognized like Courtnie H.'s daughter or Chrissy's but I didn't. I can't remember saying 2 words to Cody V. in highschool but because he was popular and I took yearbook pictures I'm sure I did at one point or another. Anyway yeah, the pageant was too cute, I'm sure I'll see more daughters of people I recognize in the next few years which is fun to see. 

Anyway.

Jared came into the tri the day before "Benton city daze" (Yes they've been spelling it that way for years). I was excited last night to hear that he was driving here and hoped we'd get a chance to see eachother but for obvious reasons I didn't have my hopes up. Kayla, Koty, Kevin and Austin came over for a little while when I'd invited Koty to come over and play guitar. We originally had the plan to walk around town but it started raining crazy hard. 

Kayla took Austin home pretty quick after they got here. I understand, I had turned on the TV but me and Koty were really wrapped up in guitar. Koty told me I'd gotten a lot better since that last time he saw me which made me soooo happy to hear. Getting a compliment like that from a fellow guitarist is huge, especially someone who loves it as much as Koty. I really need to draw him one of these days, he's been asking me forever but I always find a girl I want to draw more... lol, no offense to Koty, guys are just more of a pain to draw.

After hanging out at my house for awhile waiting for Kayla and Kevin to get back I made a Digorno's pizza that we had some of before heading over to Kayla's with the intention to all hang out and drink a little. I'd picked up my favorite red beer and a Steel Reserve that I didn't end up drinking until going to Jared's later. I'm glad I'd brought it because he was drinking Corona extra that I think tastes like the smell of piss (I'm sorry that's a gross thing to say but it's true). Modelo all the way if you're going Mexican.

Jared texted me pretty shortly after getting to Kayla's place saying he was drinking beer and watching movies and that I was free to join him, this was at about 8. I did stick around at Kayla's for about an hour longer to talk and laugh while chillin out on the front porch and Kevin was working on his motorcycle. Kayla and I have a great time. They were sad I was leaving because they were gonna make mixed drinks. Kayla then had realized they had no soda which kind of gave us a better reason to drive back passed my house. 

I touched up my makeup again (I had a long day so I was by no means looking my best at this point but didn't have time to start my makeup all over). It didn't take long to drive to Jared's Dad's house in the nice part of Richland. I was really impressed by how nice his Dad's place was, but what's funny is Jared and I stayed in their guest room because he hasn't actually lived there.

Jared and I get along pretty well. When we were hanging out in the kitchen downstairs we started talking about Dragon ball Z and the adrenaline I used to get from watching it as a kid. It has the same effect on him but he started watching it when he was 16, ha ha ha. We ended up watching it upstairs and it was like nostalgia crack. I was laughing so hard and having a grand time.

I hope Jared and I get together again but I won't hold my breath. He's a busy dude with all his military stuff and I don't know how often he gets days off. Still this is kind of perfect for me because there's no pressure. He lives on a military base surrounded by other men so I know he loves it when I send pictures on snapchat and texts. I get to see what he's up too and get some of that attention I've been craving without worrying about whether or not we're going to see each other anytime soon.

Alright that's all I had to say tonight. I'm going to see if I can get a blogspot app on my phone tomorrow. I have so many google logins on this computer half the struggle of writing is just getting into the right account.

peace. 

1st day on the job (and check out this crazy cake)

Hey guys. It's 10:27 pm, Tuesday night.

I just worked out for about 20 minutes. Figure I'd try to make a dent in the amount of calories in 48 oz. of Bud light and Clamato and a BLT sandwich I enjoyed this evening after my first day at work. I'm all sweaty and slippery from putting on tanning lotion shortly before doing a couple workout videos which probably wasn't the best idea. Anyway.

My first day at Little Caesars was pretty good. Brianna M. was who trained me and did a pretty good job at it. I've known Brianna since we were kids which took a lot of the pressure off versus if it were a stranger. I really like my boss Rita too. I expected her to be really hard on me for some reason but she was actually quite friendly and told me I did a good job at the end of the day. Though I'm not yet as fast and effective at doing things as I'd like to be, I think I'll catch on pretty quickly. I just really want to do a good job and mess up as little as possible because I'm so happy to have gotten a job after this summer anyway.

But I will mess up occasionally, just part of the learning curve. What I like about this job is it's extremely task oriented. As a crew member you're either at one station flattening the dough or making breadsticks, or you're at the next station preparing pizzas to be held at the rack ready for baking, or you're boxing pizzas and getting it ready to go for the customer. The faster and more effective I can do these skills the better I'll do at this job-- period. And because today was my first day I was obviously slower and cautious but I'll be able to speed up in time.

Luckily today was just slow and steady.. Brianna told me it can get kind of crazy when they're busier and have to predict how many pizzas to have ready to go. Tomorrow I'm working from 4 pm-8 pm  with the woman that trained Brianna so I'm hoping she's cool. Thus far I like everyone I work with, including these other two Hispanic women I worked with but I'm drawing a blank on their names right now. One of the women didn't speak any English and I tried to friendly communicate in my crummy broken Spanish and we all laughed. The other woman that did of course speak English was really cool and also helped me out a lot today. She's got four kids.

Speaking of kids... 

My sister made this insane Elmo cake (pictured above) for this little girl's birthday. Her name is Lillie and she's been living with my sister's boyfriend's family for about a year now. It's really none of my business why but I know the baby's Dad is this guy named Lorenzo who still seems like a kid himself. 

