Happy November! NaNoWriMo Update #1

Hello all! Happy November!  I can't believe how fast the last few months have flown. It seems like yesterday was July 4th and I was in Wyoming with my family and now here we are the first week of November in Kansas with cool weather (finally!).

As I mentioned I would, here's my update for NaNoWriMo.

Grand total thus far: 6,305 words.

Nov. 1:  3,162 words
Nov. 2: 3,143 words

I have yet to start writing for today's goals because I have been studying for my law exam for this evening.  I have no doubt that I'll knock out my words for the day when I get home from class this evening.

I don't really have a favorite line I've written so far.  I do however have a favorite character that has been developing quite nicely, that's Staff Sergeant Dugan a hospital volunteer who devotes his life to the hospital since that was where he did his rehabilitation when he came home from deployment.  I love writing his character because all the things just flow and though a lot of it I don't even realize I'm writing it just goes together in a way that at the end I know it'll be all tied together.

No sign of one of the main characters yet, Mrs. Irma Bluff.  I have a feeling she'll make an appearance in the next couple of days though.

NaNoWriMo 2014

I've said it before but I'm doing NaNoWriMo despite my terrible track record with starting and never finishing with 50,000.  Regardless I am happy with the work that I've done for NaNo in the past and I'm happy that I found the time to let myself be creative for however many words I did accomplish.

This year however I'm planning on taking NaNo down and claiming 2014 as my first year as a winner.  I've been working on various things related to my "idea" for the last month.  Yes, I said "idea" instead of "plot" because I didn't have a plot to begin with.

Not only have I been planning with characters and plot stuff but I've also designed some NaNoing tools I'll be using to make things easier on me than it was in the past and keep myself motivated to keep writing.

These tools are seriously nothing new than what a lot of others have been using to accomplish NaNo for so many years now.  I'm talking about new notebooks, a prompt jar, special handmade calendars for word count tracking, character cards, and my favorite, spread sheets for all the things!  Spread sheets in all honesty aren't going to be that useful once November 1 gets here because I'm not going to flip between tabs all that much.  It was just a great way to get characters organized when I first started.

Speaking of characters I did something new with the planning of those this year.  I actually planned the majority of them out, or at the very least most of them have names!  It took me a few days but I compiled a pretty extensive list of names and paired first and last names together (cue my spreadsheets) and then as I thought about my plot I filled in some of the missing stuff about them.  My NaNo this year has a lot of characters, major, supporting and minor and I knew that when I first started.  In times past, though those NaNos were quite smaller in regards to characters I would still get hung up over characters and their names and personalities and everything.  Having so much planned on the characters' part is so great because I have a broad foundation to start and I can develop along the way!

My working title was "Paging Dr. Drama" but that changed within the last hour to "Living Thought, the Last Request" which sounds like it's apart of a series...but I like it much better than the first because it actually grasps at part of the overall theme.

Currently my synopsis is as follows:

For the attendings at Lynnhurst Memorial Teaching Hospital life is about to be thrown upside down.  The chief of staff's brother just showed up out of the blue taking over the emergency room with no approval from anyone.  Mrs. Bluff, a hospital donor and board trustee, has showed signs of liver failure and has made her hospital stay hell for everyone in a ten mile radius.  The most daunting thing that the staff and students of Lynnhurst are facing is the closure of their prized teaching facility by their own hospital board.  The only one they can count on one hundred percent is the unruly patient in liver failure in room 501, Mrs. Bluff and that option is getting even grimmer as the days pass...

Whew, lots of words! Thought I'd at least hit on some of this stuff now before NaNo starts so I can have something to look back on during the final planning stages before the month long event happens.

I'm going to try to update every Monday here with my word counts and maybe my favorite lines and/or scenes.

For all those doing NaNo, best of luck!

I'll be participating in NaNo stuff on Twitter, follow me here.
And of course, my profile at NaNo HQ.

Go Boldly

The amount of time I find myself spending in Target is kind of astounding. Like I'm constantly feeling like I'm overwhelmed with things to do and then I'm just roaming Target.  Maybe it's a way of relaxing while I get my walking in for the day or maybe it's just my way of procrastinating and scoping out my next 'big' purchase at the same time.  If you're wondering, I'm eyeing a new desk that would look fantastic in my room.

Today's quote is from one of those canvas things in the decorating area.  One of these days I'll actually buy one for my wall.

The first thing I thought when I read this was along the lines of "Yeah, that's right!" And then of course I had to snap a photo and send it to Insta so I wouldn't forget such wonderful words.

This is one of those quotes I'm adding to my "everyone needs to live like this" list.  Imagine if more people decided to follow their dreams.  I'm not saying it has to be something dramatic like calling your mom, telling her you're dropping out of college and  then move home the next day because I actually did that a year and a half ago... The point, doing something that moves you closer to that goal should make you feel great, yeah?  Why aren't we doing more of those things?

School Update: Halfway Done

I was actually pretty nervous about starting this semester off.  The last time I took a full load of classes I struggled to keep up with all the homework.  I was also very active in several organizations that took a lot of my time.  I didn't know how to balance things and I definitely didn't know what time management really meant.

