Whoa, time flies.

Wow, It has been a little while. 2015 was the year that made me suspicious something terrible was going to happen, because so many wonderful things happened. I guess that is how it happens sometimes, things just start to come together and for me it happened in 1 year. I landed a solidly good job with an amazing organization. I met the man of my dreams, I paid off more than half of my student loan and I got a new car! I'm going to be 26 in a week and this is what my life is. That isn't to say that every day is terrific, that wouldn't be realistic or honest of me t0 portray that. The good things outweigh the bad things and that's something to be thankful for. 

Things I'm excited for:

My garden - I just planted onions outside this afternoon and I have Basil, Cilantro, Tomatoes, Rosemary and Peppers started inside. My hope is to have potatoes, lettuce and cabbage in the ground by the end of the week. I can't wait to have everything planted and watch it all grow. I really enjoy gardening

Taste of County - My BEST friend and I are going to a big country music festival in June and I can absolutely not wait!! Kenny Chesney is going to be playing and I just love seeing him in concert. 

Fishing season - Trout season opened up on the first and I've been out a couple of times since then. Haven't had much luck yet, but I'm hoping to get out on the water more often. We were able to get out on the Hudson River this weekend to jig for Herring and casted Blood worms for Striped Bass a little. With the early Spring it appears the migratory fish are in the river earlier than they were last year, but it may still be too early for the big Stripers. 

Vacations - Mid-May is our first camping trip of the season, we will be heading to Vermont for a few days with my family. Memorial day is looking like a trip to the cabin in the Adirondacks and hopefully some good Brook trout fishing. There has been some talk about making a trip across the country in August/September to visit friends and see a bunch of cool stuff we've been wanting to see. Two of J's good friends are moving out to Northern California in a couple of months and we are dying to visit them.


I am hoping to keep up with this blog a little better than I have in the past. Life sure can get busy but I'd love to  share my experiences and stories with you all. Here's a picture for the road:

 

Gosh, It's been quite a long time. Here I am, back in New York and not very pleased about it. I came back to see my family and to try to straighten out my job situation for a while.. honestly, it's not going great. I had 2 phone interviews and then found out I didn't get the job. Another big disappointment. The rejection doesn't seem to get any easier. I miss my boyfriend more than anything, I just want to wake up to him in the morning and get the kiss him goodnight. The distance is absolutely tearing me apart and I can feel the depression settling in. I'm desperately trying to stay positive but it seems downright impossible some days. I'm trying to not spend any money, which is difficult because that means I can't drive to the rail trail to run or go hiking for the most part because that calls for driving and driving calls for gasoline. This isn't all to say that I'm not doing some worthwhile stuff. I did go for a run today and I read The Kite Runner, which I've been wanting to read. I just started Jackie Robinson's autobiography which is astoundingly inspiring. I did some painting over the weekend and I cleaned my car and the preschool a lot. I sorted through my clothes and donated a bunch of them and I consolidated my other stuff quite a bit. Tomorrow I need to schedule a dentist & doctor's appointment and figure out how I'm going to come up with the money to get my brakes fixed. Gotta just take things one at a time and get myself back to North Carolina. This place doesn't even resemble home for me anymore.

cloudy with a chance of no job :(

Having a bad day. As I write this I am using my college diploma, my 38k a year bachelor's degree, as a mouse pad. I probably could have saved myself some serious cash and just gone to staples and purchased a mouse pad for 4 bucks. I could've splurged and got the $10 one and it still would've been a better investment. I have these days, these terribly discouraging days. I know this will all make me a stronger person, but I have to say that I am scared. I am happy here, very happy to be in North Carolina.. but scared because I don't want to have to leave. I know I'll look back on this time very fondly one day. Honestly, I'm looking at it fondly right now too, but that isn't to say that I'm not kind of scared shitless. Growing up is hard. The decisions I make get more difficult every month, every year. I have to say tho, I do feel like I am getting closer.

Happiness & money

The past few days have been rather full of tough choices or weighing out choices that I may be presented with soon. There are times when it feels as though I can never have everything. Is it crazy that I want it all? I want the relationship and the job and the friends and location that I love. Or can't I have a combination of most of those things? haha. Anyway, sometimes all it takes is one piece of really good advice at the right time. Yesterday one of the people closest to me gave me this advice; "Your happiness is more important than money." Of course this belief is one of the reasons I love this person. Maybe I was desperately in need of approval that I was making the right choice to turn down a job that I was desperately suspicious that I would hate. At the end of the day I think I did the right thing. I always have valued hard work, but I don't think I realized how hard you have to work sometimes. I was under the sort of impression that if I went to college and studied hard and got a degree that WAS the hard work. Does it sound foolish that I thought that? Well anyway, I'm learning the hard way.. or the "hard work" way I should say.

