Ow, okay, I’ll go to Vegas

I get to see drunken cartoon characters in Vegas… yay!

My mother is about one of the most ‘interesting’ and funniest women you might come across, and currently she has this kick for Vegas. And, she really loves going to Vegas with me so it’s like our mother/daughter trips we do except we gamble, drink, eat, and I get to wear really low-cut clothes that I wouldn’t wear out in public anywhere else. I’ve gone to Vegas so many times I actually have a collection of clothes that are specifically for my Vegas trips, they are low-cut, and crazy cleavage popping clothes. I can’t wear sexy heels or even sexy skirts so I end up with letting the girls out and no matter what I wear I can hardly compete with the young girls running around Vegas now-a-days.

I’m always under-dressed but never to too much of an extreme because everyone shows more leg, breast, bottom, and stomach than me. I do always have a great time with my mom, but last time she went she had to take my father because I had just gotten married and she did it the day after my wedding. She planned another trip in August and since she planned that trip she’s been badgering me about coming.

Literally every time I talk to her she mentions she’s going to Vegas and how I can come too. I was kind of hesitant to give her a full commitment but I talked over the possibility with the hubby and he was okay so I finally conceded. Yes, I will go to Vegas with you once again.

Me and my mom gamble a little at the penny slots, like $1 at a time and mainly money is spent on shows and food. I took her to some really nice restaurants with our last trip and we had a really good experience with food. It can be either a hit or a miss for us, even if we go to high-end dining places in Vegas where you’d think the food is amazing but really it’s sub-par. And, spending the kind of money you end up spending on high-end food in Vegas you want it to at least be average, but we’ve had much worse. I even got really sick on one trip and we had to miss Thunder from down Under because of the food I ate.

I know, I had to be awfully sick to miss a male review where they end up stripping off all their clothes… oh, I was. My mom wasn’t much better with her hip killing her (writing that makes me feel like she’s an old lady, but she’s always like in her 30’s in my head) so we had to skip it. I felt terrible about missing it, and told my regular clients at work I’d be seeing it, so when they came in to see me they asked how to it was and so did a friend of mine and I had to admit I missed it.

We might do it this trip, but I’m excited at the prospect of pulling out my ‘Vegas’ clothes and getting to wear them. I will first arrive back where my mom is a few days early so we can fly out together and maybe get a girl date or two with my friends.

Get back in the saddle

I realized something with my last blog post, something I certainly have tried to ignore and push out of my head and fight for a few years now. I am a horseback rider, it is literally in my blood and my family on both sides has horseback riders. I can see an image of a horse from miles away, and as a little girl I collected breyer horses. I pretended that they were my own and even had a wooden stable for them. I raced them in circles, jumped them over miniature jumps, and dreamed of having my own horse.

And, I got my own horse, and she was amazing, spirited, bratty, smart, and most of all, one-of-a-kind. I loved her more than anything, even when she tossed me, even when she hurt me when she was younger. We fought each other and we were both stubborn, but I still loved her to death. She was diagnosed with a degenerative disease and slowly that feisty little thing started to slowly fade before my eyes. The pain was evident, she limped when she trotted and it was clear she was in so much pain. Near the end she went off her feed and stopped eating, me and my mom were distraught and tried everything to get her better. We did injections that were supposed to help and supplements, and kept fighting hard but she was suffering, and kept on losing so much weight.

Finally, we made the decision we didn’t want to make. I cried for so long, and I still cry when I think about it. I put away my model horses and took down every bit of horse stuff I had. The saddles, the bridles, all of our equipment and clothes were boxed away and I swore to myself I would never do anything with horses again. How could I when I finally owned my first horse and then lost her even though my mother and I tried so hard to do everything to make her better.

