Mamma Said

      Growing up, like most, I would endlessly force my mom to proof-read my papers, make sure my math was correct, try to trick her into doing my work for me, you know, basic kid stuff. As I grew older though my mom would always ask to read my papers. Just thinking that she was being my mom, I didn't think anything of it, until one night at dinner. In a totally random moment, after I had asked her to pass the salt, or something like that, my mom turns to me and she says, "You know Addie, I really like reading you papers cause they read like you talk," Now, since I was probably 18 when she said this, and not really equipped to carry a normal conversion I answered with a grunt, or a sign and just continued to eat my mashed potatoes. Looking back now, I realize what a cool thing it is. I hope that if anyone reads this, they can get a sense of what my voice is from my writing. Although you probably won't be able to pick up on my pesudo-valley-girl-western accent, cause who the eff knows how that happened.

      The reason why I find this relevant it that I'm in this Critical Thinking class and it's all about, "finding your rhetorical voice." I know what I talk like, and I'm not overly thrilled with it. I get the impression that the way I speak dumbs me down, if that makes sense. I'm a 23 year old woman, and I say "like," basically every other word ( I almost said "like," right there!) . So a part of my whole ~*~new year, new me~*~ is to actually find my rhetorical voice. I'm glad I have a voice in my writing, and I'm glad it sounds like me, but I think it's time to refine and tune. Time to grow up as they say.

Cheers, Momma

So You Wanna Be an Independent Woman?

     Two and a half years ago I moved to Tucson, AZ at the ripe age of 21. It was my first time not living with my parents, and I made the executive (dumb) decision to live alone. Living alone would be great right?! Having my own space, not having to worry about who's turn it was to buy toilet paper, or worry about someone eating my yogurt, but truth be told, I was lonely. So lonely. I was depressed, and everyday was a struggle. My dad came down to say with me for a little bit, just to help, which it did, but as soon as he left I fell back into my funk. The glamorous single-girl life I had planned for myself in my new city was slowly crumbling apart.
   
Sidebar here are interesting facts about me.
 I am:
              1. overly dramatic (thanks childhood love of theatrical arts!)
              2. very impatient
              3. bullheaded (thanks Scottish heritage!)

     With that being said lets take another look at my transition to The Old Pueblo. Yes, moving is hard, and yes it can be lonely at times, but everything just takes time. When I moved down here I expected to have friendships like the ones I had up in Prescott, forget the fact that I had know most my friends upwards of five years....I expected my life to just fall into place, and everything would be hunky-dory! I have a tendency to move fast, and expect others to keep the same pace as me, but that seldom the case. I don't know what it is, maybe it's cause I'm a Cancer (astrology?) or maybe it's just a trait that is hardwired into my DNA, but I expect to have one conversation with people, and just expect them to want to BFFS and braid each others hair and get matching tattoos. I've burned many a bridge, for reason I'm not even sure why. I'll feel betrayed or abandoned all because someone was working all day and couldn't get fro-yo with me. This ,and many other things, are something that I'm hoping to fix. Try to be empathetic, try to slow things down, try being the operable. Since my mini-breakdown I've made some really good friends. We go to bars, we have inside jokes, just like real friends, hmmm whodathunk! Sure we may not have know each other since 8th grade, but these are still lasting friendships. I've found my crowd, my clique, my pack, and now I can't imagine living my life in any other way.
     So cheers to striking out on my own when I was ill-equipped, and cheers to making it out on the other side!

