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?

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.

_________________________________________________________________

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!

 

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.

__________

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

Life Is Rough

This past week has been rough.  Maybe it was the whole week I was gone from reality of working part time, doing online classes part time, working on my little side projects with the ALA that made this past week so rough as I got back into the swing of things.  Regardless of what it was, it was a very rough week and I don't feel guilty at all for not being able to blog like I wish I could have.

Today's prompt: write a letter to your readers.  I think I can manage that, tonight earlier today I wouldn't have even bothered thinking I could handle such a simple task.

Dear Readers,

There probably isn't many of you, but that's all right.  I want you to know that life is rough, but you've probably already figured that much out.

Weaknesses

We made it home last night after fighting some crazy holiday drivers from Denver to Wichita.  I'm working on homework right now.  Yes, it is homework that's due today. But at least I don't have a whole week's worth of assignments to do today, see, there's the positive side on that...or maybe it's just me trying to deflect the thoughts you're thinking.  That yes, I did procrastinate on my homework, again. Surprise? Not hardly.

The assignment I'm working on right now is about listing my strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats when it comes to my professional life in the hospitality industry.  The hardest part of the whole things, you guessed it, finding the words to explain my weaknesses.

Let's be real for a moment.  I don't think anyone likes to look at themselves and then share their weaknesses.  Hell, if anyone is like me, they'll try their best to ignore the weaknesses...which is bad guys, because then you never really acknowledge them and work on making them into strengths.

5 Things That Make Me Happy

Notes from Jess: This post was written ahead of time and scheduled to post today due to traveling back to Kansas and the unknown whereabouts of stable wifi.  This post is a part of the #BlogEveryDayInJuly challenge.  

I don't know what it is with the number five recently but I just really like the number.  Today's prompt: five things that make me happy.  Now, remember, these are in no specific order.

Medicine Bow - Routt National Forest

Yesterday afternoon after we visited the Wyoming Territorial Penitentiary we stopped at a local tackle shop and my brother bought me a two day fishing license.  We then started the long drive up to Medicine Bow so we could go fishing at the Rob Roy Reservoir.  Not knowing exactly what we were going to do in Laramie after the Penitentiary we packed a cooler with lots of water, hamburgers, hot dogs, brats, and all the fixings.  My brother had brought his tailgate grill from the job site so we could grill our lunch wherever we wanted to!

It seemed like a long drive from Laramie up to Albany but in all honestly it was probably a lot shorter of a drive than from Laramie back to Elk Mountain where we are staying.  I forgot to get a photo of the city sign when we got to Albany but I'll never forget this tiny town perched on the side of the mountain.  Albany, population 55 people.  Did you read that Emmy?  55 people!

Lovejoy's Bar and Grill

Notes from Jess: Apparently I've summoned the mountain fairies, some way or another! This post was originally written Thursday but the mountain fairies have been having fun stealing my posts!

I'm currently sitting in the McDonald's off of the interstate in Rawlins, Wyoming waiting on my online school websites to load.  I decided now would be the perfect opportunity to use the wifi while I have it and talk about a wonderful experience dining out last night in Laramie, Wyoming.

My brother has been working in this area since around the beginning of February and he and his crew has found their favorite places in Laramie and Rawlins.  Last night for dinner we headed into Laramie and my brother took us to their favorite place, Lovejoy's Bar and Grill.

Lovejoy's is downtown Laramie and parking is a bit difficult to come by in the evening.  We ate a early dinner and had arrived downtown around 5 o'clock.  We got super lucky because of the largeness of my brother's truck we had to go around the block to get parking big enough...and then my dad decided he couldn't walk all that way because of his bad knee. We ended up back in front of the bar and just our luck, someone was leaving and left us plenty of room for the truck right across the street! Score!

5 Things I Miss From High School

Notes from Jess: This post has been written and scheduled ahead of today due to traveling and the unknown whereabouts of stable internet connection. This post is a part of the #BlogEveryDayInJuly challenge.  For more information about this challenge and how I'm going to complete it this month, you can check it out here.  Also, lovely credit to Jeane and Jem for the for the challenge button and for hosting/starting/inviting everyone to the challenge this month!

 Today's prompt is "things you miss" so I decided to do something a bit themed today and since I was scrolling through photos the other day.

Selfie Time!

Notes from Jess: This post has been written and scheduled ahead of today due to traveling and the unknown whereabouts of stable internet connection..  This post is a part of the #BlogEveryDayInJuly challenge.  For more information about this challenge and how I'm going to complete it this month, you can check it out here.  Also, lovely credit to Jeane and Jem for the for the challenge button and for hosting/starting/inviting everyone to the challenge this month!

Today's prompt is to share a selfie.  Pretty simple and easy, I'd say.  I've added in a couple extras just for funsies.

This was taken a bit over a year ago in a locally owned coffee shop.  I don't remember why I was dressed up that day but I just love this photo.

