Wow... has it really been 4 months since I have blogged? Seriously, I need to get back to this!

I read through my past posts and it made me kind of sad. A lot has changed in these past 4 months, but I can only look forward now.

However, I was accepted into NAU's program for education and I cannot be more excited! It will remind me of my high school days at Chandler Prep, because it will be a small program (about 50 of us), and we will all be together for the next 2 years. It will be such a great way to meet new people, and have connections later on. I loved the family aspect of CPA, so I am looking forward to getting that back again :D

Just wanted to post something to get back into the swing of things. It is amazing to see time fly when you are going to school full time and have 2 jobs! I was also service learning for a kindergarten class, and I had to complete 30 hours of it, so that felt like a job as well. I like being busy though, makes me feel like I am needed and have a purpose.

Hmm what else has happened... oh! I have 2 tattoos now! One small heart on my wrist, and a big rose on my left rib cage. Both have meanings and I will never regret it. Old Town Ink did a fantastic job and I would recommend them anytime. I turned 21, so now I can legally drink and gamble. Not that I do that a lot anyways lol. I have only gambled once (and I wasn't even 21), and I don't really drink. So, it's just the bragging rights I guess haha.

I'll write more later, and my goal is to blog throughout my program through NAU. Will be a fun thing to look back on when I'm older and see what I was doing.

Talk soon :]

-Alex

I thought it would be fun to do a little questionnaire about me! I remember doing these back when emailing was cool haha :D

1. What is one of your favorite ways to spend a Saturday?
     Honestly, I just enjoy doing nothing. I am either going to school or going to work, so     it is nice to just lounge on the couch and catch up on my recorded shows.

2. List your top 3 favorite T.V. shows.

     Ohmygoodness. That is a tough one. My mom and I love reality shows, and we pretty much watch all of them haha. But I guess if I had to pick they would be:

Cake Boss

Four Weddings

Keeping up with the Kardashians

I know, I am super guilty of the last one... but I can't help it!

3. Would I rather be in the picture, or just take them?

     I would rather be in them! But sometimes, I enjoy being the photographer. I like editing pictures and making them the way I want them to look like. 

Yes, I took those!

4. Share 5 websites that you visit regularly:

     MSN (gotta get my news on!)

     Facebook (duh)

     Pinterest (tripple duh!)

     TMZ (gotta get my celebrity gossip on!)

     Perez Hilton (just another celebrity gossip sight haha)

5. List a few of your favorite snacks.

     I am a very picky eater. And when I find something I like, I will pretty much stick to it. But these are just a few of my favorites :]

Artichokes

 Blackberries/Raspberries

Fancy cheese with fancy crackers

HOT SAUCE! (drooling just thinking about it)

 Hummus

Peaches

6. What 3 material possessions could you not live without?

   Pffft, thats easy:

My car

My iphone

My MacBook Pro

7. What is your favorite drink?

     Well, I love water. I don't drink enough of it, but I still enjoy it! But my all time favorite drink is: 

Pina Colada! 

     

8. Do I enjoy cooking?

   Hmm.. I don't particularly enjoy it, but when I get into a cooking mood I do!

9. Do you live near your family?

     My dad's dad lives here, and my mom's mom lives here. But the rest of my family lives all over. California, Florida, Minnesota. I miss them all so much and I wish we could all live closer :/

10. What is your favorite animal?

    Isn't it obvious...

Welp, that's all I had the patience for! Dang, this took longer than I thought. I was going to do 20. I'll do the other half in my next post :]

What did you do over the weekend? Are you looking forward to anything this week? I hope so!

-Alex

Last night I signed up for my classes for Fall! I am in the middle of changing my major, so I didn't know it would be this hard to gather up everything I need! Being an education major takes a lot of outside work (and money might I add!). I just called my local Department of Safety for my IVP clearance card. IVP stands for Identity Verified Print, and it's just another fancy ID card. I requested a packet and it should be here next week!

I am only taking 4 classes, but hopefully I can take one more if the school allows me. However, these classes are not easy by any means. These are not general education classes, so I am all done with science and english. Thank goodness! However, I do have two jobs to tend to. I am going to see how the first week of school goes to get an idea of what I am going to be getting myself into. If I am way over my head, I need to either give up one of my jobs, or just work less at both. I love being a barista and nanny, but I love getting an education more. This is for me, no one else! Actually, I'm just excited for the bragging rights I will get :P After December 2014 (graduation!), I will just take a semester off, then start my Masters program in the fall of 2015. I want my Doctorate, so hello to 10 more years of school! :D I'm not sure if it is 10, I hope not.

