July 4th 2012

  This was a very memorable fourth of July. I always tend to remember fourths because different equally memorable events seem to occur. Many of them have been sad or unlucky. I once decided fourth of July was cursed for me, because I always found myself thinking about a recent break up or just plain having one on that day. One involved Michael and I having a very awkward fight when we were dating in 8th grade, and I ended up crying on my friend Alex's shoulder and talking about explosives with another friend.

So yeah, fourth of July is always weird for me. I hope for something good but brace myself for drama.

Thankfully this years gone very smoothly! It was strange to be away from home and the traditions I normally partake in, but I got to experience a usual tradition up close and personal: fireworks. In Arizona you can't buy them or set them off. Sparklers, maybe. Designated areas, maybe. But I've always just admired them from afar.

Yep that sure is a tree on fire.

Here in Oklahoma, you're free to get as many fireworks as you want, gather up and set them off as you please. So Michael and his class and their families got together to do this at the lake about twenty minutes out of town. I've never ever experienced this before and for the first while it was pretty unnerving.
It was understandable that there were plenty of fire engines and ambulances and policemen standing by, as accidents are bound to happen. Someone not very far from us set a tree on fire, and in seconds it was blazing high. Just as quickly though, the fire fighters were right there and it was out.
We all had some different fireworks to share and we witnessed quite a lot. It was never quiet; they were going off all around us. I put up a few of our incidents on YouTube, like Mahoney lighting himself on fire and our finale fireworks toppling over and hitting a car and almost Michael's face.

I can't say I got the best quality of pictures, but I got a few good ones I'm fond of. It's hard when your camera runs out of battery and you have to rely on firework lights to illuminate the area so you can snap a picture on an IPod touch, but I did my best.
We set off some black cats at the lakes edge, and I was surprised to know that if you throw them in the water they still go off, so we giggled at the balls of light poofing to the surface for a while.
After we ran out of steam (and fireworks) and other people were starting to leave themselves, we decided to pack it up. We had some hookah and snacks outside our duplex before officially calling it a night.

And what a nice one it was :)

Day 27: I Wish I Could ___.

I wish I could make awesome things like this. I wish I wasn't so lazy, first of all, because I wish I could craft more, draw more and all the little things I see other people make or do that make me jealous. I know I'm capable and all it would take is some practice to produce something I'd be proud of but I'm too hard on myself. I wish I could write a novel. I actually thought I'd have done that by now. I was so dedicated to writing when I was in school. I think it's just a weird time in my life, but I'm waiting for something to spark my inspiration again and passion to get it done.

source

 I wish I could skip forward to having a career and a house in Arizona. I wish I could learn to play a new instrument but I need the structure I had in school in order to do that. I wish I had some kind of awesome skill that would impress people on YouTube.

This video gives me goose bumps. Can I please just be him? Anyway, I wish I could do a lot of things. This was sort of depressing, why did I make this part of my challenge? Oh well.

P90X Check In: Week Three Done!

   I decided I didn't want to constantly make updates about P90X, definitely not daily and not even weekly, but I'm done with the first routine! Week three is over! I'm starting to feel a little stronger, some of the workouts are getting a little bit easier, and Michael says I look more toned! (Maybe he's just saying that because he's my husband, but I believe him.)
   I'm certainly not there yet. But the way I'm feeling now is encouraging, and there are more intense workouts ahead of me. My stomach feels just a teeny bit flatter and I see a little more definition around my hips than I remember when I started, so that's good. My legs feel tighter, too.
   The workout I have the most trouble with is Yoga. Right? You wouldn't think so; everyone who doesn't do Yoga or know much about it thinks it's just a bunch of stretching and relaxing poses for minutes on end, and little to no sweating is involved.
   You are wrong! P90X Yoga is insane; twenty minutes in I'm already sweating and that's the warm up. It's a lot of plank, push up, downward dog, runners pose, crescent pose, warrior poses and going all the way back to plank and doing it all over again just to get to a new position. And check this out:

   This is the new line up for the next week. Just the next week, and then I do something different for two weeks. I do like the fact that stretching is in there twice. It's a pretty chill hour of yes, stretching, but you do sweat a little. And Yoga twice?? Oh man. I'll be glad when that's over.
   I'm proud of myself though, I wasn't sure I'd actually get this far. I switched around a rest day a few times but I always did everything. It's one of those things that tires you out a lot and if you don't push past the initial hard stuff and feeling sore all the time you'll probably quit. I'm twenty one days in out of ninety and still willing! It'll be cool when I've done over a month. Even better when I complete it and I can look back on pictures and see how I've changed!
   I need a recovery smoothie :)

Updates and Buttons!

As you might've noticed if you frequent this blog, I recently did a complete overhaul of the layout and rearranged everything. I also created some buttons for anyone who would like to advertise for me; one for dog lovers and one for cat lovers! Look for them on the bottom left. 

What do you think? I like it, but I'm still making the occasional tweak here and there. 

Another New Addition!