This semester, like I mentioned in this post, I'm taking five classes which equates to fifteen credit hours.  I honestly can say that I've learned a lot from this semester already and we're only half way done!  I've learned how to prioritize things, streamline certain activities, how to say no to extra shifts that would put my academics on the back burner, and most of all, that I am capable of great things.

This Is The Stuff

This past weekend was one of my craziest weekends and also one of the most stressful ones I've had in a while.  My parents left early Friday morning for Hays, Kansas because my grandmother had just been transported from a Dodge City hospital to the one in Hays for treatment.  I had the house to myself for the weekend (the only exception was our three fur babies, of course).  But the weekend took the exit for Crazyville and Stress City.

I get call from my lead instructor at school about the Midwest Beerfest event on Saturday that I was going to attend to help promote our school and our hospitality and culinary arts program.  I was told that I needed my chef's coat.  I knew exactly where my chef's coat was...hanging in my room still dirty from the last event I had to wear it to a few weeks ago because life has been too crazy to go to the laundry mat and get it washed.

My post Midwest Beerfest selfie.

No big deal, I thought.  I'll go to the laundry mat and wash my chef's coat and my work shirts. Plenty of time to do it and there's ample time to work on the mountain of law homework I hadn't done during my "free" week.  Except I had no cash and the debit cards I had in my possession I did not know any of the pin numbers so I couldn't get cash out of the ATM. Which meant that I couldn't go to the laundry mat. My Plan A was scrapped.

I started to panic.  Leave it to me to panic about something so small.  I think because I was home alone with no direct supervision from my Ma to make sure I got things done right I was freaking out more than I should have been.

Dry cleaners! Those were a thing!  It's one in the afternoon on Friday and I roll into a dry cleaner's in Derby with my chef's coat and a serving shirt.  They tell me their turnaround is like three days, that their company does do same day service.  I asked if they knew anyone who did and they looked at me with blank, pitiful eyes.

I sit in my car for a few minutes on my phone searching for dry cleaners in Wichita.  I pick one at random and call them.  By the way, I hate making phone calls so this shows how desperate I was.  The guy at this dry cleaners was super nice and gave me answers to all my basic questions and told me they could have my items ready the next morning at 9:30! I wasn't supposed to be at the event until 12 noon!

West Wichita is like a whole new city to me because I basically eat and live on the east side.  On my long drive (it was only long because I didn't know where I was going) a song popped into my head as I was driving.  The song of course, after I started to sing it, made me laugh and smile and I was feeling ten times better.

 

 

What is your song that you end up singing when you're feeling stressed out?


I'm linking up with Emmy for Music Monday, again!

 

 

If I Wasn't Afraid...

Just the other day Ashley and I were talking via Twitter about taking risks and doing things that we might be afraid of.  Since then I've been really giving myself a pep talk, internally of course, I don't want to sound too crazy to my coworkers and classmates, about just doing things.

Today this quote has me thinking, what would I do if I wasn't afraid of failure or messing up big time?

Photo: SoHo Hotel, London

To start off with, I wouldn't be dragging my feet with the process of applying and interviewing for a hotel job.  I mean, I'm a hotel management major and that means I sort of need to work in a hotel to gain real work experience.  But of course, the Anxiety Monster makes it way out of it's hiding hole I shoved it in for the last few months and here I am.  Dragging my feet.

In all honesty I don't know what's holding me back.  I would like to think I great personality, I put my guests first, I'm not afraid of hard work, I'm a good team member, I'm willing to learn.  What's the big deal?

I find it ironic that I'm an introvert that wants none other than a job in an industry that revolves around talking to people, especially people I don't know.  Maybe I'm afraid because if I start to get interviews lined up and applications submitted that means I'm on way to a daily interaction with hundreds of people?

I think I'm reading too far into this.  I think really I'm afraid because it means that I'm becoming closer to the career that I'm so madly in love with and that means I'm becoming an adult.  Wait, what? Jess an adult? Yeah, I'm nearing 21 now and I still don't consider myself an adult....

My parents had little to no idea how a hotel operated when I made the announcement that I was considering a career in lodging and hospitality.  To be honest, I knew the basics but that was part of what drew me in.  I recall having a conversation with my Ma a few months ago when I was finishing up my course on leadership and management in the hospitality industry.  I remember confessing to my mom that I was utterly scared poopless that in a couple of years if I went on to finish my bachelors at a larger university I could very possibly get a managerial position after graduation.  I remember telling her that I wasn't ready for that yet.

"You're still learning.  No one expects you to be able to run a hotel yet.  There's still things to learn and do."   Folks, my mother was right again.  I've been over thinking everything and making myself sick over it and that's only fed the Anxiety Monster.

"Count to five and do what you've been afraid of." That was the advice that Ashley gave me.  So, this is me counting to five, taking a breath and doing because I'm tired of staying in the same place when I could be doing something great.

What's one thing you would do if you weren't afraid?

Boys of Fall

This past Friday was my little hometown's homecoming.  My bestie was home for the weekend and even though I had a terrible day, my back was killing me and I was not keen at the idea of sitting on metal bleachers in the cold (and possible chance of rain) to watch a sport I had little to no idea how it was played I went to the football game.  I'm so happy I did because I had such a lovely time chatting my best friend since kindergarten who is literally like my sister (I call her parents mom and dad and I claim her brothers as my little bros).  I even figured out a little about football!