Horseback riding has always affected me in a strong way, whether it’s the adrenaline rush of jumping or the peace I feel from trail riding. I’ve been doing it since I was 7 years old, and I did everything horse related I could. I even tried every riding style out there, from English, to hunter/jumping, saddle seat, and I even dabbled in western and gaited horses. My favorite type of horse was always the high-strung ones, the horses no one else could handle. That was the type of horse my girl was, my first horse, and she was high-strung and hard to train. I like the challenge of a horse that is nervous and how I can calm them down by just not being affected by their nervous energy. I enjoyed breaking in gaited horses when I got the opportunity and how it feels being in the saddle.

I think I’m going to try to get back into riding, I think it might make me feel more at home with the move and get me back into something I’ve loved for so long. I hope I’m strong enough to get back into the saddle and ride again, because I’ve tried to tell myself I don’t want to be a horseback rider again but I know it’s in my blood.

Even your mother may have Olympic dreams

A picture I took at the botanic gardens

One of my favorite stories my mom has told me is when she was a kid she wanted to be an Olympic figure skater. This always makes me smile and crack up because when she first told me this I asked her, “Wow, so you were really good at skating, huh?” And she would always tell me that she could barely skate, she wasn’t any good at it at all. But, in her head, as a kid, she just really wanted to do this. She wanted to be in the Olympics and compete as a figure skater and it reminds me that even your mom was a little kid and she had big dreams like you did when you were little.

I always thought my mom thought she would be in the Olympics to compete as a horseback rider but it’s just the figure skating that she wanted. Personally, I wanted to be in the Olympics with my horse to compete in jumping. We couldn’t seem to figure out dressage and jumping was just so exciting.

Plus, it didn’t hurt that my horse loved jumping. She lived for it, we’d head towards a jump and my heart would be racing and she just ran at it like she could crush the jump. You could feel her excitement, you could hardly hold her back as she headed for a jump! Every other horse I ever rode you would have to push them towards it, wait to see if they would stop at the last second and back out, but she always headed toward it like she couldn’t wait to do it. And I couldn’t wait to jump over the fences, the adrenaline was amazing, and our combined excitement was like bliss. My horse was a great jumper, so much more agile than any horse I’ve been on and she even jumped high obstacles with the same zeal as little tiny poles on the ground.

I loved it, I loved it even more with my horse because she took so much joy in it too. Out of so many years of riding and jumping I’d never met any other horse like in her in my life. She was a bull-head, with so much personality and quirks that she always kept me on my toes. She was a brat and dangerous as a little filly, rearing over me, and refusing to stand still for me to mount her. My mom refused to ride her until she calmed down later because she was so dangerous as a young horse. There is my mother, grandmother, and my grandfather were all horseback riders so I’d think my mom would want to be in the Olympics as a rider.

Of course, as a kid, I’m not sure if my mother enjoyed jumping as much as I did. I get a kick out of adrenaline rushes and I swear to you there is nothing more of an adrenaline rush then cantering your horse to a jump and soaring through the air with them. It’s amazing, and even more breathtaking when the animal underneath you is just as pumped to do it.

When me and my horse would compete in jumping she would be even more excited. She got a kick out of people looking at her, she even liked the camera and would even pose when you took pictures of her. You could even tell that my horse enjoyed the competition, she’d get so nervous and so anxious she’d be ready to burst and I swear I could just hear her thinking, “Oh, yeah, just try to beat that. I am hot stuff!” 

I knew logically I could never get to the Olympics, but in my dreams me and my horse made it and we were kicking butt and taking names.

Queen of Interviewing BS

I’m guessing I inherited the BS interview trait from my brother, though I had to learn from my first few interviews that being absolutely honest is not the best idea. And, I’m thinking he tends to be a bit more cocky than me. I am not cocky, though with more years under my belt and being proclaimed by many clients as, magic hands” certainly doesn’t hurt my ego one bit. I have been job hunting and searching through the internet and haven’t found anything close to me so I will probably be rusty with interviewing whenever I find something.

There was this one interview with a chiropractor for a massage job where I was given two pens taped together. The chiropractor then told me to sell him the two pens that were taped together. What I would say to someone to sell the pen, no, I am not making this up.