Now that I think about it, I don't even know where that shirt is.  I know where the blue one is but not that green one....

 Throwback to January 2013 on my 19th birthday! My family and I went out to eat at a Japanese steak house and I brought along my life long (now of 15 years) with us.  After dinner me and A hit the town for a little bit of fun.  We ended up at Gander Mountain and me, being the crazy one I am, just had to try on some waders I had been eyeing.

This is a throwback to the fall of 2012 when I went to visit some high school friends at their college.  We ended up at WalMart and of course, I wanted to try on a onesie.  I miss my long hair.

Well, now you have seen some of crazy Jess!  I'll see you, same spot tomorrow for another day of the  #BlogEveryDayInJuly challenge.

Goals!

Notes from Jess: This post has been written and scheduled ahead of today due to being consumed by preparation for long distance traveling.  This post is a part of the #BlogEveryDayInJuly challenge.  For more information about this challenge and how I'm going to complete it this month, you can check it out here.  Also, lovely credit to Jeane and Jem for the for the challenge button and for hosting/starting/inviting everyone to the challenge this month!

Today's blog prompt for the #BlogEveryDayInJuly challenge is goals! No, not those goals. I don't watch soccer/football so if that's what you think this post is going to about then you're gonna be greatly disappointed.  But seriously, I don't know anything about soccer except what the ball looks like. Instead, this post is about goals in life.  That's right those goals.

So yeah, I guess I'll start with goals for today.

• Finish my reading my book for class. 

If all has gone well, I should be somewhere near Laramie, Wyoming right now.  We've come to visit my brother for a week and as much as I wish I could just throw everything out the window school wise, I can't skip an entire week of both classes.  Besides, those books are expensive and I need my laptop.  I'm reading The Spirit to Serve by Marriott's Way by J.W. Marriott and Kathi Ann Brown.  I still have a few weeks left to finish reading it but I've been reading for thirty minutes every day that I work.  I sit in a booth in the back and read before I clock in.  I just want to finish the reading and start the paper!

Normally I don't set goals just because I get too obsessed with making sure I hit them.  It's gotten to the point in the past that I will literally forget about every other priority in my life for goals that I set.  At some points, it's been an unhealthy thing to do so I don't set goals often.

One major goal I do have though and I've been focusing on but not on the overly obsessive level is graduating with my associates in hotel management and a certification for restaurant management by 2016 (I'm shooting for a graduation date in December 2015).  That's cramming three years into two years and I'm pretty set in wanting to do it this way because I feel like I wasted a lot of time last year when I left mid semester from my old school and then had all of the summer and fall off from school.  Making up for lost time I suppose, and I'm just really excited for my education in the hospitality field so I want to jump start things so I can get into a bachelors program soon!

Another goal, obviously, I want to improve on making healthy lifestyle changes.  I mentioned last month that I was diagnosed with prediabetes and with that means a diet change and moving way more than I used to.  This goal doesn't have a time limit because it's one of those ongoing things.

What are your goals for today? Do you have any long term goals you're working towards currently?

Tomorrow's challenge post will be short and simple, see you then!

Of Mulberry Trees and Water

One thing that I've found myself missing about from my childhood has been the long summer weekends camping.  It used to be the norm for my Ma to take off on a Friday and we'd load up the truck and camper on Thursday when she got off work and set off on the road.  Most times we didn't even have a specific location in mind!

I've fished, camped and swam in more lakes than the average Joe in Kansas.  I guess in some ways we just lake hopped most summers, which was fun because we got find the best camping spots and the best fishing spots!

These weekends, and in one summer we spent maybe eight days home just long enough to do a bit of laundry and pay bills, have a special place in my heart that bring some memories back when I hear certain town names.

A favorite story I like to tell is about the time we camped at Wellington City Lake.  We had found a lovely sunny spot on top of a little hill.  We could see the entire lake and there wasn't many people around.  There was lots of room for our dog, Dusty, to roam around.  During our set up of camp our camper became unbalanced after we unhitched it from the truck and it started to roll down the hill....towards the lake. I was about eight and on crutches and I remember yelling for my parents when it started to roll.  My Ma was the one who stopped it from rolling into the lake.  Ever since we've yet to camp on a hill again.

Another story that I just love to remind my Ma of is the year we hitched up our camper and traveled to Fritch, Texas for our family reunion that June.  We stopped somewhere in Oklahoma on a Thursday night at a KOA.  It was late and since we don't normally do the KAO thing because they're usually packed during the summer and it's just not something that our family likes, we didn't have much choice of camp spots.  So we ended up under a mulberry tree.  My Ma was so mad because there was no way around tracking in mulberries.  We spent the better part of that evening cleaning up the floors in our camper to make sure there weren't any mulberry stains because my Ma was not having any of that.  The next morning we loaded up in the truck and headed south again for Fritch.  When we set up camp in Fritch we were happy to have made it to our destination.  Camper is unhitched, legs are pulled down, slide out has been cranked out, water, sewer and electricity hooked up and everything is level.  We open the door to do our clean-everything-and-put-things-back-where-they-belong routine and the look on my Ma's face was priceless.  She forgot to turn the kitchen sink off completely and had flooded the main part of our camper.  Not only did we spend a lot of time cleaning mulberries from our camper floor that weekend we also spent a lot of time and paper towels drying out our camper.