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Alma mater homecoming game with the bestie.

View on Instagram

A and I watched the halftime homecoming ceremony reminiscing our senior year homecoming football game in October 2011.  For the first time in high school I spent most of the football season standing on the fence watching my classmates play their hearts out and appreciated their hard work.  The memories I made in the bleachers senior year are ones that I love to revisit each year around this time.  Usually it happens when I hear Kenny Chesney's Boys of Fall.  Without fail this song takes me right back to those home games we looked forward to.

Now I feel the need to watch Remember the Titans!

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I'm linking up with Emmy for Music Mondays!

Your Servers Are People Too

One of my favorite bloggers, Ashley from Forever Ashley posted yesterday an experience her and her husband had while dining out at a local sports bar in Atlanta.  She shared with her readers about their server and how wonderful this young man had been and how he thanked them for being so great.

Photo: from WaitersToday.com

This post reminded about the total opposite of what this young server could have endured instead of the lovely conversational guests he had with Ashley and her husband.  I don't know how many stories I've heard from my classmates that also work in the food service industry and their horror stories of sorts of guests who are, let me just put it this way, less than desirable to deal with.  Even in fast food I've seen my fair share of guests who have gotten angry at a coworker or even myself for something trivial or out of our control.

The thing that I want to point out is that people who work in food service may not be doing it because that's what they want to do in life.  Think about it, most people don't want to spend six or seven days a week standing for eight or more hours, walking, carrying trays, lifting things, busing tables, standing over a grill, etc.  They are most likely doing it because they need some sort of income and that job is probably just a transitional phase.

I feel like this shouldn't need to be a public service announcement, but your servers are people too.

Even for people like my classmates and myself who want to be in this industry there are a lot of jobs we have to suffer through to make it to where we want to be.  We do it with a good attitude and give every day our best effort.  I'm pretty sure no one is seriously out to ruin your meal/day so that we can not get tips and you know, pay the bills.

Now take a moment, think about the last time you got frustrated with your server.  Was it something that the server was in control of? A lot of frustration that comes from guests in the food service area, it seems, are things that the server can't control, like running out of caramel cupcakes in Ashley's case.

It aggravates me that there seems to be this idea of giving inferior treatment to those who work in the hospitality industry.  Yes, this is a service industry but we're all humans too.  Can we not forget that when something goes less than planned?

Okay, my ranting for the evening is finished.

Riser

I have been known to impulsively buy an album with little to no thought about it.  Most of the time the music I buy I listen to on Spotify for weeks before I finally decide to buy from iTunes.  My impluse buying tends to be when I'm shopping at Target.  So maybe my impulse buying isn't really an impulse but just a tradition?

My most recent trip to Target that involved "impulse" resulted in adding a new favorite to my list.  Riser by Dierks Bentley.

Track List:

1. Bourbon in Kentucky
2. Say You Do
3. I Hold On
4. Pretty Girls
5. Here on Earth
6. Drunk on a Plane
7. Five
8. Riser
9. Sounds of Summer
10. Damn These Dreams
11. Back Porch
12. Hurt Somebody

My Favorites:

1. Riser
2. Damn These Dreams
3. I Hold On
4. Drunk on a Plane
5. Back Porch

My absolute favorite verse comes from Riser.

"I'm a riser. I'm a get off of the ground, don't run and hider.  Pushin' comes to shove, hey I'm a fighter. When darkness comes to town I'm a lighter; a get out aliver, of the fire. Survivor."

It's been a while since I've been able to find an album that isn't more than fifty percent of tracks that are fast paced or have more of an upbeat tune that I really enjoy.  Of course, when I find an album I love as much as this one I play it all the time. 

What's the last full album you've purchased that you just can't get enough of?

I'm linking up with Emmy for Music Monday!

September Favorites

The last month since I posted last has flown by.  This morning I thought I would sit down and throw some words out on my screen to at the very least let you all know I'm still alive.

I've come up with several things I wanted to blog about but today I felt like I needed to do something lighthearted and maybe even a bit fun!

Basically this post is just stuff I've found in the last month that I like and that I want to share.

A few weeks ago I got the opportunity to tour the Hyatt Regency in Wichita for an event my class is planning.  The tour sparked a bunch of questions in my head, one of which was what did it take to turn a ballroom over?  This video of time lapse of just that at the Omni Forth Worth hotel was an awesome answer.

I follow several different hotel brands on Twitter to keep up with industry news.  One of my favorites has been Hyatt. They have a special team devoted to tweeting at their guests and it makes me feel so happy that they've taken this stance on Twitter.  You can find them @HyattConcierge

Hyatt had tweeted this photo and I've since shared it to all my social networking sites because I love it so much.  For me this goes for both people who are traveling and for those to explore their own city.  I think it's super important when traveling to do things the locals do and eat where the locals eat.  How else are you going to really experience the culture if you only doing the touristy things?

I think this speaks for itself. I just love it.

Slowly this is becoming one of my favorite quotes.