This has been a loooong week for me! I went back to nannying Monday-Thursday from 8:30 - 5 ish. I love those girls to death, but when the ratio of adults to children is 1:4 or 1:6, it can be hard! I am either their best friend, or their worst enemy. The one nice thing is that they forget about the fight they had in about 10 minutes, so they don't linger on it. However, these fights can happen 5 or 6 times a day. Yesterday I helped them out at the Arizona Grand Resort, and boy was it tough. People were staring! I was the bad guy and the girls were just innocent creatures being yelled at. It was very hot outside, and they were tired from staying up late the night before. So, that just meant cranky cranky girls! I was proud of myself for going on the "big slide" twice though! Yay me haha :]

Anyways, I'm off to the gym and then to Whole Foods! Gosh I love that place :D Even though it is overpriced, I feel so healthy haha.

Have a great weekend! Here are some photos that I took with my phone this week :D

My aromatherapy diffuser :]

New hair for the photo shoot!

Old high school buddies watching the Olympics

The girls I nanny and I making a cake! Them being silly with the frosting :P

They each had a place to decorate!

clouds <3

Me and one of the girls :]

Yes, that is just rain! They did not jump in the pool!

Monsoon!

Raindrops on my sunroof

My backyard during the storm

Parents looking in the revine (I am a horrible speller...)  

Water running through the revine! 

My Boo <3 (Her name is Bailey)

Running water from the driveway!

Rainbow view from my backyard. It's inside the canyon!

I was bored during nannying, so I doodled :P

So today was a veryyy LONG day! But a very productive and happy one :D

I went back to nannying today and I was there at 8:30 - 4:30. 4 girls! It's a lot of work, especially when it's just me. It's hard to make every girl happy, because usually one feels left out, or gets into a fight, or doesn't want to do what the others are doing, etc. But I make it work. Today we made homemade chocolate chip cookies! They loved that :D I think I'm going to go onto my pinterest boards and see what I can come up with for them to do tomorrow :] I missed them so much though! When I walked through the door, they all came running to me and gave me a huge hug :] Made me feel so loved! And the mom asked me questions about my vacation and how Sam was. It's nice to have a family to work for who really cares about my life!

Right after work, I went straight for my informational meeting about my majors. By the end of 2014, I will have 2 majors in Education and Special Education. I've always wanted to teach, but put it in the back of my head. In spring, I took an education class to fulfill one of my classes, and just fell in love with it :] So, I changed my major from architecture to education! Education runs in my family too. My aunt has her masters in education, my grandma taught special education for years, my grandpa had his doctorate in education, my cousin is a director at a boys and girls club.. so I have a lot of resources to use. I'm excited!

Then tonight, my cousin sent me a letter just to say hi and that she is always there for me :D That Really made my day. Made me feel so special and loved! Thank you cuz! It's always nice getting a hand written letter in the mail :] People need to start doing that more. It makes the message more personal when you see their hand writing.

Also, we have been shopping at Whole Foods more often and it makes me feel so healthy! Just the smell makes me feel good and want to eat healthier. When I went there about a week ago with my mom, I walked down the isle with all the natural products like candles, shampoo, soap, stuff like that. I was fascinated with what was actually in the products. Sure enough, they were all great things! I wanted to buy some, but not for $14 haha. So instead, I bought some essential oils. I've read that they are very good for you, plus the aroma isn't bad on the nose either :P I bought a diffuser to go with it. You put a candle under the diffuser, and the oil heats up making the oil spread through the air. It might be just in my head, but I love the look of it and it is much better than just a candle! Plus, the oil lasts a lottttt longer than just a candle. That is also a plus!

Okay this post probably makes no sense. I'm watching the olympics while trying to make a post haha.

I need to start posting pictures on here, so my next post I will add some pictures of some sort!

Is everyone watching the olympics? What is your favorite event? Mine is the diving and gymnastics. They are simply flawless!

I hope you all have a great week! :D

-Alex

Happy Tuesday!

So, for the past few weeks I have been debating what I want to do for my 21st birthday. I'm not a party person, nor do I drink (occasionally I do), and most of my friends aren't 21+. So, Vegas is out of the question haha. I wanted this to be a birthday that I will never forget, so it has to be something special!