As you can guess, these are just a couple of many stories we have.  What is your favorite thing from your childhood during the summer?

Seven Things that Guests Do That Annoy Me

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people who automatically hates their guests.  I'm far from that.  In fact, I love my guests no matter what.  That's right, even when their little gremlin decides to smear their ice cream cone down the wall of the booth in the corner that is such a pain to clean.  Even when a guest gets irrational upset over forgetting their extra dipping sauce.  I love them all, no matter their hot and flustered moments.  Because really, I get them too.

I do however get annoyed some weeks when it seems like all guests are missing a point or two.  Thus, my list of things that guests do that annoy me.

• Not looking me in the eyes when ordering.  I can't tell if you're actually ordering or if you're just talking about maybe trying the grilled chicken salad.  If you make eye contact with me, even just at the beginning of your order I know you're ready to roll and I'll do my best to catch everything you say the first time.  If you talk to the floor, well, we're going to be for a while.
• Getting annoyed when I have to ask extra questions to clarify the order.  If it's during lunch time, which it probably is and you're talking soft or rushing words I can't hear you well.  There's a line of people at each register, employees talking and making noise in the grill and talking to guests in the drive thru window plus if I'm wearing a headset, I have one ear that I can't hear out of because it's getting drive thru orders.  Do you want your burger to have mayo on it or would you like to pick off the tomato because you couldn't stand to answer my question.
• Mistaking me for a guy.  This doesn't happen often, but it annoys the crap out of me.  My hair is pulled back in a bun with a cap on.  I'm not a skinny woman, I have curves and muscle.  But apparently a feminine name "Jessica" and fancy wide rimmed glasses with jewels on the side scream out "I'm a man".
• Standing at the counter waiting for food when they've just ordered.  Your burger isn't ready yet. Your chicken is still in the fryer.  We're waiting on fresh fries to be salted.  Oh, and you had three medium milkshakes made with the hardest flavor of ice cream we have? Yeah, it's going to take a couple minutes, we don't magically have it all ready.  Go, get your drink, pick out your booth and get all the napkins and ketchup you want.  We'll call your number. You won't go hungry. And no,  I can not give you your shake right now because then someone else will try to make it again. Leave it alone, please.
• Asking for lids on a single dip of ice cream in a cup.  Are you serious?  By the time you get home it's gonna be melted.  I don't understand, but here's your lid regardless.
• Ordering diet cherry limeade.  What?  Okay, I get the soda water instead of the simple syrup carbonation mixture, it's not as sweet which I totes understand.  But you do realize that the cherry syrup we put in means syrup right?  Don't complain that it's too sweet, you wanted a cherry limeade, diet.
• Giving me the stink eye when I have to tell you pull your vehicle up to the door at the end of the drive thru lane because we're waiting on fresh fries/chicken and we already have the next vehicle's order completely finished.  Like seriously? Are you in such a hurry that you're not going to appreciate that we're not giving you the old sitting-here-for-at-least-thirty-minutes-and-not-really-that-hot fries? How about fresh crispy chicken strips?  Just pull up to the door, please.

Well, that all came out a bit like I was ranting, but that still doesn't mean that I'm not at least a little bit annoyed when these things happen...at least five times every shift I work (excluding the one about guests mistaking me for a man).

What's your number one pet peeve as a guest in fast food restaurants?  I think mine has to be when I'm not greeted.  I like to see a smiling face ready to help me order.  It makes me want to go back; there have been times when I've revisited a fast food restaurant I might have had troubles with the food before just because I had a good customer service experience with a member of the crew.

Pain

Some mornings I have difficulties putting socks and shoes on.  Most people don't know that.

Some days I can hardly bare standing long enough to take a shower.  Most people don't know that.

Some days I find it difficult to bend at the waist to pick something light up.  Most people don't know that.

Most days, in the back of my mind I wonder if I'm going to start hurting in my hips and legs before I can get home and lay down.  No one knows that, until now.

I try so hard to fight through the pain without the aid of meds.  Mind over matter they say.  Maybe it was all those times I had nurses, doctors and surgeons look me in the eyes and tell me it's not real.

It is very real.

Some days I wake up and wonder if I'm going to be able to focus on my work and projects.  Most people don't know that.

I try my hardest, even when the pain is crushing, to hide the fact that I am having pain.

I don't want differential treatment.

They said I would be able to live a regular and normal life.

But it happens.  Shit happens.

It's not that I'm too proud to admit that I have pain.  I'm afraid to burden those around me.

But when does not admitting it to those around me begin to take a toll on me?