This article titled 8 Things People Who Hate Confrontation Understand was basically written to explain me as a person.

I found this a couple of days ago and I'm still laughing.  Pig In Australia Steals 18 Beers From Campers, Gets Drunk, Fights Cow.

9 Reminders from Famous Women to Follow Your True Dreams. #2 is my favorite.

Hopefully it won't be another month before I'm back here, but I can't promise anything.  I'm pretty active on Twitter still, you can follow me here.

Eating, Sleeping, Living in the Hospitality Industry

I've been absent for a while and believe me I miss this little space I've created on the internet but as you can suspect, real life got in the way. Again.  This time around I'm not upset with it by any means because I've been doing stuff that I absolutely love.  That doesn't mean I haven't been working hard though.

MOS

The first thing I want to mention was Mulvane Old Settlers Days that fell on the third weekend of August as it does every year.  As a member of the American Legion Auxiliary I worked our booth downtown where the festivities was going on.  I spent the majority of Friday and Saturday at the booth with other members.  We sold water and soda for a dollar as a fundraiser for our post that we do every year.  I got the opportunity to interact with veterans from outside of the area that had traveled to the Mulvane area for MOS weekend.

The biggest part of MOS (for the Legion) was the event we hosted at our post on Saturday night.  We hosted the Nick Gibson Band  and held a beer garden.  I was apart of the planning committee and helped to volunteer during the event.  I was tied up with logistical things for the time that I was there and I did not get to indulge in the live music.  Nor did I get to take part in the beer garden, but it's not like I could do that anyway since I'm still a few months shy of 21.

Classes promptly started the Monday after MOS weekend.

School

Because I feel like I'm slacking in school because I left my other school in the middle of the semester and then didn't get back to school until a year after that, I feel the need to play catch-up and graduate a semester early then what the program track has me on.  Sooooo, I'm taking 15 credit hours this semester. That's right, FIVE classes.

Hospitality Law is hands down the toughest class yet and I have no qualms that it will continue to be a tough class.  The first week was basically just learning about all the legal terms and such that go with the court system and the differences between criminal and civil cases (hospitality organizations usually have to deal with civil cases, in case you were wondering).  There's a lot of coursework for this class and we work for three hours every Monday in class on the case studies in our book.

Introduction to Catering is a fun class.  Our instructor gives us different scenarios and we have to come up with either menus, list of items we need to take (for off site locations) or other things.  The hardest part of this class has been figuring out how to remember the equations to find the cost per person for each menu item.  I have it down for the most part but when it comes to figuring the meat cost it gets tricky because of the shrinkage!  I'm looking forward to two different events we're going to: the United Way breakfast that is going to feed over a 1,000 people and the Cisco Food Show.

Facilities Design & Management is currently my favorite class.  For the semester we are creating our own restaurant (or hotel in one student's choice) and we're doing everything from the naming and branding, down to designing the facility with a computer software program.  I plan on making a post with some of my ideas I didn't use for the first part of my project, stuff like concepts and names.  I'm still trying to come up with a slogan for my project so stay tuned in on Twitter because I'm sure I'll tweet it!  Another assignment I'm really interested in getting started on is interviewing a restaurant owner about their thoughts of opening their business up.

Hotel/Motel Operations is my second favorite class because of several things.  There are only five people in the class so we get to discuss stuff in greater detail.  We also do a thing called Morning News where we each find something from the lodging industry to share with the class and we discuss it.  In this class we're doing a class project together since we can't really divide ourselves equally into groups, and we're creating a hotel with all the fixings down to what we would charge for our rack rates.  We're also going to be interviewing general managers and department managers from hotels in the city!

Event Planning I is a hot mess right now but it has potential to be a favorite class by the end of the semester.  We're currently in our "beginning to plan" stage of planning an event for a non profit literacy group that is partnering with our culinary class and doing a program in a local elementary school.  The event we're planning is going to showcase the work of this elementary program and our class is responsible for the planning of everything.  The only thing we know for a fact right now is that we're hosting it at the Hyatt.  There's a lot of work to be done this semester!  In this class we're touring several places in Wichita as event venues.  One of the ones I'm very excited for is touring Intrust Bank Arena since I haven't been there yet for concerts or anything (which is really sad, believe me).

Work

I'm still working but very little. I'm contemplating giving my two week's notice and focusing on school.  I will at some point have to get into an internship too so I'm just wondering when the best time is to cut ties at work.

Life and Other Stuff

My wisdom teeth are killing me.  My mouth has been swollen all week and it hurts to smile.  It's a good thing I didn't work most of this week because I couldn't have smiled.  A classmate told me yesterday that it looked like I had a "resting bitch face" because I wasn't able to smile as much as normal.

Rocky Road ice cream is now my favorite thing.

I got new shoes and they're sparkly.  Like super sparkly.  Now I have two pairs of sparkly shoes.  That isn't enough though. I WANT ALL THE SPARKLY SHOES.

I managed to get lost the other day in Wichita.  It's been a few months since I've gotten myself lost.  I didn't have Margaret (my GPS) on and I thought I knew where I was going. Long story short, I ended up in a sketch part of town and promptly turned around and went back to school.  I was in search of food, I WAS HUNGRY.