   Michael and I have a habit of making impulsive decisions together. Thankfully, in the end we tend not to regret it.
   Last night we were at a couples apartment just drinking and hanging out. She and I went outside because she wanted to try and teach me how to long board. I was a little too tipsy, it turned out, so we went back upstairs but ended up outside the door talking for a while. Suddenly a man walks up the steps with two kittens in his hands. Apparently he lives in the complex and needed to give these little things a home. He handed each of us one and was gone as quickly as he showed up.
   Well I'm a sucker for baby animals but I didn't want to assume we could have it. That's another mouth to feed, more things to buy etc. But as soon as Michael saw it it was over. His family has always taken in animals so he's always had up to eight pets at a time. And I really really missed having a cat around since my mom has four and even my dad had one. Once he had it in his arms and it sat on his shoulder like his cat Ebony used to we knew we were bringing it home with us.
   Honestly we're not 100% sure if it's male or female. My guess is female. Either way, we named this pretty kitty Ramses. Who cares if it's masculine or feminine? We named our female corgi after a male character in a show called Metalocalypse. No big deal.
   Ramses is so so sweet and so chill. Already litter box trained, very cuddly and doesn't seem to care that Foxy and Toki keep investigating because they've never been around a cat. We let Ramses sleep with us and rather than wander around scared and meowing like I expected, we woke up to a curled up kitty between us and no problems.The transition has been virtually effortless.
   Our dogs definitely have that new baby syndrome. They're super curious and Foxy keeps cuddling up to me with a worried look on her face as if to say You still love me, right?? They're being really silly, but I think they'll get over it.
 

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter Review

The moment I saw the cover of the book form of this, I was already laughing at the idea. There's a popular theme going on in cinema lately in which history is revisited and either rewritten or "secrets" are revealed.
A lot of people are raving about how great this movie was. I'm not one of those people. Sure, some of the effects were nice, the acting could've been worse (I would've liked some wine with my cheesy dialogue) and I enjoyed the fact that young Abraham looked like a young extra hot Liam Neeson but this film requires a lot of suspension of belief in order to enjoy it.
And even then it lost me. If you added up the length this film went into slow motion, a good half an hour was probably wasted on it. A few times is cool. Most of the time anything action-y happens is a bit ridiculous. I tried really hard to take it seriously, but this film took itself so seriously I just kind of gave up. I think it lost me sometime in the beginning when Abraham has a vicious battle with the vampire who killed his mother....on a herd of running wild horses. Just try to imagine that. Just try.
I guess for those people who really don't care about accuracy or abuse of slow motion or ridiculous fight scenes it was fun. Good ridiculous fun. The one thing I'll give this film is it brought back the original idea of vampires being monsters. Actual monsters with big scary teeth who will eat your family so they can laugh every time they see you on the streets and think to themselves his family sure was tasty! But there was also the idea that not all of these monsters are necessarily bad all around, and I liked that too.
Michael was twitching the entire time because he, unlike myself, bothered to read the book and after a feverish rant on the extreme difference between the two I might actually pick it up. The bottom line? The titles are the same. Very little else is. Even actual historical events were left out in the film. His love interest wasn't even his first choice, and he didn't even really like her. And that's just a small detail. The author did his homework and made the story believable. That's something I can get behind.
But this train wreck (haha there was a train wreck in the movie, get it?) of a film, I can't.

Anniversaries

   As of this past week, Michael and I have been together for three years and married for six months. They say the first year of marriage is the hardest but when you're in a shitty town and everyone around you seems to be having marriage trouble in some way you realize one of the only good things you have is each other.
   Michael asked me out June 22nd at around 2am at my cousins house. There was booze involved, that's for sure. We were sitting outside on the porch, and he asked me how to say girlfriend in Spanish. Novia. I already knew what he was going to say but he slowly put the words together in a sentence. It was silly and cute and even after some of the drama we'd already gone through I wanted to say yes so I did.
   We got mixed reactions, of course. And I don't think anyone, including myself, thought we'd end up growing so gracefully and starting a life together. But it was so worth sticking through it and getting past my initial fears of being just another girl in his life.
   I think without the army situation though, we might not have made such a decision. We got to a point in our relationship in 2010 when one of us needed to do something big with our life and get out of the huge rut we'd found ourselves in. He was going to be away and neither of us knew for how long at that point. It was a big scary thing, but somewhere along the way we both decided we didn't want to be without each other no matter what happened.
   I questioned things every step of the way. I was always worried he didn't actually want to be with me, that kind of thing. But Michael was always helping me through my insecurities. We formed a trust we'd never had before. Through our letters, we reached a level of communication we'd never experienced before. It was completely and entirely worth it, because we both wanted it and we both did anything to make it work.
   I can honestly say we haven't had any major fights here. Neither of us has ever slept on the couch out of anger. We have our tiffs over stupid things but we're quick to clear it up and get over it. Some of the couples here have told us how good we are together, and I can't help being proud. It's been obvious since we got here that we have a really really good thing. There are a lot of army couples here that got married on a whim, didn't know each other for long, or stayed together for all the wrong reasons.
   But I have my best friend. We know everything about each other, the good and the bad. We want the same things, we have a great foundation of friendship, and I couldn't possibly see myself with anyone else. In the long run, this is only the beginning. So I hope to have many more anniversaries to come with this perfect guy for me.