To the Gym!

I got a gym membership recently.  So far I've made pretty good use of it, but it is more on the expensive end as far as gyms in this town go.  I pay about fifty dollars a month for my membership.  It's one of two places in town with a track and a pool.  I need that track if I want to keep up with my running throughout the winter and then I can swim on my off days.  All in all I think it's worth it, as long as I can stay motivated to keep going.

The first day I went I was really nervous, and not about normal stuff either.  Like, you'd think I would be nervous to run in front of people, especially those going faster than me.  But no.  Instead I was nervous that I would use the wrong locker or grab a towel I wasn't supposed to use or just go against proper gym etiquette in general.  Sometimes my brain over thinks things and then I get way too worked up.  It didn't help that the first time I went, I ended up getting sick.  Lesson learned: never go swimming shortly after consuming spicy food and a lot of lettuce.  Thank god I got over the nervous feeling because now I feel right at home there.  Maybe one day I'll even get the courage to take a spin class or even use the lifting equipment.  For now I'll take the safe, less anxiety provoking path and stick to the track and pool.

I like exercising.  I like the feeling of accomplishment that comes with it and the adrenaline rush I get afterword.  A friend told me a couple years ago that she was going to run in the Boston marathon.  She didn't run much then and neither did I, but I told her I would run with her.  Now, I don't think I'll ever actually make it to the Boston marathon.  You have to have a qualifying time that is pretty intense, but I do think it's possible that I will run a marathon some day.  Hopefully in the next couple years.  There is a half marathon race that I can run in the fall.  My original plan was to do it this spring, but I stopped running as soon as it got cold.  First off it gets really cold out and secondly running on ice makes my muscles sore.  Hence the heated, indoor gym membership.  But seriously there is no better feeling then when I finish running what I had planned on running for that day.  It's the best sense of accomplishment I have found in anything so far.  I've adopted the song "Go the Distance" from Hercules as my motto.  And sometimes I just imagine how good it will feel to be able to say that I am a marathon finisher.  I still have a long way to go though.

I'm Back!!!

I have not blogged regularly in years... the reason being I have not had a functioning computer in years.  But now I do, so I really can't use that excuse anymore.  Technology really is great, isn't it?  My new toy is half computer/ half tablet- an Asus Transformer Book.  And even though I'm not quite sure how to use it yet and have only played around with it for the last thirty minutes or so, I've decided I love it.  Now I have a place to work on my stories, play games, and of course, get back into blogging.

Last year my new year's resolution was to write more so I decided that I would do a journal entry in my paper journal every day... I'm going to be honest with you.  That last until about April, but I kind of kept with it and wrote more last year then I have in a long time.  I even finished a story about an imaginary friend that I started writing about five years ago.  I come up with all these fun stories and characters in my head but sometimes just have a hard time with the actual writing part.

So which is better- blogging or journaling?  For me it's hard to say.

Blogging there's always the possibility that someone will read it and comment on it, which is always fun and exciting.  It's more like a two part conversation instead of just private reflection.  Ever since I took a creative class, I've been kind of obsessed with the conversation side of writing.  Anytime anyone mentions they write a story, I ask to read it and in turn ask them to read my stuff.  A keyboard is super convenient and faster too.  My fingers can keep up with my thoughts and writer's cramp can be a thing of the past.

But I've loved journaling since I was a little girl.  It's a nice private place to relieve stress and vent, and there is something almost magical about a blank page filling up with words out of my own head and the contact between actual pen and paper.  I also really like the smell of ink on paper.  And as dorky as this may sound, getting a new journal and finding one that fits my personity is always exciting.  In fact, when we went to the renaissance fair this summer I picked up a nice pink, leather one with a fairy on the cover.  I'm excited to write in it as soon as I fill up the one I'm currently writing in.  I've actually never filled one up before.  I always get new ones as gifts or because I see one I like and want to write in it straight away, leaving my old one half empty.  But this time I am determined and I'm pretty  close too.  More then three-fourths of the way in fact.

Maybe one is not any better than the other.  And I certainly don't think choosing to write one way means giving up another.  It's not like I'm going to blog about stuff that's too personal or private and it's unlikely that I hand my journal over to somebody to read something in there either.  Is there room to blog and private journal while keeping up with both?  Is there time along with enough ideas to go around?  Well, at least I certainly hope so.