Here's a picture of the cake from the front. The Elmo itself was actually shaped using rice crispy treats-- I thought that was really clever. Of course it took an ABSURD amount of food coloring to achieve those shades of red and blue so our kitchen was a complete disaster when I arrived home. I decided to go to the store and get a microwave dinner instead of bother cooking... My mom spent hours cleaning the mess this cake made.  

A bowl of rice crispies sounds pretty good right now.

Goodnight!

peace. 

Love is a tragedy. All that I have, all that I'll ever need ...

Is right here inside

Let the winds of freedom be my guide

(Jeff Loomis. Reminder to myself to start paying attention to incredible guitarists again)

Afternoon readers.

Lately I've had a lot of time to think (like that's something new), successfully returning my psyche to a productive equilibrium of not having my "heart" distract me and make me sad. That's the only way I can put the feeling I have when someone comes into my life seeming totally into me which gets my hopes up but then disappears for whatever reason. It's always a painful experience to go through that lingers with me a week or two after it happens.


This has happened to me twice this summer which has made things like being motivated to look for a job, practice guitar, etc... much harder than they've had to be because of underlying anger, confusion and depression. And at this point in my life the anger and confusion is not directed toward anyone else because it's so easy for me to read and understand why other people do what they do.

I get angry at myself for having any desire to be with another person and letting it make me sad what so ever. I get confused at why luck continues to be serially dreadful that this aspect of my life even if I know I'm very attractive, talented, funny, driven, intelligent, fun loving, adventurous, active... Which should be enough to make me happy!! There's no fucking reason for me to be "depressed" anymore. At 22 I've already accomplished sooo much of what I envisioned myself doing as a child/insecure teen and need to learn to be happy that my talents, intelligence and success will only skyrocket from here if I continue to be this self motivated trying to fill this hole in my life.


It's been two weeks since being let down by a guy who I'd been talking to who I thought was over his ex but apparently wasn't. When I realized that I didn't bother questioning it, especially when I know this particular girl went gone through nearly as much bullshit I did with Jack to get this guy. You know I'll admit I find this guy attractive too and when I found they'd been broken up for a year I thought what the Hell, but after a week of flirting and getting to know him suddenly it's obvious they're back together and in love and everyone's happy.

Good for them, you know. Good for every fucking girl I know that was once lonely and now their dreams have come true and everything's so perfect. I'm so happy for you all.

But more importantly I'm happy with myself and could give a shit about your happiness. I realize now I could die tomorrow and feel I've done all I could do at this point to make myself the best person I could be and that's all I can ask so I won't compare what I have to anyone else.

...I'm gonna go practice guitar for a few hours.... sorry for the language you guys. Had a lot to get off my chest but I truly am feeling content again. Having nobody on your mind does that to you. I'm also happy to say I got a job at Little Caesers and will start working there on the 28th.

peace. 

Trying for years to fix this....

Evening..

Today was pretty interesting. For the first time this summer I had the balls to visit my grandma regardless of the fact that Ty owns everything now. Ty did call in a number of times, probably to ask whether or not I was still there and could come home without feeling awkward. I appreciate that he *did* leave today because it made it a lot easier to see my aunt and Grandma without bringing up the elephant in the room, but there was still so much tension.

My aunt Traci had come a few days ago to visit and my Mom couldn't help crying about how fragmented our family has become. She talked about how my Dad felt like he was exiled from his family and didn't know if anything would ever change it. I thought years would heal the pain but it's only made it worse. My Dad wants a relationship with his mom so badly but the tension between Ty and my Dad is too much to even step foot in that house after all that has happened....

It's such a catch 22 because Tyler plays a substantial role in my grandmother's life and none of us wanted to take that away from her. Having grown up LDS and always having a man tell her what to do, my Grandma has been afraid of feeling purposeless since my Grandpa died. She has taken care of Ty like she took care of my Grandpa and it makes her feel special so she's been willing to sacrifice the relationship with my Dad to give Ty what he wants. She felt that Ty should have the farm because my Dad has a great job, wife and daughters so he didn't need it.  What my Grandma didn't realize is how much the farm meant to my Dad which to this day destroys him.

At this point there's nothing we can do. Tyler has full ownership of the farm, including the shed and the land my Dad so carefully tended to all those years... I remember coming out to his barn in the evenings and I would be so proud of the beautiful gardens he planted. I would roam around and look at the tools he'd collected or catch frogs around the irrigation ditch. I remember listening to crickets and running through the weeds during sunset like it was the most beautiful place on earth. When that was taken away from us I didn't realize how much of an impact it would have but the repercussions have been more obvious every summer.

Annnyway..... Went over to my Grandmother's house today to visit. Traci had to deliver something to an elderly woman she used to care for so my grandmother and I had about an hour to talk. We talked about the usual-- About school and that I'd be graduating in one quarter, I asked her about her involvement with the Mormon church, etc etc... Anthony showed up and sat down, which was interesting having talked to him for the first time in a few years.

Here's a picture of Anthony and Wyatt. 

Anthony has gotten so tall! At least six foot... He's not a bad looking kid but definitely into  video games and anime to the point that the mainstream girl would be like "Whhhaaat are you talking about?" Lol about where I was at that age. 

peace.