I also went to a chiropractor for a massage job and he said I reeked of cigarette smoke and that their clients are trying to live very healthy lives so he I was not to be smoking and I was unhealthy for that. Unbeknownst to him I am not a smoker, both my mother and father are, and my mother smoked inside of the laundry room so even when I washed my clothes I still couldn’t get the smell off.  I even told her after the interview to maybe smoke some place else so I could try to keep my clothes ‘clean’ smelling and she said no. When I got hired by my work sometimes I would come in and the manager would look at me funny and asked if I smoked. It was so annoying trying to defend myself when I got those looks of, “Oh, yeah, sure your parents smoke and that is their cigarette smoke, not yours. Ha ha, not falling for that.”

I also went to a chiropractor for an interview and he asked me if I was dating anyone, married, and if I lived at home. I felt so dirty after that interview that I wanted to wash my clothes and hop in the shower too for double duty. I didn’t even know how to react and it hit me afterwards how messed up it was, in the moment I was so shocked I didn’t even know what to say.

I can BS my way through interviews all I like and I do tell them what they want to hear. I try to sell myself but I have had such a messed up history with interviews for a massage position that I’m so scared to get back in it. It’s not normal, the way of interviewing isn’t just face-to-face BSing but we end up having to give a ‘technical’ massage to the person in the interview and that can be super weird. It’s intimidating and uncomfortable, and when they tell you you were nervous you just gotta bite your tongue not to say,

Ummm… yeah, I was nervous, I need a job and you couldn’t relax and I couldn’t relax and you were picking at everything I was doing when I was massaging and I could feel it even if you didn’t say a word!” 

You can feel when someone is thinking, you can feel when they are preoccupied when you massage. Clients I ended up knowing really well and regulars of mine I could tell within the first 5 seconds of seeing them, without saying a word, if they were having a tough day or if something was bothering them. I am too in tune to how people feel sometimes, and that’s why some of my best massages are when my clients let go and relax, I tend to know when they take that deep breath they are finally present and aren’t thinking about everything at once.

I know there are certain things you say, and don’t say, in an interview and you try to listen to what they want to hear from you. They are trying to see if they want you, and you are trying to see if you can make the interviewer want to hire you.

It’s like a first date with interviewing. All of the baggage is hidden in the closet, your best face is put on, you may hold back what you really want to say because you are trying to impress the person you’re with. You don’t know if they will accept you for you, so what you end up doing is trying to figure out what they want and you try to give it to them. I tend to be a blunt, painfully honest person who has a crazy personality and keeping that hidden is not exactly easy. I can be a good at the interview game but that can you only take you so far. And bad interviews really is a confidence killer for me and makes me doubt my abilities.

No nest to crawl back into

If you ever told me that I would move away, miles and miles away from my family but also where I’ve lived all of my life since I was born I’d probably laugh in your face. If you also added that I would give up my job of four years that I’ve come to love like nobody’s business I’d probably be hysterically rolling on the floor crying with tears.

Now that it’s a reality this certainly doesn’t have me laughing but that is how much I wouldn’t be able to believe that this could ever happen. I am the first and only person from my family moving as far away as I have, and even more amazing than that is that I moved away but my brother didn’t! My brother, since when he was a teenager has said he would always move away to some place hot and without a winter. I have heard this for so many years that if anyone would move away, I kind of always thought he would before me. He’s done some trips where he’s been away from home for a few months, but he’s always come back home.

I’m so close with my family, even though they drive me crazy, that I never thought I could do this. But, I did it, I’m here, with my hubby in a totally new place that I don’t know and certainly does not look like back home. There are days I wake up and still can’t believe it, other days I feel like I can just drive a few miles and see my family when really… I can’t.

There are days when I think I’ve slept in and have missed my work and then I realize, I really don’t have any work. Or, a job for that matter, I am currently unemployed.

At times I feel lost without the roots of my family and my work to support me and then I realize I need to make new roots. With my hubby, with our new life, I need to get adjusted and used to this new way of living. He’s been amazingly supportive and helpful with me, and I know it will take time to get used to being fully out of the nest flapping my wings in the breeze. I know he’ll be there to catch me when and if I fall and to help me to get back out there again. It’s just amazing to be making my life with my husband completely out of the nest and there is no way to hop back in it unless if I want to jump on an airplane.