So Many Memories...

There are so many memories swirling around in my head right now.  We used to go on ballooning trips in the tan van.  Papa would drive, and I would sometimes sit right behind him when I didn't feel like being in the "way back."  I remember watching him drop his one hand slowly down to the ground.  Then he'd reach back quickly and grab at my feet.  It would make me giggle and I'd pull my feet up onto my seat so he wouldn't get me.  Then, when I thought it was safe, I'd cafefully place my feet back on the ground only to have them grabed at by him again.

One time after taking Blitzen to the dog park, my car got stuck in the mud.  I called Papa to come and get me.  He was going to help push me out, but before he was ready I pushed down on the excelerator.  My tires spun, and mud went spraying everywhere, including my grandpa's shirt.  The look on his face was great.  It almost said, "I'm trying very hard not to be mad at this" or else he was just trying not to laugh. I'm not sure.   When we got home and grandma saw his shirt she just started laughing.  I brought him chocolate covered peanuts the next day as an I'm sorry/thank you present.

I remember during the flood, we were all at Phyllis and Vern's house out at the lake.  I wanted to sleep with Roxie, so Aaron coaxed her under the covers on the air matrice.  Before Papa went to bed, he came up to me to say goodnight.  Seeing the lump on the bed, he gently put his foot down on it.  I think he must have thought it was my feet.  He was pretty surprised when Roxie came out of one of the covers and walked off into the next room.

Aaron and I were sitting at your kitchen table on aftertoon.  And he came and sat down and joined us.  Out of nowhere my grandfather takes his teeth out of his pocket and puts them back in his mouth.  This caught me by surprise and I thought it was so funny so I started laughing.  Papa was really confused, but Aaron started laughing at me for laughing so hard.  Evenutally you figured out what I was laughing at and shrugged, "It makes the food taste better."

I'm even thinking about the time I got into a fight with my mom and locked myself in my room.  My mom called my grandparents, and they came over pretty quick.  My grandfather put the fear of god in me that day.  He was good at that when I was in trouble.  The look he gave me was enough.  He pryed open my bedroom door with a butter knife and then I got a long talking to.

I went into this basement yesterday and found the doll house I was working on.  I wanted to put it together myself, but he kept going down there and touching the thing.  He even broke it once or twice, but he was nice enough to put it back together.  When I went down there and saw he had glued a couple of the roof shingles on, I was so mad.  I didn't have enough of the shingles that came in the box because I had lost them over time.  I was going to go to Michael's and find something else to use instead.  Even though I was going to take those shingles he glued on there off, I don't think I can now.  They won't match the rest of the roof, but I don't think I care.

He was the greatest man I've ever known, and even though I'm thankful for the time I had to know him, I wanted it to be longer.  There are so many moments that will happen in the future that I'll want him to be there with me.  I got asked to describe my papa in one word, but I can't do that.  There are too many great words that make up who he is: strong, faithful, dependable, kind, funny, and the best damn grandpa anyone could ask for.

Gotta Catch 'Em All

So here's my post about Pokemon, a franchise that took over a large portion of my childhood- more specific forth and fifth grade.  Back then I was only interested in the cards and the television show; I never had a game boy.  Bulbasaur was the first card I ever got.  To this day he is still one of my favorites.

When I was younger, I always wanted the cute Pokemon cards- Jigglypuff, Vulpix, or Togepi.  We never actually played the card game.  At least not by the rules anyway.  We'd compare HP, attacks, and rareity and decide who won from there.  We were more interested in trading the cards for the ones we thought were the best looking.

I think the television show is what sucked us into it.  At the time, I didn't have WB, the station that played Pokemon every day at three.  But I found ways around that.  I'd watch the videos or try to end up at my grandma's at three o'clock if we didn't have school that day.  We'd also play make believe.  I was always Misty, my favorite human character on the show... well maybe besides Sabrina.  We made a rule that if your character had a Pokemon, you had to have the card for it.  We'd pretend the cards were our Pokeballs.

