Day 5- Your favorite comfort foods and why

This answer is short and sweet-- anything my grandma makes.  I love almost all of it (with very few exceptions) and its my favorite stuff in the world.  I love the way my mom and aunt and pretty much everyone else in my family cooks too, but there's just something special about grandma's food.  Makes me a very happy person. :)


Oh and ice cream on a bad day. Specifically Edy's Black Raspberry.  I would eat that all day everyday if I could, it's so perfect tasting.

Day 4- Your views on religion

This is so complicated for me to answer, so I'm just gonna skip this one.  :)

Day 3- Five pet peeves

1. Smacking lips while eating.  Or make other stupid noises.  Mostly just noisy eaters.
2. Popping gum.  No  one wants to listen to it.
3. People who don't say 'thank you' or 'you too' or respond at all when you do something nice for them or tell them to have a good day, etc.  clearly a pet peeve from working in customer service.  rude folks.
4. When my face is touched.  For some reason this really annoys me, probably because there's rarely a good reason for somebody to do so.
5. When people stop listening and respond with "mhmm" and other random noises so that you know they aren't listening.  Just hang up or make an excuse to stop talking.

I probably could think of more but I guess they are my top 5, with number 1 definitely being in the correct spot and the rest are kinda interchangeable.

Day 2- Where you'd like to be in 10 years

So I decided to take a break from working on my 25 page paper to answer this one.  I feel like I deserve it, as I'm finally at 15 pages, working on 16, so I'm well over halfway done!  Especially since I could 'get by' with 20 pages if need be.

Here we go...

I don't know exactly where I'd like to be in 10 years.  Everything I had planned for 20 didn't happen the same way I expected, and I'm sure everything I had planned for 25 won't happen as I planned it originally either.  I'm ok with that though, because overall my life is going in a great direction and I know what I want now better than I did at 10 or 15 planning for 10 years later.  I can throw out some ideas of what I hope my life will be like in ten years, but I'm doing this knowing that life takes crazy twists and turns and my life will probably be nothing like what I'd imagine now.  This could be a little bit easier for 5 years, as I'm in my graduate program for the next 3 and then a CF for my career for 1, so its a little more predictable, but I'll give 10 a shot....

Ideally, by that point I'd like to be married and have children.  I thought I always wanted children early, but hopefully by having them a little later in life I'll be more financially stable, have more patience, and also I'll get to do some of the things now that I wouldn't be able to do as often with children-- like travel!

I hope that 10 years from now I will have been able to see more places of the world.  I know realistically that I won't be able to visit every place that I'm curious about, but as long as I keep making efforts to travel and see new things, I'm ok with that.  Hopefully I'll be able to instill this passion into my children as well, as I think traveling is a great great GREAT eye opener.

In ten years, I will be about 7 years out of grad school, so I should have a pretty solid job.  Thankfully I'll be in a job that I am passionate about...how much better could it get?  Who knows what field I'll be in (within speech pathology).  If I chose to work in a 501c or at a school, hopefully in ten years I will only be 3 years off from having my loans re-payed in full-- what a wonderful thought!!

Mostly, in ten years I hope that I am still surrounded by friends and family.  Those are the people in my life that make everyday worth it, and no matter the situation, as long as I still have them, in 10 years my life will be pretty bright.

Day 1- Discuss your current relationship

Ok so I totally said I was going to the blog challenge starting in August, and then, well....I forgot.  So I figure I'll do it now.  I mean I'm living in the middle of nowhere and have a decent amount of time on my hands, so why not?

Discuss my relationship status.  Ready, go....

SINGLE

I can't decide how I feel about this.   Sometimes it's nice to be able to do what I want, whenever I want.  Other times I really miss the benefits of having a relationship with someone.

I honestly think that while I'm in graduate school the fact that I am not in a relationship will probably prove beneficial.  It'll be enough to maintain relationships with my friends and family and peers, let alone a romantic relationship that is new and needs extra nurturing.  I mean lets be real, my relationships with my family and friends are so old by this point, each one feels pretty effortless to maintain because they're all just part of who I am.  Also, if I was to date somebody new, they wouldn't necessarily know random tidbits about me that may be affected by the stress of grad school.  Like the fact that I'm fairly easygoing usually.  Or the fact that I'm not overly particular about most things in life-- just school when I'm on a roll and trying to do well.  I feel like so many of those random things could be fatal to a developing relationship.

