Here's to a better year

Of all the years in the almost 3 decades since I was born, 2009 is ranked one of the worst that I can remember. Pretty much everything went wrong this year. But the good news is the year is almost over! I've never been more enthusiatic about a new year coming into the picture before. Hopefully this means 2010 will be a much better year.

I already have my resolutions list all set and ready to start breaking. Well, possibly not (and hopefully) breaking during the incoming year. I'll start with the possible and then head to the "will probably never happen in a million years, much less 2010".

1. Read more books, like all the ones I've bought that I never have time to read. Ever
2. Write everyday, even if it's just 30 minutes
3. Post on my blog more than I did this year
4. Finish writing my book so I can finally send it in
5. Get in shape so I don't feel so blah about myself
6. Work on my finances so I will have NO bills when I get out of the Air Force next year
7. I will no longer speak ill of Twilight, because I'm trying to teach my 7 year old "If you can't say anything nice, than don't say anything at all". And I choose not to have an opinion about the movies and books
8. Become more organized and less cynical
9. Finish a good portion of my Bachelor's
10. Catch up on my shows on DVD (which is a whole LOT, so maybe I should make a list I can cross off)
11. Take better care of myself than I have in the past, like getting actual sleep and eat better
12. Take more time to enjoy life and take nothing for granted
13. Keep in better contact with my closest friends than I have been

These are just a few that I've come up with and I'm sure there will be plenty more in the next couple of days, but it is a start for now. And I'm so ready for the new year, I've already started some of my resolutions.

So what do I have to say about 2010? Bring it on!

A Decade Come and Gone

It's hard to believe that 10 years have gone by so fast. Ok, it hasn't exactly flown by, but it doesn't feel like I was 18 THAT long ago. 10 years ago, I had graduated high school and joined the military less than two months later. In the last ten years, I've done plenty. I've lived in Colorado, Italy, and Ohio, all places I never thought I'd visit, much less live. I had my beautiful daughter, Brynn, in 2002, so I spent most of the decade being a mom, my most fulfilling role in life to date. I had a great job that I really loved that was essentially outsourced, forcing me to find new employment in the Air Force. I've dreamed of becoming a writer, but have yet to finish a book to my liking. Sad, but true. I've put a lot of things on hold during the last decade, including going to school.

Many things have happened over the years, but these are the few that have stuck out the most that impacted me the most. My hope and goal for the next ten years is to do the things I've put off and things I've been too afraid to do in the past.

I have a good feeling about the new year and the coming decade.

it really is time

Maybe I sound like a big baby or complainer. Maybe I just seem like a huge pessimist. But my main reasons for deciding to leave the military is: I'm just plain tired. I'm exhausted. I'm sure it could be thought that I'm just one big quitter because I can't deal with 10 more years of it and I truly don't care. I've already gave 10 years of my life to this job and its taken a toll on everything in my life.

And I'll be completely honest, if I wasn't forced to get a new job and I could have stayed in graphics for my 20, I think I would've been all over it. But they decided they didn't want to keep the job around, so everyone had to find a new source of employment opportunity in place of that job. I just happened to end up in a job I truly hate. Not everyone does and I'm glad for them, but most of the time I feel like there's no real purpose. That I'm forced to give up all of me and my family, for nothing. Basically as long as I'm another warm body filling the seat, me and mine don't really matter.

Everyone I work with tells me this job isn't that bad at every base, just this one. And yes, they're probably right and I should just wait to move somewhere else before I make a rash decision. And I probably should. But this place has left a bad taste in my mouth. It's left me feeling drained. I also feel that a job that tells me that my family is less important than my job (which my boss has recently explained) isn't a place I belong in. Maybe he can turn that switch and feels that dedicated, but I don't share those views. My family is the only reason I'm still where I am. I do my job, but that's it. I don't have some deep seeded need to go above and beyond that. Which really isn't like me at all.

I keep thinking maybee this is the big neon sign I need to do something without always playing it safe. The last 10 years have been interesting to say the least and I'm grateful for the learning experience, but I really feel this is my time to step away from this life and finally do something I'd wake every morning wanting to do.

I wonder if that will ever happen or will I fail in the process? I fear failure as much as I hate liars. It leaves an awful feeling in my gut, especially when you're working for someone who is probably one of the biggest I've ever met. If you can't trust the person in charge, who can you trust?

My Life So Far

There's three things in the world I truly love doing, but I rarely ever have any time to do either of them: Writing, reading, and baking. When I was a kid my dream was to become a world famous pastry chef. I tried, oh, how I tried when I was 12 to help make the Christmas cookies. I begged my mom for days to make them so I could try my hand at baking. I got bored with the cookies before they hit the oven. There were more interesting things to do, like watching "Holiday on Ice" starring Nancy Kerrigan. Which was more important, of course, because when would I ever get to see that again?

So baking took a back burner in my life until I was about 20. But I still loved it, I still thought about it a lot. Even now, I try to bake as often as I can, but life and grown up responsibilities get in the way. I'd still like to try my hand at going to a culinary school. Maybe one day opening my own bakery or even working as a pastry chef somewhere awesome in the world. That dream is never going to die and one day I plan on making that dream happen.

My second love (I should mention that baking is my third) is writing. When I was 10 I wrote my first short story, one that wasn't mandatory for school and I still remember it. It was set during the WWII era and it was about a Jewish girl named Hannah, her 2 best friends and their families as they dealt with the outcomes of war. Of course, every character was based on someone I knew or someone I wished I knew. Hey, I was 10. As much as I loved writing it, I dealt with it in true Michelle fashion: I stopped working on it when it got too tough to finish which lead to ultimate boredom in the story. But I was determined to be a professional writer when I grew up.

