i (almost) survived my twenties!
So on Sunday I will turn 30 years old. This has come with a wave of emotions from panic, to fear, to grief, to contentment. Today I'm actually not feeling too bad about it. Saying hello to my thirties means closing the chapter of my twenties, and oh what a chapter that was! I've spent the majority of the week reflecting upon my twenties, what I did, what I didn't do, what I could have done better. I guess I had never really realized what an amazing and crazy last ten years it's been until I sat down to really think about it. To be honest, given a lot of the incredibly stupid stuff I did in my early twenties, part of me feels really lucky to be here. So anyhow, in honor of bidding adieu to my twenties I thought I'd compile a list of the 20 most significant events that happened in the last decade. Some are fantastic, some are devastating but each and every one had a signifacant impact on getting me to where I am now.
20 biggest things to happen in my 20's:
1. Became a parent to the most amazing little girl in the world.
2. Married my best friend in the raddest Halloween wedding ever.
3. Lost my father.
4. Lost the rest of my fathers family.
5. Earned my Bachelors Degree.
6. Started my Masters Degree (and almost finished!).
7. Bought 2 homes & become a landlord.
8. Earned my target household salary.
9. Discovered who my true friends are.
10. Spent new years eve in New York City and got engaged.
11. Lived with 7 different roommates.
12. Learned to sew.
13. Zip-lined through the Costa Rican Rainforest.
14. Bowled at Punk Rock Bowling (and met Fat Mike!).
15. Survived potty training a child.
16. Learned to make a mean drink & toss liquor bottles.
17. Saw the glaciers in Alaska (they'll probably all be gone soon. lame)
18. Bonded even more with my Mom & Sister.
19. Ran a 5K and susequently stopped running all together.
20. Learned to be happy just being me.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Saturday, April 9, 2011
apples really do fall from trees
So everyone knows the saying "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree". I've heard this saying my whole life, and to be honest it always kind of annoyed me for some reason but lately I have I whole new understanding of it. You see Little Sass, more and more, is reminding me of myself and likewise I, more and more, am reminding myself of my mother. I will say something and immediately gasp, wondering if my mother somehow invaded my brain to make me say it. It is rather scary. Even things she used to say that would completely drive me crazy, I find coming out of my mouth. This I have come to terms with. My mother and I are SUPER close so if starting to parent like her means that I'll eventually have that same relationship with Little Sass, I'm all for it.
What just amazes me though is just how much Little Sass is acting like ME (an age 3 me that is). I remember my mothers contentment to finding out I was having a little girl, it was genuine excitement over a new granddaughter and the sly gratification that karma would soon be hard at work in my household. It's not that I was a bad kid, in fact I was pretty adorable from what I'm told, but I was the kinda kid that learned manipulation early on and was not afraid to use it on my family or unsuspecting babysitters. I knew if I played my cards right I could get what I wanted and so I did, and when I didn't, well I made sure everyone around was just as miserable as myself. To my mothers delight, Little Sass is the exact same way.
Physically as well, she is beginning to look like the spitting image of me at her age. The little girl has my giant blue eyes that go from charming to daggers in .5 seconds, complete with trademark roll. She has the blond ringlet curls my mom eventually cut off after I refused to let her brush and de-tangle. I catch her admiring herself in the mirror and practicing her fancy ballerina twirls for hours on end. She loves singing songs as did I and is even recently adopting her mothers love of words and rhyme. She is a complete girly girl, changing outfits at least twice a day, even waking up in a different nightgown then I put her to bed in. The first thing she does when she wakes is put on her princess "high heels" and crown. She throws a fit when the weather forces me to make her wear pants, and will only settle for a dress with leggings at best. Sometimes I wonder where this girlyness comes from but then I remind myself that while I toughened with age, I was a far cry from the little girl that liked bugs and ate dirt.
The girl does NOT take "no" for an answer and time out is a joke in our house. I refuse to resort to spankings so discipline consists of taking away dessert, barbie movies, and princess accessories. When she is unhappy she assures I am as well, kicking, screaming, or doing whatever it takes to assure no one is having a better time than she. She has recently discovered the art of talking back.
As trying as it can be at times to be raising such a strong minded and painfully adorable 3year old girl, I wouldn't have it any other way. I know this is just a preview of the amazing woman she will one day become, refusing to accept what someone says just because they are an elder or authority. The kind of woman who refuses to conform to things just because masses tell her to and isn't afraid to fight for what she believes in. The kind of woman who is intelligent and strong and confident can do whatever her heart desires.
She is MY apple, and I couldn't be more proud.