November 1st I'm going to a leadership class for the American Legion Auxiliary and I'm super pumped about it!

August 8th I attended and became certified in Field Service through the ALA.  Meaning I can do more volunteer work in local hospitals, nursing homes and other places with veterans.

In October I'm going to Denton, Texas to visit the University of North Texas.  I'm contemplating transferring there when I graduate from the associates program I'm currently in.  It's still a ways off but I'm really excited to see what options are open for the future in this industry.

I think that about covers everything.  Hopefully I won't be gone too long when I post next.  Ideally I would like to post once a week, but that's going to be tough.  So, I guess I'll post when I can!

A Note to My Future Self

Dear Jess,

I don't know when you're reading this, but I'm gonna say it's probably at a time when you're feeling like things are crashing down.  Why else would you start going back and rereading blog posts? Come on, you've done it before and I know your sort of predictable.

Let me let you in on a little secret.  I'm writing this letter to you, future me, when things are crashing down.  Just this week I found out a family friend has a mass in his lung.  My body is being weird and I've been sleeping a shit ton even since I've been faithfully taking my medicine.  This week, my poor memory has been frustrating me a lot more than normal and I have no idea how to strengthen it.  Today, I first found out I passed my classes this semester with flying colors but then found out that I'm academic probation because of my choice to leave my other school mid semester to spare failing out.

It's been a rough week.

You're probably having a rough week.

Here's the thing though. I can mope around and do nothing or I could wipe away the tears of frustration and anger, and kick some ass.  Not literally, of course, unless there's someone who does actually need their ass kicked, then I will do it.  If we let every bad day or bad week run our lives, what would be doing with ourselves? What would we accomplish?

I'm not saying that we need to become a hard and heartless person who doesn't let anything phase us, because that's not who we are.  We're the ones that keep pushing, even when we want to give up.  Remember the first time you walked up the stairs at home after having your hip replaced? Yeah, you'll never forget will you?  You pushed against the want to sit on the ground in the front of the house for the rest of eternity.  Sure you were hopped up on pain meds but you pushed through the pain to do it.  It's so cliche say to you, but I'm doing it anyway because really this is just me talking to myself: if you can get through that year of your life and accomplish so much, you can keep going.

Now, I know this is just a bunch of words building encouragement up to go on and do whatever has you down, because really in a way that's what this ending up as...but on a final note, you don't give yourself nearly as much credit as you deserve.

Just take a step back from it all and breathe.  It'll all be okay.

_________________________________________________________________

Online Classes, Not For Me

What's that you hear?  Oh, that's just me celebrating passing my classes, officially.  That's right, today I found out what I already knew, that I passed the two summer classes I took! What am I doing? Throwing invisible confetti in the air, that's what.

source

I wanted to make this post a few weeks ago, but I didn't.  I didn't because what if I had a change in heart and I suddenly liked online classes? Unlikely, yes, but I thought I needed to wait until my semester was over before I started proclaiming why online classes aren't are for me.  But really, it's something that anyone who knows me would already have figured out by now.

First off, let's just briefly discuss my technology issues.  Beside our internet connection being oh so unreliable, I have a hard time operating my laptop on most days.  But seriously, the main problem with my technology issues is the fact that the only thing reliable about our internet connect is that it's gonna be terrible.  Whenever I have a deadline for anything, I can always count on my internet to suddenly disappear!

I've found after taking my first online class through my school this past spring that there were some glitches and random site shutdowns.  I gave the whole thing the benefit of the doubt, because come on, I was a newb and I didn't know any better.  After this eight week semester of site issues I'm calling it, it's not just me, it's also the site.  Believe me, I'm already frustrated with at least one assignment, don't add onto the load by giving me a glitch prone site to deal with too.  A lot of times that I was stressed out and pushing to meet deadlines was because I had put off doing the assignments because I didn't want to deal with the site that would probably glitch five times in one setting.  It makes for a very unhappy student.

The biggest thing: I forget.  I have a poor memory thanks to my Hashimoto's medicine, but when I'm not forced to get dressed, drive at least twenty five minutes and sit in class, in person I will undoubtedly forget that I was supposed to discussion posts on Thursdays. Or that I have ten assignments for one class on top of that exam due on Monday.  I've tried various tactics.  Agenda, writing all that shit down. It worked, for a while. Sticky noting all that shit all over my room, the refrigerator, the bathroom mirror, even my car.  Again, it only worked for a little bit.  There for a while, the only thing keeping me on top of assignments was my friend Maycie nonchalantly reminding me about school.

In the end, I just didn't like taking these classes online.  Maybe it's because I like being able to talk to people in face when we're having a discussion.  Or maybe it's because if I stay in my pajamas too long I inevitably end up back in bed.  For me, online classes are a thing of the past.  I'm going to avoid them if I can.

What about you? Have you taken online classes? Do you like them compared to normal in person classes?

Word Vomit

I can finally breathe easy. Or at least a bit easier than I have been the last couple of weeks.  Friday I spent most of the day fighting technology at home with pending assignments due and then spending my short shift at work worrying over if I was going to get all of my homework done before the deadline at 11 that night.