On that note, I had a job interview yesterday. Let me be more specific. I had an interview for a job that I am extremely excited about. I really really really am crossing my fingers, this would be an amazing opportunity for me and I would only have to move about an hour and a half away from where I am now. I also received an email from another organization I applied to saying that they will be setting up interviews within the next few days. Exciting things happening in my life. What I really need is any job right now so I can pay my student loan. 

Moving right along, I can't wait for tomorrow to get here. I am traveling along the coast to attend a formal event on Saturday night. I purchased a very pretty blue gown a month or so ago and I'm looking forward to getting dressed up. I am fortunate enough to have a very lovely date as well :D

The torture that is landing a good job

I've decided to try something out. Here is where the idea began. It will be two years in December that I packed nearly all of my belongings into my car and headed home. I had done everything I could to get done with school a semester early (although I would technically graduate in May I was satisfied to just be going home). You see my boyfriend was at home and I had big dreams that I felt would just materialize. I'm not sure I actually thought that, but I certainly didn't imagine that two years later I still wouldn't have a job in the field of my degree. So a couple boyfriends and what feels like 200 job applications later I sit here in a Barnes and Noble in North Carolina thinking about my life
 and future. I've decided to chronicle my experiences looking for a job in this crazy world. I know I'm not alone in my journey as a job seeker, and in hopes of helping ease the minds of those of you in my position I encourage you to laugh at my experiences. Laughter, I believe, truly is the best medicine.

I went to a staffing agency yesterday and only after being presented with a math quiz that was to be completed without a calculator did I realize I have completely forgotten how to do long division. Yes, I know, seems kind of pathetic.. However, doesn't that speak to how utterly ridiculous it was that my ability to do long division was being used to see if I was eligible for a job. I graduated with honors with a bachelor's degree... That either completely discredits our education system, or our system of hiring or both (I'm going to go out on a limb and say both). Not to mention, I wasn't trying to get a job doing accounting (I'm sure they especially get to use calculators) Lets just say I was a little bit pissed off. Give me a god damn calculator. I'm not going to say I used my phone calculator, I think that would show off my ability to solve problems tho.. If I had in fact used it.

I must say tho, I left that place strangely cheerful, because I was starting to realize how truly fucked up our system is. I had shifted from thinking there was something wrong with me to being suspicious of where the bigger problem lay. Let me end this by saying that I googled how to do long division when got home, nobody's going to pull that one over on me again

23.

I have a good feeling about the 23rd year of my life. Somehow this year feels like it is going to be more about me and what makes me happy than the previous few years have been. I want to emphasize something, for the sanity and the sake of anyone reading this. Not every moment of every day is perfect and bright and cheerful. I am just like everyone else in that I have days that I feel less than optimistic and happy. I am very much about self-awareness and taking steps back to really look at myself and the person I am and the person I want to be. Having some bad days is something I can come to grips with, because it makes the good days that much better. Last night I watched a few Jenna Marbles videos and the one that really struck me is called "Draw My Life" (Here is the link to the video) Above all, this video reminded me that every single one of us has lonely days, lonely weeks even. We all have hard decisions to make, Every one deals with heartbreak in their lives. You are never alone, even if it simply be in the fact that there are other person out there going through similar things to you. 

On another note, there is this girl at a local gas station that is so sweet every time i go there. I genuinely appreciate that she goes out of her way to be friendly and nice. I'm making more of an effort to be friendly and go out of my way for people. It might not make any difference in the world, but it feels worth the risk.

Reality

Interesting things have been happening in my life. The past month and a half or so I have spent a considerable amount of time running around and a considerable reduced amount of time on tumblr and the computer in general. I might add a reduction in time spent in my room as well. I've been running and working and studying and kayaking and hiking and eating good food and playing softball and reading and exploring and going to baseball games and going to the beach. My life feels fuller than it has in a long time and I feel so very satisfied. I've had this notion for a long time that I couldn't do things on my own. It seems that I thought I needed all this emotional support from the wrong people. I don't mean this in any way negatively towards those people either, this post is way more about myself. I've discovered that it was surprisingly easy to bounce back to being on my own, it was remembering that I never truly am on my own. I went for a hike with an old friend that I hadn't seen in quite a while and he passed along a quote that someone passed along to him. This is how it goes: 

"My sky feels smaller when no longer sharing the horizon,
Its twice the size and all to myself. Selfish, You say? It’s a humble reminder that the world was yours from the start"