Weigh to kill my love handles!

So, as you may or may not know, when I’m unemployed I become a fitness nut and exercise almost every day of the week. Now, being put in a new state, with friends and family far away, makes me even crazier about working out that I change into a fitness freak. It’s like the only thing I can control is my body (and just cross my fingers with search results of jobs) so I go into overdrive to mold myself into something else. Plus, with my job if you stop massaging I’m sure you lose all of that endurance for it because it’s super strenuous so I’m trying to build it back up with working out.

Wii fit loves to yell at me, and I yell right back

Another plus, working out is seriously addicting once you get into it and helps me get rid of excess stress. Punching at the air randomly as I follow Wii Fit rhythm boxing makes me feel quite a bit better even if my punches aren’t connecting with anything. The Wii Fit seems less cruel than when I normally work out on it, though it still dings dinner bells when I get weighed and tells me in a cutesy voice, “You’re overweight!” Plus, my Wii character goes from super skinny stick to this huge balloon and my stomach will not be contained by its virtual shirt.

It also yells at me for being shaky with yoga and strength moves that make me balance on one foot and if I wasn’t shaky I’d probably be a robot.

Come to think of it, no, Wii fit has not changed one damn bit and it still gets bitchy with me on certain days and likes to bring up that it thinks that I am a loyal dog, like a golden retriever. Seriously, it says really weird stuff but since I’ve hurt my toe playing baseball I haven’t been able to swim like I love, or work on machines like the elliptical. I even came across this new machine like an elliptical which is basically like a medieval form of torture brought to the 20th century. Even though it is probably a torture device and they put cameras in the workout room probably to watch me sweat myself to death I did kind of like it. It was in a strange, masochist way I did enjoy the machine torture device.

And, even though I only have the Wii Fit and it’s annoying voice to yell at me now I am losing weight. I’m down to a weight range I haven’t seen since I was eighteen years old… and I didn’t get down to that weight the healthy way. I stopped eating, was seriously depressed, and wound up losing 30-40 lbs within about a month or two. I am trying to be more healthy, watching what I’m eating, but I’m not trying to stop eating completely. I’m trying out fruits I’ve never tried before in my life, and eating them every day. I’m eating apples that aren’t prepackaged and cut up for me, and I’m even cooking for myself.

When I say that I’m cooking I do mean it, I’m making boneless skinless chicken breasts from scratch and it’s not a frozen meal. Which is pretty much amazing for me, I’ve never been able to cook and my mom never taught me when I was a kid. So, the first few times I wasn’t that great making chicken from scratch but I’ve gotten better. I still wouldn’t subject anyone but myself to chicken I cooked in case so in case I end up poisoning someone it would just be my own fault.

I will grow a green thumb… somehow

I can take good pictures of flowers, but growing them is a whole other story!

Whenever I think of plants and flowers I tend to think of my grandmother.  She is amazing with plants and can grown about anything. She grows orchids in her house and all sorts of flowers outside in her garden. One of my favorites was the moon flowers which bloomed during a full moon, or so I was told. I tried my hand at growing things because I found it was just so neat to see something grow from a sprout into a plant but I never got past the sprout stage. I killed everything green I touched, and if I didn’t kill the little seedlings, our cats would get into my room and eat the heads off my plants.

I’ve never seen a plant flower, I’ve never grown it past the small little sprout stage. Yet, my grandma had a huge garden where everything thrived and there wasn’t a dead plant in sight. Me and my grandma had our differences but I always admired her for being able to grow everything and how much pride she had in it. Plus, she’s about as bullheaded and stubborn as they come.