What just amazes me though is just how much Little Sass is acting like ME (an age 3 me that is). I remember my mothers contentment to finding out I was having a little girl, it was genuine excitement over a new granddaughter and the sly gratification that karma would soon be hard at work in my household. It's not that I was a bad kid, in fact I was pretty adorable from what I'm told, but I was the kinda kid that learned manipulation early on and was not afraid to use it on my family or unsuspecting babysitters. I knew if I played my cards right I could get what I wanted and so I did, and when I didn't, well I made sure everyone around was just as miserable as myself. To my mothers delight, Little Sass is the exact same way.
Physically as well, she is beginning to look like the spitting image of me at her age. The little girl has my giant blue eyes that go from charming to daggers in .5 seconds, complete with trademark roll. She has the blond ringlet curls my mom eventually cut off after I refused to let her brush and de-tangle. I catch her admiring herself in the mirror and practicing her fancy ballerina twirls for hours on end. She loves singing songs as did I and is even recently adopting her mothers love of words and rhyme. She is a complete girly girl, changing outfits at least twice a day, even waking up in a different nightgown then I put her to bed in. The first thing she does when she wakes is put on her princess "high heels" and crown. She throws a fit when the weather forces me to make her wear pants, and will only settle for a dress with leggings at best. Sometimes I wonder where this girlyness comes from but then I remind myself that while I toughened with age, I was a far cry from the little girl that liked bugs and ate dirt.
The girl does NOT take "no" for an answer and time out is a joke in our house. I refuse to resort to spankings so discipline consists of taking away dessert, barbie movies, and princess accessories. When she is unhappy she assures I am as well, kicking, screaming, or doing whatever it takes to assure no one is having a better time than she. She has recently discovered the art of talking back.
As trying as it can be at times to be raising such a strong minded and painfully adorable 3year old girl, I wouldn't have it any other way. I know this is just a preview of the amazing woman she will one day become, refusing to accept what someone says just because they are an elder or authority. The kind of woman who refuses to conform to things just because masses tell her to and isn't afraid to fight for what she believes in. The kind of woman who is intelligent and strong and confident can do whatever her heart desires.
She is MY apple, and I couldn't be more proud.
Sass
Monday, April 4, 2011
i fell in love with the boy at the rock show
So this last week my husband and I celebrated our TEN YEAR dating anniversary. Now I realize that once you get married you get a new slate of sorts where the counting of time together is supposed to start right over but what about the other five and half years of us pre-marriage? Is it not worthy of being counted anymore? I think not, so this blog is to be dedicated to the birth of my relationship with my husband.
So yeah, 10 years! A decade, 3650 days, over a third of my life- however you want to say it, has been spent with a certain tall, handsome, and super intelligent man by my side. Crazy to think we have been together since I was 19 and could not even legally enter a bar...wow. Even crazier to think, is how little has changed for us. I mean while we are MUCH more responsible these days with mortgages, masters degrees, and a darling child we spawned together, deep down we are still the same "us" we were back then.
We started at a punk rock show. We had met briefly before that night as I had just started waitressing at the TGIFridays he bartended at and he had tried to start a conversation with me once at the service bar. I was waiting for him to make my drinks when he pointed to the sticker on my car and asked "do you really like Tilt or do you just have the sticker?". I rolled my eyes, said thanks for my drinks, and walked away.
But anyways, back to the punk rock show. So a co-worker of ours had two extra tickets to a sold out NOFX show, one of which he gave to him (the now husband) and the other went to me, the new girl at work with a ton of fat wreck chords "flair" on her suspenders. I still remember how nervous I was that night to go out solo with new people leaving my BFF and safety net of friends at home, but it was NOFX, and it was sold out, and the ticket was free so I went for it.
Once I got to the show and found everyone and chatted it up a bit, I remember doing a double take at the bartender I had blown off a couple weeks prior, outside of the red and white stripes he actually looked pretty good. We got to proper introductions and the token "so do you go to ASU?" and I got to thinking hey this guy ain't too shabby. You see at this time in my life, though only 19, I was looking for a boyfriend and I was VERY particular about what I was looking for. I even had a list:
1. Must be 6 feet or taller.
2. Must be like punk rock music.
3. Must NOT like god.
4. Must be a college graduate or at least pursuing a college degree.
Now finding someone who met all criteria on this list had proved harder than I thought it'd be, I'd find the first three check off's all over the place, but the big one- number four, in the punk scene was next to impossible at that time. But there I was, by chance at a sold out NOFX show, in front of a guy there also by chance, who seemed to meet ALL FOUR of my criteria. I remember enjoying the show while plotting how to get this guy to give me another chance after the service bar incident, gradually inching my body closer and closer to him until I could feel his chest against my back (cause you can get away with that sort of thing at a sold out punk rock show).