Friday was hell.  But you know what, I stayed positive despite rude guests, a terrible headache and news that one of my favorite managers is leaving next month, among other things.  In the end I got all of my coursework finished, and I didn't completely lose my crap at work in front of guests.

I feel like the last three weeks my head has been filling up with all these things that I either suddenly realized I need to do or have remembered a long list of things to do that I should already be doing (I lost my planner and all of my dates for events and such).  I think a lot of it has to do with pressuring myself to get my act together so I can really do well this next school year. The other part of me thinks it might just have to be with trying to please everyone from school, work and the Legion all at once.  But in all honesty, I think it's both of things and a smidgen of CRAZY added.

For the last week all I wanted to do was blog or at least write something short to share with whoever comes across this space.  I've neglected myself that because I wanted to stay on track and stay focused instead of spending hours writing a few posts when I got into the writing groove.  It worked for the most part, except for when I spent some time doing homework thinking about writing instead.

Word vomit. That's what this is, but after the crazy week I've had I feel like I need to get it out of my system. So here it is.

I have the next three weeks free before my next semester of school starts.  Well, I shouldn't say free because I'm still grabbing a couple of short shifts a week and volunteering more.  I'm also focusing on putting together what I'm calling "the career book" to help keep everything from my resume to cover letters and recommendation letters down to notes about job prospects.  I thought this little break between semesters would be a fantastic time to sit down and start putting it all together so when I start interviewing this semester (I'll discuss this more this week) I can have some to lean on!

Also, on this little break, I'm going to be focusing on getting into a workout routine of some sort so I can rely on it when school starts.  Other little odds and ends are finishing out my Summer Bucket List and figuring out how to plan meals for when classes start since I'm going to be working a mid shift and taking mostly night classes (against my will).

I realized this morning as I was waiting for my safety staff meeting to start that I'm trying to cram a lot into these three weeks.  Maybe I should just relax?  I could, but I don't think I would manage anything productive.  I'd probably end up falling into some sort of funk where all I do is lay in bed and watch Netflix.  Don't get me wrong, that sounds wonderful, but I have things to accomplish!

So there's my crazy for the last week or so.  Nothing too important.  Only that I survived my summer classes, which is an accomplishment.

There's your dose of Jess' Crazyy Thoughts, Jess signing out!

Fearing Change

Change is something that can't be fought.  Sure you can fight against it, but you'll still lose.  Every time.  It's going to happen whether or not we're ready for it or if we fully accept it.

Fighting against change is a good thing though.  I think that in the process, no matter how it's done, fighting any form of change allows you to be you.

For me I've learned that when I fight change it's usually out of fear.  Sometimes this fear is rational and other times it's completely irrational and makes me think "what the hell" at some point down the road.

Fighting change, no matter what is or how we do it is a way of what's in our heart making it's way to the surface -- I'm talking about both irrational and rational reactions.

I think that some people, or at least I know this is true for me, irrational reactions to change means that whatever is going on in the heart hasn't been given a chance to show.

This past semester was my first semester as a hospitality student. I loved it; it was new and exciting and I was thriving in this new environment.  About a month and a half into the semester one of my instructors forwarded me an email.  This email was about a summer internship at a national park.

I thought about it for a few days and then decided to just forget it.  Why do the internship?  I would miss family reunions and vacations.  I would be going alone. I wasn't sure I'd get into the program to begin with.  What if I couldn't handle working full time?

I was scared.  I knew that then but now,looking back I realized I was actually fearing all the worst:  failing.  I tricked myself into believing all these excuses I made for myself.

I missed a great chance.  I realize that, now.

There's a quote I always remember when I feel a little scared with what's going on in my life.

 I believed it to be true.  I still do, to a point.

I think I need to take more risks.  That everyone should take more risks.  How else are we going to learn what we're good at, what we're absolutely terrible at, or how to make ourselves into a better person?

Live and learn!

 

Online Window Shopping

Notes from Jess: The five logos I used all came from their respective store websites.  No copyright infringement was intended.  

Honestly, I haven't window shopped online or in person in a really long time. I just don't have much time to do it!  Today though I'm reminded of my favorite places to go drool at because the challenge prompt is to share five websites we go window shopping at.

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The most often visited one on this list is by far Gander Mountain.  True fact, if I get lost in Wichita (assuming I don't have my GPS with me) I can usually always find my way to Gander Mountain.  I'll go inside, go to the bathroom, browse on the way from the bathroom to the customer service desk and then ask for directions.  They're used to my face but that's mostly because I have a) spent so much money at this store over the years b)have gotten lost often c)I go shooting here (it's the only indoor range in Wichita I shoot at now) d)I bring my friends to browse at night after we go to dinner and may have tore apart a display or two before e)have argued about ammunition prices and the limits to how many boxes can be bought per person per visit per day.

I window shop here because I like to be able to see what's on sale before I get to the store.  I'm all about making sure I don't overspend so if I know exactly what I'm going after I can get in and out in under 10 minutes.  That's how well I know this store.  Plus, I window shop at Gander because I miss doing outdoorsy stuff all the time like I used to.