Currently I’m amazed that the hubby called me up a few days ago and said he was bringing home a plant. I swear this man is allergic to everything, and some days I think he might just be allergic to me too. So, with the news of him bringing home something green I was pretty pumped that we could have something in the house I could take care of. It’s a really pretty plant and we even got a cute little purple vase for it too. I try to water it, and to not over water it, but I’m afraid my black thumb may end up killing it. I noticed a leaf that was dying on it, yet besides that it isn’t drooping or turning brown. I really want some more in our house, it cheers up the space, and I like taking care of it because he is also allergic to animals and we can’t have any pets.

He doesn’t seem to have an allergic reaction to this plant and overall since we’ve moved his allergies seem to be better than they were. There were some days his allergies were so bad they were pretty much debilitating, so I find it amazing to have a plant in our apartment and he can breathe okay and it doesn’t seem to be affecting him at all. I wanted to get quite a few plants from Ikea when we went there but he said we’d see how taking care of what we have pans out and then I can be a crazy plant lady with the black thumb of death.

I’d also love to have a little critter around the apartment. I’ve always found it so calming to have a little warm body next to me on the couch and I really miss my family’s cat even though he is quite passive to everyone. He likes to randomly attack my mother but strangely seemed to like having me around so I’d go out and try to get him next to me on the couch when I had my lunch. I miss it and have always been a pet person so not having one is both strange and kind of lonely too when the hubby is out working.

How does it feel being married?

A picture I took of a beautiful sunset in Key West on our honeymoon

When I went to visit my friends back home a couple asked me how it felt being married. The hubby even had some of his co-workers asking the same question, gauging whether or not the act of getting married had changed the dynamics of our relationship. To me the question was asked with a teasing smile, but I didn’t know quite how to answer.

This is because our relationship feels the same. The only huge difference for me is the difference I feel every day with our move, and me not having a job right now. That resonates with me, but our relationship feels the same like when we weren’t married and just engaged. We lived together for not-too-long of a period and then he moved down without me miles away because of his job. I moved back in with my parents and that changed our relationship because I didn’t have him there every day.

As you probably know if you’ve been reading this blog I was the type of person to believe I would never get married. My parents aren’t exactly ‘happily’ married and my mom was divorced once before she met my dad. I just didn’t look at marriage as working for me, and I could never see myself with someone for the rest of my life. I didn’t like dating, and before I met the hubby I was basically single for 2 years and certainly not looking for anyone. I’ve had my own set of bad relationships that have put a bad taste in my mouth and was pretty determined to be alone for the rest of my life so I never had to depend upon anyone except myself. That’s why when I met my husband-to-be I wasn’t exactly the nicest to him because I knew when we first started talking I really liked him.

The first time we met he was just so funny, cute, and able to keep up with me that I was instantly attracted. We sparred each other with jokes back and forth and I knew I had met my equal match. I knew how I felt, and when I really do like someone I tend to A) avoid them or B) push them away. And I chose to push him away and shot down his request for my phone number with the infamous, “F that shit!”

We met again the following night, danced for hours and hours to live music at the same place we met the night before and I continued to be the wonderfully non-charming lady that I am when I like a guy. We ended up finding out that night the age difference we had. For me, it was a larger age difference than I’m used to but I’ve always dated older guys. He was thrown off by it because he thought I was much older and I ended up thinking he was actually quite a bit younger. Obviously we were still really attracted to each other and he asked again for my phone number… which I again shot down. I found him on the website we had ended up meeting each other through (not a dating website, mind you) and ended up giving him my number through an email and we went out on our first date the day after.

Of course, I’ve told this story before but it always amazes me thinking back that he kept on going after me. I wasn’t nice at all, and was trying to scare him away, yet he kept on chasing me and wouldn’t give up. Being married now does feel the same, but the only thing that changes it is us figuring out how to live together with a move miles away and me being jobless. He’s helped me when I’ve had a bad day and I have been his nursemade when he’s been sick. Even though we have ups and down, the hubby gets me and I feel like I’m a better person with him.

I try to be less cynical, I try to think in a more positive way, and I try to believe him when he says I can do anything and how pretty I am.