Now, I'm still a little obsessed with Pokemon.  Since I got my 3DS, I've put more time into Pokemon Black than any other game.  Every once in a while a need to collect the cards come back to me too.  I have all the orginal 150 except for one card, which unfortunatly is Charizard.  I used to have that card, a holo too.  But I traded it like an idiot.  I patiently await the next game to come out, so I can finally play Pokemon in 3D, but untill then I'll try to catch 'em all in Pokemon black.

Drowning

I was originally going to write about Pokemon today, but I read a friend's blog earlier that made me change my mind.  This may be kind of a depressing post, and maybe it is best saved for a private journal or something.  But let's be honest here, I'm not going to be pulling out the journals any time soon.

Things seem like they're piling up, like I'm drowning in a list of to-dos.  And the truth is, I'm not really.  All I do is go to work and then come home and play video games... or worse yet just go to bed.  It seems like everybody's always busy, so I don't have much of a social life.  And I guess that's slowly changing.  Dalton and I have been hanging out more, and Sarah's on spring break.  I think that's this week at least.  But every day it's "I should clean my house" or "I really need to clean my car" or even "I should work on my story that should have been done months ago."

These things just keep building up and I just can't find the energy or motivation to do them.  My anxiety's been through the roof lately too.  Sometimes there are reasons for it, even if they're silly.  Every time I go to work I feel like I'm going to get fired, even though I show up on time and try my hardest at my job.  I'm paranoid about almost everything lately, most of them are too personal to share.  But sometimes I'm just nervous for absolutly no reason at all.  And maybe I'm nervous about things and just can't remember what was said to make me nervous.  I don't know.

So basically the question is, how do I get over this?  How can I make myself come to my senses?  Most of this is just in my head, right?  So why is it so hard to just suck it up and grab life by the horns?  Why is it so hard to pick up the phone and call someone to hang out or even just do a load of laundry?

Back to School

So it's been a bit, but I'm back at Northland taking a couple of classes.  It's scary though, I havn't taken anything in over two years, and the last semester I took didn't go over well at all.  It's okay though.  I've already promised myself that I'm going to go to class every day that I am able, and I'm not going to drop any classes.  This is the semester I pass Intro to Public Speaking.  I can feel it.

I do feel a little out of place, I'll admit.  I think I just need some time to get back into the swing of everything.  Waking up early won't be a problem, but getting into the habit of doing homework might be.  Also, I forgot how hard it is to sit still for an hour.  Thankfully taking notes and doing a bit of doodling helps with that.

I'm also back in the marching band.  That's proving to be harder than I thought it would be.  It's been a while since I've marched and I'm having a hard time finding my sets, especially finding my place among all the people who know what they're doing.  I kind of feel like an idiot.  It's also been a while since I've played, and, to be completly blunt and honest, my range just plain sucks.

Something snapped within me a few months ago.  I need more in my life than just Jimmy John's.  Don't get me wrong, I love my job right now.  But I need more.  So between school, work, and marching band, I feel like my life actually has substance again.  I'm just worried my social life might suffer a bit.

John

"I've got some friends.  Some that I hardly know.  But we've had some times I wouldn't trade for the world."  ~Rise Against

I didn't know you that well.  You were a friend of a friend, and we only hung out a handful of times.  What I do know is that those few times were always a blast, even with all the high school drama that occasionally came along with them.

I remember watching Rent at Marinda's with you.  I remember enjoying secrets that your mother made.  And for those of you who aren't cool enough to realize what secrets are, they're brownies.  I remember us all sitting in your living room, while you played "Swing Life Away" and other songs on your guitar.  I'll always think of you when I hear that song.

And of course the first thing that comes to mind when I think of you is the way you kicked your feet in the air when you laughed.  We were all being goofy to began with, but for some reason I found that so funny.  Then of course you laughed at me for laughing about it, which in turned made your feet kick faster.  Then I'd laugh harder... it was an endless circle.  I don't even remember what we were laughing about in the first place.

This is one of my favorite pictures from high school.  There's a few different groups of friends in this picture, but they're all connected in some way or another.  Some of us were hanging out with you that day, and some were there visiting David.  It must have been Megan's goodbye party.  I still don't remember there being that many people being there, but I've been told there was even more that had left earlier.

It's not fair that diabetes should take a life, espeically from someone so young.  Rest in peace John; you will be missed by many.