There was magic in the air that night. Maybe is was the sweaty obese Indian in front of us bobbing and singing Johnny Appleseed with WAY too much enthusiasm, or the beer spilled down my shirt, or the slight smell of sewage, but everything except the tall guy behind me and the music seemed to disappear that night. As all good things must come to an end, after two encores the house lights eventually came on and our group began to make the inevitible plans to hit up the bar (remember I was only 19). My fairytale night was over and home would head alone, just as I had come. BUT the handsome tall one seemed less interested in following the group to bar once he heard I couldn't go and invited me back to his place for other recreations that don't require one to be 21. I obliged. We talked music and life views and smoked cigarettes and wondered how it was possible we hadn't met until then. He played me Flogging Molly for the first time. It was perfect.
And here we are ten years later, married, with a kid we totally made together! Our favorite dates still consist of punk rock shows (especially NOFX ones for obvious reasons, of which we have about a dozen under our coupled belt to date!). Like I said, before both everything and nothing has changed in our world. I'm lucky enough to still find him just as attractive I did that first night, maybe even more so. I still like to spend time with him and talk with him. He still laughs at my puns. I especially love him when I see him playing Barbies with our Little Sass.
So yeah, 10 years! A decade, 3650 days, over a third of my life- however you want to say it, has been spent with a certain tall, handsome, and super intelligent man by my side. Crazy to think we have been together since I was 19 and could not even legally enter a bar...wow. Even crazier to think, is how little has changed for us. I mean while we are MUCH more responsible these days with mortgages, masters degrees, and a darling child we spawned together, deep down we are still the same "us" we were back then.
We started at a punk rock show. We had met briefly before that night as I had just started waitressing at the TGIFridays he bartended at and he had tried to start a conversation with me once at the service bar. I was waiting for him to make my drinks when he pointed to the sticker on my car and asked "do you really like Tilt or do you just have the sticker?". I rolled my eyes, said thanks for my drinks, and walked away.
But anyways, back to the punk rock show. So a co-worker of ours had two extra tickets to a sold out NOFX show, one of which he gave to him (the now husband) and the other went to me, the new girl at work with a ton of fat wreck chords "flair" on her suspenders. I still remember how nervous I was that night to go out solo with new people leaving my BFF and safety net of friends at home, but it was NOFX, and it was sold out, and the ticket was free so I went for it.
Once I got to the show and found everyone and chatted it up a bit, I remember doing a double take at the bartender I had blown off a couple weeks prior, outside of the red and white stripes he actually looked pretty good. We got to proper introductions and the token "so do you go to ASU?" and I got to thinking hey this guy ain't too shabby. You see at this time in my life, though only 19, I was looking for a boyfriend and I was VERY particular about what I was looking for. I even had a list:
1. Must be 6 feet or taller.
2. Must be like punk rock music.
3. Must NOT like god.
4. Must be a college graduate or at least pursuing a college degree.
Now finding someone who met all criteria on this list had proved harder than I thought it'd be, I'd find the first three check off's all over the place, but the big one- number four, in the punk scene was next to impossible at that time. But there I was, by chance at a sold out NOFX show, in front of a guy there also by chance, who seemed to meet ALL FOUR of my criteria. I remember enjoying the show while plotting how to get this guy to give me another chance after the service bar incident, gradually inching my body closer and closer to him until I could feel his chest against my back (cause you can get away with that sort of thing at a sold out punk rock show).
There was magic in the air that night. Maybe is was the sweaty obese Indian in front of us bobbing and singing Johnny Appleseed with WAY too much enthusiasm, or the beer spilled down my shirt, or the slight smell of sewage, but everything except the tall guy behind me and the music seemed to disappear that night. As all good things must come to an end, after two encores the house lights eventually came on and our group began to make the inevitible plans to hit up the bar (remember I was only 19). My fairytale night was over and home would head alone, just as I had come. BUT the handsome tall one seemed less interested in following the group to bar once he heard I couldn't go and invited me back to his place for other recreations that don't require one to be 21. I obliged. We talked music and life views and smoked cigarettes and wondered how it was possible we hadn't met until then. He played me Flogging Molly for the first time. It was perfect.
And here we are ten years later, married, with a kid we totally made together! Our favorite dates still consist of punk rock shows (especially NOFX ones for obvious reasons, of which we have about a dozen under our coupled belt to date!). Like I said, before both everything and nothing has changed in our world. I'm lucky enough to still find him just as attractive I did that first night, maybe even more so. I still like to spend time with him and talk with him. He still laughs at my puns. I especially love him when I see him playing Barbies with our Little Sass.
Cheers!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)