I just found this website and love it for all things home and kitchen.  I absolutely love window shopping for kitchen items.  For some reason it's the number one thing I love to shop for, just ask the lady at the one kitchen store in the mall.  I guess you could say that Wayfair is my weakness. I love kitchen and home stuff.

It's probably a really good thing that I'm currently not living on my own because I'd probably use most of my paycheck ordering online everything under the moon that I would think I could possibly use in my kitchen.

Window shopping on Overstock is fun for me.  I start looking at things I thought of when I pulled up Overstock in my browser and then from there I go to another item.  From there I go to another.  Oooh, that's pretty! Click, click, click. Two hours later and I've hypothetically bought a new wardrobe and shoes in every color of the rainbow.

I can seriously spend forever on Overstock.  

This one is one that I don't often window shop at but I love to when I do.  The clothes are just really pretty and lovely to look at.  I've never ordered anything from here but I have friends who have and just adore everything that they've purchased.

I once came super duper close to ordering a pair of lilac oxfords from ModCloth but chickened out because shoes hardly ever actually fit my big feet and I didn't want to let myself down having to send them back.

I regularly window shop here similar to the reason I do at Gander.  I like to see what's new and what's on sale so when I go to the mall I don't have to go through the whole store.  Going to the mall kind of freaks me out because of all the people, so the sooner I can get out and home the better.

With that being said, I just really love how well the clothes from Lane Bryant fits.  I do most of my "I need to look professional" shopping here because of how broad my shoulders are I can't ever find blouses or blazes that fit properly.  Good quality clothing for a decent price.  I love this place, in person and online.

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What are your favorite places to window shop, in person and/or online?

Banana Nut Oatmeal Muffins

Yesterday I tried a new recipe.  Well, I took a recipe I found from Debbie and tweaked it a bit because I didn't have all the ingredients and I didn't want to put a bunch of honey in because remember, sugar?  So my version probably isn't any where near as good as the original one is that Debbie made, but that's all right. Live and learn! Besides, I didn't have much else to do besides dishes and laundry.

Banana Nut Oatmeal Muffins

Ingredients:

2.5 cups old fashioned oats
1 cup plain low fat greek yogurt (I used plain regular yogurt, because we don't keep greek yogurt in the house because I can't stand the texture)
2 eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup chopped unsalted cashews (I used cashews because that's all I had!)
2 tsp vanilla
2 ripe bananas

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 12 muffin tins with silicone or foil liners.

2. Place the oats in the food processor and pulse for about 10 seconds.  Add remaining ingredients to the food processor except for the nuts. 

3. Process everything until everything is mixed together and oats have become smooth.

4. Pour batter into a mixing and fold in the nuts.  I chopped my cashews by using a mini processor that we use specifically for smaller things like nuts for recipes.  You could decide not to chop the nuts, but I did because there was huge pieces in the bag.

5. Divide evenly among muffin liners.  I generally use a 1/4 measuring cup to make sure that each one is pretty even.

6. Put in over and bake for 18-20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

7. Cool on a wire rack for a few minutes and enjoy!

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The ones that I made tasted a bit bland, but I think that's just because I didn't add any sugary or sweet items to the mix.  I like the banana flavor though, it comes through really nice without the sweetness getting in the way.  I think the next time I make these I'm going to mix in some of my protein powder so I can eat these at breakfast and not have to drink the protein shake that I'm starting to get really annoyed with drinking daily.

This recipe was pretty easy and quick. I'm definitely going to try it again but tweak my own recipe a little bit more so I can include my protein powder.

Overall, 4 out of 5 stars on this recipe.

P.S. Sorry for the lack of photos, still no camera.

I Believe In...

One of the assignments I completed this week for my Quality Management and Customer Service class was to form a personal vision statement.  This was a fantastic exercise as was coming up with a mission statement last week.  Although they can be intertwined together, my mission and vision statements are quite a bit different.  Today I wanted to share my vision statement because it's short, sweet, and for me personally it's pretty encouraging and inspiring.

Photo Cred: Click Here

To me, the goal of creating a vision statement is to think about where you want to be in the future.  After I looked around the internet a bit before starting to create mine I found that most that I looked at seemed to be very specific and set to one specific career goal in mind.

For me, as I've mentioned on this blog before, I don't know exactly what I want to do in the hospitality industry.  There are ideas still flying around in my head, and that's completely fine because I still have at least a year and a half of school left.  I tried to make a vision statement for a hypothetical situation but my gut was telling me I needed to scrap it and just go with my heart.  Which is exactly what I did.  I focused on my values, something that I hadn't really focused on before.

I aim to keep my values of passion, excellence, empowerment, innovation and responsible citizenship at the forefront of my mind in daily work and life as well as in making decisions for my future.

• Passion - …to be passionate about the things I do from school to work,  down to the things I do in my spare time.

• Excellence -…to not only want to do well but to make choices to help me succeed in the future.

• Empowerment -…to do what is right instead of easy and to encourage others around me to do the same.

• Innovation -…acknowledging when change is needed to continue being productive but to keep a hold of the things I believe in.

• Responsible Citizenship -…to adhere to laws and uphold strong ethics that I believe in both my personal life as well as my professional life.