I kept writing and stopping, writing and stopping. I started high school with notebooks full of stories, all half-finished, of course (to this day I have shelves of these notebooks in my closet). I spent most of my time writing in them instead of paying attention in school. I have a knack for words on paper, but my two biggest problems are confidence and the follow-thru. I have no confidence my writing is good and I have yet to finish any of the books I've started. I can say it's the normal issues of time, but it's not like I can't write when I'm working a weekend shift. No, I find there are more important things to take up my time so I can avoid my issues with becoming a failure. I feel like I won't finish a book because then I'd send it in. and someone would read it. Someone other than my mom and best friends (who, lets face it, are a little biased because they love me) and they might say it's complete crap. And then where would my confidence in my writing be? In a drain somewhere next to old salami. Lately, I've gotten a little better. I keep writing and going even though it's one of the hardest things I've done. I realize I'm not that bad of writer and I've even managed to write 123 pages. That's a major first.

Which of course leads me to my first love: reading (which actually goes hand in hand with writing, so I think it should just be a tie). Everyone in my family reads. It's like some kind of fluke gene that's guaranteed to be passed down from generation to generation. Our biggest thing is reading in the bathroom because it's the one place you can find some actual solitude. Let's face it: no one wants to know what's going on behind the closed door and they're not about to check (scratch that: everyone over the age of 10. Your kids will burst right in regardless).

What was the point of this blog? Not really sure. More a venting session, I guess, about the 3 things I love (outside of my family and friends, of course) that I rarely get to do often anymore.

2nd Grade Starts Here

Today was the first day of the 2nd grade for my little Brynnbug. She was excited and nervous at the same time, though she'd never admit that she WAS nervous. But nervous she was. So nervous in fact she posed like a 7-year-old diva:

I should point out right now that I didn't teach her any of these moves.



And while my brand new 2nd grader was enjoying her first day of school where was I? I was relaxing at the spa getting a well deserved pedicure in celebration of my 28th year in the world. Really? 28? Where have the last almost 3 decades gone? Somewhere in the past, I know. After my pedi, my mom and went out for a girl's lunch. We finished in enough time to pick up my baby.


There were plenty of stories of new friends and old friends. Not enough math for her, but I have plenty of worksheets to keep her mind occupied. After catching up, we all headed to Texas Roadhouse for a nice family dinner. That of course meant me sitting on a saddle and wearing a cowboy hat (happily I have no blackmail pictures of that). At home, I got my presents. Well, present. Brynn got me the cutest purse that's fully wearable under all conditions and can fit my entire life in it (just the way I want my mom purses to be).

My other present couldn't be wrapped as my mom bought it for me when I was in desperate need of a phone that didn't do things all on its own. My extremely early birthday present is my Blackberry. Most important part of today was spending time with my family and not worrying about work.

All in all, it was a great birthday for only turning 28 the first time. We'll see how 28 it in a couple of years.

It's All In The Genes . . .

Every parent always looks for similarities between yourself and your kids. It's a given to find more things in common. I can see myself in B, in a lot of ways. I used to think that it was her just copying me, but I've found lately that's not true at all. Her dirty looks are all me and the fact that she's always talking (not a bad quality, it's something I really love about her) and she's a big fan of being overdramatic. The last one I chalk up to the fact that she's a girl and it's just what some of us do sometimes. She catches onto any new kind of technology pretty quickly. Like scary kind of quick. She's the girliest girl I've ever met, dresses, skirts, and boots and all, but insists she's a "tomboy girl". She's a tomboy because she likes to play baseball and watch football (she's a huge Patriots and Tom Brady fan, just like her mama. You don't want to be in our house on game day). I love it.

But, I digress. She loves to read. I'm really loves to read. She can sit and read for hours if you'd let her. Everyone on both sides of the family are big readers, so it isn't much of a shock. She started reading "Harry Potter" around the end of June. She finished the first book about a month later. She really wanted to watch the movie (and all the rest, too), but we had a deal that before she saw the movie, she had to read the book first. She can be very stubborn (another family trait) when she wants to, so she finished, and we watched. She was absolutely enthralled and started reading the 2nd book the next day. She was done reading three weeks later (Tuesday afternoon, to be exact) and immediately began reading book 3. As part of our deal, we had a slumber party watched "Chamber of Secrets". She loved the book more, but the movie was pretty good, too.

She's finally starting to understand why I'm such a big fan of reading the book before I see the movie. I'd rather compare the book to the movie, so I at least know where the author was going with their idea. As silly as it seems, the whole books ruinned for me if I watch the movie first because then I'm always comparing the book, thinking in my head "well, that's not what happened in the movie". My brain works a little funkier than most.

It's amazing, though. She's really enjoying those books and is practically eating them up. She can't get enough of books in general. It's great! I love everything about my baby girl, because everything about her is just so her, but this is one trait I'm really proud she has.

Sometimes Life Really Does Suck

I realize life's not fair and I don't expect it to be. But every once in awhile, I'd just like to catch a break. Just have everything ease up, you know? Between lawyer fees and fighting to keep my boo in school in Ohio, I also have to add getting B a retainer sooner than I'd anticipated. I know I'll never stop worrying because I'm a worry wart, but this is one of the those times I wish everything took care of itself, like money magically appearing out of thin air so I can pay off all my bills and mortgage. Or everything just being absolutely perfect and nothing ever goes wrong. I know it's a lot to ask, but I'd give up just about anything to not have to worry about losing my baby. If everything would work out on that end, everything else would fall into place and fit right where it's supposed to. And the crick in my back would probably disappear like it had never been there in the first place.