Life

     Ever notice how life seems to get in the way, like all the time? Well that's how I feel especially right now. On some days I feel so fulfilled in my day-to-day functions, and other days I just feel like a big grey blob floating around doing nothing with my life. As a non-traditional student, I find it hard to connect with my peers. I constantly mutter to myself, "what the freak are these kids even thinking?!?!" and then I remember, they're not. I wasn't thinking when I was eighteen, nineteen or twenty. I didn't know what I wanted in my life, or career, I was just focused on finding a bitchin house party to attend every weekend. You would think that now that I'm 23 things would be going smoothly seeing I know what I want to be when I, "grow up", but that is not the case. I often find myself sighing and dragging my feet just going through the motions, waiting for my life to begin. School has been fun, school has been great, I love learning, I love being on campus around the hustle and bustle, but I'm over it. I don't like having a sporadic schedule, I don't like stressing and cramming for tests, I don't like having to deal with less than ideal student-peers. I just want a nice 9-5 job with weekends off. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK? Kind of, seeing as I forget that I did take an entire year off from school. Whoops. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I took the path I did, and I'm happy that I made it back, but where's my fairy godmother to come and snap her fingers and give me a nice cubicle in an office park with a kitten poster? I know that no one wants to hear the moans and groans of a twenty-something, pretty well-off, white girl, but I just had to get it out there. One of the good things to come out of my college experience is that a professor of mine recently urged us to journal. Not for any particular reason., just to get things out, and I'm going to give it a try. So here we go, blogging attempt number 459,000, Lets see how long this bout lasts!

                                                                            P.S.

                                                                    I got a new dog

P.P.S. 

I have brown hair 

A Christmas Story

Well another Holiday season has come and gone. Usually a season I look forward too and enjoy, but this year was a little different for me. In the midst of a few changes in my life, getting a new job was among them. I was hired on as a Seasonal Associate at Urban Outftters. Now I love this job, working at UO is perfect. I'm hoping that this is the gateway job that can help lead me to my dream of working in the main offices for Free People. This was a shining beacon of hope for me. So anyways, new job, so I wasn't able to take time off from Christmas so this meant spending my first Christmas away from my family. My first Christmas not surrounded by all my Mom's decorations, the tree with the ornaments from my childhood, my puppies, a Christmas I was not emotionally equipped for.

The first weeks leading up towards it were fine. I decorated, listened to Christmas music basically 24/7, busted out my reindeer sweater, went to Winterhaven (the only Christmas-y thing to do in Tucson), but as Christmas drew nearer, I grew sadder. One evening when Leland was making dinner and we had ol' Bing singing about his dreaming and white Christmas, I burst into tears. When I was wrapping up my parents presents, I burst into tears. I was a blubbering mess. When Chirstmas Eve rolled around and we were watching Elf, I just couldn't get into it, I felt so lethargic, and homesick.

Christmas morning. I'm sad, but I look over and Leland is smiling at me from ear to ear. "It's Christmas!!!!" He yells, "Lets get up!" So he springs out of bed, makes a pot of coffee, and heats up the oven for us to make Orange Rolls, a Robertson tradition since I can remember. We put on music and the Home Fireplace show on Netflix. From there it just got better. Leland's mom came over, gifts, stockings, dinner, the whole shebang! My parents called and Leland and I spoke to them on speakerphone, and I didn't feel sad at all.

I am so grateful for Leland. Not only is he the love of my life, but he is my rock. He cheers me up when I'm sad, supports me in what I do, loves me unconditionally, I honestly don't know what I would do without him. So all in all, it was a pretty great Christmas, thanks to my second family, The Boeman's.

Cheers,

Pinterest Anonymous

Hi. My name is Addie and I'm addicted to Pinterest. It's been two minutes since my last pin. Really though, Pinterest has become such a part of my life, it's in my morning ritual. Wake up, brush teeth, make coffee, look at Pinterest. There are just so many wonderful things out there, literally at our finger tips that we can see and learn. 

Above is a snap of my Pinterest profile, there are 6 more boards that I couldn't fit in the the picture. In total I have 9,508 pins. WHAT? How does that even happen? I'm almost breaking 10,000. Now admittedly I have done one, yes one, DIY project that I found, and have made zero of the recipes... but I do look at the cute puppies quite frequently! In fact studies show that looking at pictures of cute animals helps students do better on exams. Seeing as Final are next week...GIVE ME ALL THE CUTES. That's sure to help my pass business calc, right? 