I'm not saying that I would be against dating somebody if the opportunity came up.  But let's be real, I've been single for two years and it doesn't look like that'll be changing anytime soon.  Sometimes I think I'm too picky when it comes to guys, but I'll save that for another lengthy post....

Sometimes it's a little frustrating to be the single one, when every (and I mean everyone) on facebook nowadays seems to be engaged or married.  Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for all these people, especially my friends, but it's like a daily reminder to me that my life is still in an awkward place.  Oh well!

I think those are all my thoughts for now....

30 day blog challenge

being the best me possible

I recently read the first part of a book about raising your child to be a 'whole brain child.'  Now, I don't have a child, but I do babysit and I am incredibly interested in child development, etc.  Anyway, the first part of the book basically says that you yourself should mentally healthy first.  They say that mental health isn't defined clearly, but they say that it is basically a middle ground between chaos and being super rigid. I think typically I achieve this middle ground-  I don't like being late, but I don't write everything activity in a planner, and I do things when I want to do them, but my life is definitely not crazy chaotic.

The past few weeks though, have been insane.  I experimented with going out a couple of times in a week.  After 2 weeks, I realized that lifestyle is totally not for me.  I don't really enjoy drinking (or spending money on drinks) and I'm shy when I'm sober-- standing around at a bar awkwardly with friends just isn't really my think I guess.  I never see these nights as overly productive and lately I've been trying to evaluate what purpose things have.  Don't get me wrong, I like purposeless things too, they have a place, and I do like to go out from time to time, but it definitely isn't for me on a regular basis.

All of this leads to my point of this post-  I'm going to try to become the best 'me' there is.  I have a few goals I plan on working on in that respect:

• Getting the appropriate amount of sleep: The thing about going to bars is, I work in the morning.  Which means I'm getting minimal sleep and I don't function well on that.  It makes me grumpy and less efficient overall, and I just feel like it gives me a different outlook on life. I REALLY don't like that feeling.
• Being organized:  This is as close to 'chaotic' as I feel like my life typically gets.  I am so messy.  My car right now is an embarrassment.  Part of this is definitely laziness, because it disgusts me.  I'm going to work to straighten out my room and my car, and try to keep them that way.  I feel like that would make my life a little bit smoother.
• Focusing on what I need to do for grad school:  This is 4 months away, but in the near future I will be making a decision on where to go to school (if I have choices) and where I will live, etc.  This is a big life change and I definitely should start planning it out.
• Taking time for myself:  I took a 20 minute walk at a nearby nature park and I swear it was so great for my mind.  Things like this are often neglected by me, as I am constantly busy busy busy.
• Being healthy:  Today I had a total binge day on junk food and I feel terrible.  I'm going to try my best to eat healthy food, not only for my weight, but for my overall feeling of wellbeing.  This includes also going to the gym, as I know that makes me feel better.  I just haven't hit that point where I really WANT to go.   
• Gaining patience:  I used to be a super patient person.  While I still have a good amount of patience, I feel like it is not what it used to be.  I'd like to somehow learn/retrain myself so that I can get that back.  Sometimes it made me a pushover, but I like to be calm.

These are only some of the ways that I plan on executing the best me.  I know that sounds so nerdy but I think it is really what I need right now-- to focus on me. Hopefully throughout the next few weeks I can kind of explore some other ways to improve myself.

Speaking of the next few weeks, here are a few things I have to look forward to:

• Visiting my potential grad school with my mom.  DECISIONS, DECISIONS.
• Getting my last 2 acceptances/rejections from my remaining grad schools.
• Deciding which grad school I want to attend, given I have options.
• Going to Europe with my best friend.  This is more like 6 weeks, but still.
• Finishing my classes!  First pre-reqs done for my grad program!  woot woot!

I feel like all these thoughts are so jumbled, but blogging seemed like the appropriate way to deal with them at this moment.  :)