I've always wanted a tattoo, but never knew what I really wanted. Tattoo's are hard to talk about, because I change my mind ALL THE TIME. I change my hair color practically 6 times a year, how could I ever get a tattoo right? Hmmm maybe I can :]

My middle name is Rose, so ever since I can remember I've always wanted a Rose tattoo.  But thinking about being a 70 year old with a rose tattoo... well, that Rose turns into a weed. On one hand, it turns ugly. On the other, it was beautiful at one point and will go through many many things in life so it will have a special place; it will end up who I am :]

Oh, and I have a thing for owls. Don't know why, but they are JUST TOOOOOOO CUTE! I mean, who doesn't think owls are cute? I will convince you otherwise :]

Another thing I love are compasses. My mom wants a compass tattoo as well, so that would be something we share.

Anyways! I contacted High Voltage Tattoo (the tattoo parlor where LA Ink was filmed), and they contacted me back! I was thrilled that they even emailed me back within a week. I don't think I would trust anyone else to do my tattoo. Yeah I could get cheaper ones where I live, but I've done my research and 1. They didn't get back in touch with me and 2. I didn't want to go to Club Tattoo 3. I wanted the bragging rights of saying I got my tattoo done at High Voltage haha. So here are a few tattoos that I like!





These are just some that I like, will do more research! Let me know what you think of them :]

Alex

soooo I am back to work now! Well, last night I was. I was only gone for 2 weeks and a few days, but I can't believe how much I forgot at my work! I am a barista at a coffee shop, and there are a lot of rules to making a drink! I'm glad I was closing last night so it was slow, but dang I forgot how hectic it is in the mornings! Imagine Friday morning before all those people go to work, they want their coffee right? Well then there comes me being at the espresso bar making all of these drinks. For some reason or another, people seem to order hot drinks in the morning regardless of the weather. So, lucky me, a lot of the drinks were so random. First it's a large iced americano with an extra shot, then it's 3 hot vanilla lattes, then an iced caramel latte, then 2 iced chai tea lattes, then its a hot mocha latte, etc. So I was steaming milk for one drink, and once I'm on the next drink, another hot one comes up! Ugh, if I had known that I would have steamed more milk -.- oh well, it's part of the job! It was nice seeing familiar faces though :] There is this one girl who comes in all the time and she asks how I am feeling all the time. I have told her about my anxiety issues and cysts and stomach problems, and she had the same problems. She helps me out and it works :] She teaches yoga at my gym, so I will go (eventually haha I'm too lazy to actually do it).

Last night, a psycho man went on a shooting rampage in Aurora, Colorado at a movie theatre during the midnight premier of The Dark Night Returns. And I just need to say that people like him make me (and other people too), scared to do more and more things. I was talking to this man at work today who comes in all the time (small dry iced americano with a glass of water) and started talking about how 50 years ago people weren't as scared as they are today. I agree with him 100%! If you think about it, people didn't used to lock their doors because they trusted everyone. Okay maybe that was longer than 50 years ago, but still. Can you imagine the terror and fear being in that theatre? It's one thing to hear about this tragedy, it's another to live it. I would imagine that stunt being fake for the movie. Those movies are dark and full of violence. But once I could hear a gyn being fired, I would be terrified to move. If I got up I would be a target. My heart goes out to those families affected by this shooting, and give them strength to heal and cope with their loses. That man will get what he deserves, and it should be life in prison.

My mom is making spaghetti and garlic bread tonight, yum! She makes the best garlic bread :] So I'm off for dinner!

Hope everyone's day went well :] Have a great evening!

-Alex

Since Sam has left, we both have decided to get back into shape and be healthy together. I know we are 7000 miles apart from each other, but we can still motivate each other and cheer each other on :] We have until December, so about 5 more months! We can get toned the healthy way, not the starving way or pill way.

So tonight, my brother Garret and I went to the gym! We go to the Village, and it's a really nice gym. So it's nice that there is a lot of variety when it comes to the machines. I usually do the elliptical, but it is a different kind of elliptical. That's all I usually do for 30 minutes on a specific "fat burner" program. Ended up burning 308 calories! Now, I haven't been to the gym since April, so I'm proud of myself! Garret did pretty well for his first time on the machine. He said it was much harder than just running and will try to do it more. My goal is to do it 5-6 times a week with one day to rest or do a different type of exercise. This is just to start to get used to working out. Plus it is a good stress release. I feel more stressed than ever, so it is a healthy way to focus on a specific thing.

Just wanted to write a quick entry before I get to work on my room. It is a disaster, and needs to be done tomorrow. Oh well, might as well do it now than never. However, I am a great procrastinator and get the job done on time :]

-Alex