My other boards are inspired by my favorite movies, clothing items and beauty tricks. I have boards for my favorite people,  my mom, my peak pal, and my boyfriend. Ever since Pinterest introduced the "sending," feature though, I just bombard my mom with pins that way. In fact the two of us pin more to each other then text each other. It's just a cute way to share things we think the other would like. 

Of all the social media apps out there I would have to say that Instagram is my favorite, but Pinterest is my second. I hope to one day have enough free time to do some of the DIY projects and make my love some of the yummy recipes I've found. So now that you've seen mine, I'm curious about other pinner profiles out there. What do you pin the most?  What does you're Pinterest look like?  

Brunching it Up

So, Leland says that I need a hobby. Thus I have decided to commit to this whole blogging thing. Of course when I said that I would be taking a lot more photos of us, Leland wasn't really stoked. Most of the photos I get of him are totally candid, and always unwanted. I think he's cute when he plays guitar or cooks me dinner, and I want photographic evidence that he is so great! Anyways, I'm going to try to be a better blogger, but with final this week and next, and me working two jobs I don't know how committed I can be.
Anyways, we went to brunch on Sunday and it was the best thing, ever. We went to a little local place called Prep & Pastry. I had seen a lot of my fellow Tucson instagramers posting about it and decided to look at the menu online. Let me tell you, just reading about all the yummies they had to offer made my mouth water. So it was decided that as soon as we could, we would go.
The restaurant has only been open since last January, we learned from one of the owners, but it already seems like THE cool place to be. When we pulled up the parking lot was full, but by some miracle I got a spot right by the door, and there was a table for two open right when we walked in.The atmosphere was super laid back and "Pinteresty." They have a wall that is all chalkboard that has cute lettering and phrases on it. "Brunch without booze is just a sad, late breakfast." TRUTH. The only drawback was that they were quite busy, seeing as it was Sunday morning, and our order was taking a while to be processed. Our waitress quickly remedied this however by giving us a salted caramel, "croughnut," on the house! That, the guava- orange mimosa, and fun conversation about the future helped to pass the time. When the food came we were just completely blown away. I had the monte cristo, and Leland had breakfast poutine. Both dishes were better than anything I could have dreamed, and I now want to use French Toast for all of my sandwiches. When they came to clear our plates the waitress exclaimed, to Leland, "Did you get the Breakfast Poutine?! I've never seen anyone finish that before!" Ah yes, my boyfriend, the human vacuum and anomaly. One Bloody Mary, my first and last, and a breakfast beer later we were too full to speak, and thus is the making of a wonderful brunch. I highly recommend this place to anyone in Tucson, and Leland and I have decided that once we get, "grown up jobs," we will have to become regulars.

Must Be the Season of the Witch

     When the seasons change, so can life. While I've faced a major change this past week, I can honestly say I haven't  been this happy in a long time. I've found a man that I'm absolutely head over heals for, I've found a major in school that I'm excited to move forward with, lots of positives. Even though life doesn't exactly play out the way you think it will, you can't let that get you down.
 
  Anyways, fall fashion is my favorite. Summer and Spring in Tucson are very limited to shorts and tanks while you try to beat the heat. Even though sunny Tucson is still bringing in highs in the upper 80's, I'm still busting out my fall wardrobe. I'm mostly stoked on the fact that popular trends from the 1970's are making a major comeback right now. Knee-socks, clogs, mustard yellow, corduroy, am I right? All the best things.

     Dress by Guess Jeans, Clogs by Free People, Hat and Socks from unknown. 

     Not pictured is me all sweaty and dirt covered pulling the giants weeds out that once occupied my deck. Yard upkeep is intense, and since I have a property manager that checks it 4 times a year I have to stay semi on top of it. If I still lived up in Northern AZ, or Wyoming I would be raking in the yellow and red leaves right now. Alas Tucson is still sprouting weeds and there is nary a leaf in sight except in my Bath and Body Works scented candle.