I'm not going to lie, this was a hard assignment especially when I decided that I wanted to take it very seriously.  On the flip side, when I crossed the finish line and submitted my homework I felt empowered and very happy.

Originally I decided to pick five words to use as my values and then sort of describe them to help hold myself accountable and to remind myself in weeks to come what I was thinking when I chose them.  Each of these five I believe strongly in, though before this assignment I had never said "I believe in this and this".  But these values are still things that I need to work on and to make stronger.  I did a lot of thinking about this last night.

I thought a lot about how I need to learn how to keep myself accountable, that I can't always rely on someone else to be there and be the nagging voice in my head that I need.  I thought about the potential I have to do so well in school but yet I find myself still slacking off even though I'm no where near where I was a year ago.  I thought about how I take the easy way out instead of sticking to what needs to be done and doing it right the first time.

I thought about a lot last night.

The great thing about creating your own personal mission and/or vision statements is that you are free to change and adapt them as you grow.  Maybe in a few months I'll add a new word to this list that I find myself believing strongly in.  Or maybe I'll take one of these away for some reason.  Each person is different.

Non-profit Organizations, My Dream Job

A few days ago I was talking with a friend of mine who just recently graduated high school in May.  Our conversation lead us to talk about our dream jobs.  The job or jobs we feel in our heart that we're made and/or destined to fulfill at some point in our lives.  The timing of this conversation was pretty perfect since today's prompt is just about that, dream jobs.

I used to think that my dream job would be ideal. "Ideal" meaning that it makes sense with everything that I'm currently doing to prepare for my future career.  I've come to realize in the past couple of months that there are jobs that I want to have at some point because I think it would be fun and would give me experience that I really yearn to experience for myself instead of just reading about it.  Then there are jobs, like the ones I'm going to mention today, that I feel in my heart and soul that I am meant to do at some point in my life before I die.

I'm having troubles writing this post because I find it difficult to articulate sometimes the feelings and thoughts that I have towards this subject.  It does put me at ease knowing it's difficult to find the right words because I know that means that this is something that I'm truly feeling I must do from the heart and not something that I've forcefully thought about and put into my head.

My dream job, you ask? To work within a non-profit organization that specializes in working with veterans and/or their families.  Why?  Besides the already mentioned obvious answer that I just feel it in my heart, but because I feel there is something that I need to do repay all those who have served for my country and those that stood behind them when duty called.  Granted, I don't know if I'll ever feel like I've repaid all those who have served but it's a good start, I think.

I do admit that this may sound like a broad concept for a dream job but for me, I somehow know that  when it's my time to be in this 'dream job' I'll know exactly where I'm supposed to be.  I think it'll be like a metal detector, my heart leading to me to the metal or in this case to the place where I should be.

I say that I don't know where this dream job will lead me right now, and that's completely true.  But I have a couple of organizations that I've been keeping my eye on mostly just because I am proud of the work that they do and if the opportunity arose, I wouldn't turn down being apart of the wonderful work that they do.  Above all, these two organizations are ones that I often spread the word about whether it be on Twitter, Facebook or in a conversation with someone.  Both of which I can also see a possibility to use the skills that I have been, and probably will be still, perfecting in the hospitality industry to help further the cause of the organizations, like event planning for instance but I'm not too focused on that aspect to be honest.

Got Your 6

I found Got Your 6 a few months ago when I was roaming around the internet looking for a little bit of everything related to an ALA project I was working on for District Convention.  Some how or another I stumbled across their website and I was immediately captured by their mission and their call to respond.

"The goal of the campaign is to bridge the civilian-military divide by creating a new conversation in America, so that veterans and military families are perceived as leaders and civic assets."

For more information about Got Your 6 visit their website here or follow them on Twitter.

Wounded Warrior Project

Chances are if you live in the US you've heard of this non-profit.  This non-profit has been one of my favorites for years because I believe so strongly in the work that they do to help better veterans' lives and in a lot of cases their families too.  Above all, the WWP makes sure that no vet is forgotten.

"The greatest casualty is being forgotten."

WWP's mission is very simple and straight forward: to honor and empower Wounded Warriors.  They follow this mission by helping in a variety of areas including the reintegration process for vets returning home to helping vets get jobs or to go to school.

For more information about the Wounded Warrior Project visit their website here or follow them on Twitter.

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What is your dream job if you could do absolutely anything you wanted?

A Very Harry Potter Blog Post

If you weren't already aware that this weekend on ABC Family was Harry Potter weekend, you've now been informed.  I bring this up today because of a few reasons: 1) I totes forgot until I started going through Pinterest and saw some Potter related pins that reminded me that I was going to watch this weekend. 2) Today's prompt for #BlogEveryDayInJuly challenge is to share my day in pictures, but I don't actually have an operational camera currently 2.1) My day has been really boring thus far and it's not going to get much better because of the mound of homework I have to do. 3) Pinterest is fun. 4) Because of said amount of homework I'm not going to be able to watch the marathon on ABC because I can't watch Potter and do anything productive at the same time.

So, here are some of my favorite Harry Potter themed pins from Pinterest! You can see the pins on Pinterest if you click on the photo that should take you to my Pinterest boards.