Wanna-be Martha Stewart of card making

I can be quite a craftsy person at times even though it certainly isn’t in my genetics to be so. My mom likes to ‘buy’ both mine and my brother’s affection through clothes, and stuff, and food. One of my favorite things I’ve gotten was something she made for me, jewelry, at this trivia competition we did. She’s never made anything for me so I wear it pretty consistently and think it’s pretty cute since she did it herself. So, I tend to make things for people, one of which being cards.

I am pretty damn good at card making, if I do say so myself. Martha Stewart-esque, even though she’d still kick my ass at card making probably with less supplies. Martha Stewart could probably make amazing handmade cards out of tinsel and some hay bale ties. But, I do love the look of handmade cards and I love how every time I do it, it turns out differently and I can custom make it for the person I want to give it to. My husband’s mother is actually quite a craftsy lady herself and loves little handmade things.

One of the reasons why I get along with my mother-in-law so well… that and she says I’m always right if the hubby and I are arguing over something stupid and trivial. Gotta love an in-law who always has your back and knows her son is a mischievous man who loves, loves, goofing around.

So, for his mother’s birthday what did I do? Well, the hubby bought her electronics (of course!) and I made her a cute little handmade card. I did something I’ve done before but I loved the look of it, which was punching out holes and tying it with pretty little pink ribbon. I did this a few times and it just gave the card this cute little vintage feeling. Now, the card itself was rustic paper that I glued two pieces together because it was pretty thin and just folded over. I embellished it with cute little things and bam! I had myself a cute card and something I know his momma is going to hang on to for a while, because she’s sentimental like that.

I do love his mother and I find it her to be a kind, funny, and caring woman. I can see why my hubby turned out the way he did because he had an awesome mom to take care of him. Even more so because  his mom was alone raising him. She taught him ways to take care of a woman and also just really great manners, like he will open the door for me (though I beat him to it every time) and will help me put on my coat too, on top of other things. She has always been so sweet and accepting of me, and she is unlike any other mother I’ve met with a guy I’ve been with. Generally mothers I’ve met have called me some pretty awful names and have tried to attack me verbally in ways that are pretty ridiculous. His mom and I got along like two peas in a pod when we met so I don’t mind taking some time making something for her.

Sparkly Boobs at the Airport? Oh, I gotta pat you down!

How I feel at the airport sometimes… no where to run or hide!

There is something I have noticed over my many, many, times of traveling over the years and with recent trips I’ve been making. Do you have zippers on the bottom of your pants? Well, you shouldn’t wear them, because you will get a swipe down with the metal detector. I figured this out and though I love my pants with the zippers on the bottom part of them, they just make me look better, I forbid them from being worn when I’m traveling in the airport. Zippers in unsuspected areas are obviously dangerous, which no one told me but I’m deducing from my travel experience.

Would you like to wear a shirt with some bedazzling on the chest? Would you like your breasts to look super awesome with some sparkly shiny stuff right in the cleavage area? I seem to have more pairs of shirts than I can count with some sparkles or embellishment on the chest and they don’t make me look like a stuffed sausage on.

Now, obviously, sparkles on your chest must also be a no, no, because not only do I get the wave of the wand but I get my breasts rubbed down from middle of my bra out several times.

I even asked my mom on my recent trip back home if this shirt I was planning to wear would be okay. It only had a little of some flashiness in the breast area and it was loose fitting and quite comfortable to wear. She told me I would be fine, and I went through the line like a pro. Shoes were taken off in record time,  belt whipped off in a flurry of movement, all of my stuff was out of my pocket! I was ready, and an amazing example of airport efficiency with the security check through.

Then, I got pulled aside. That wand was in their hand, and the gloves were on. Those white, latex gloves just itching to pat me down.

She didn’t even need to tell me why, I interrupted her with, “It’s the sparkles on my boobs, right? I even asked my mom if it would be okay!” The lady smiled and nodded, asking me if it would be okay if she patted me down.

Ah, yes, pat me down. It’s my fault, now my tempting boob bedazzled shirts will be put away when I’m going to the airport. If you are feeling me up with an airport pat down I at least want a free alcoholic drink first, please.