No Military Monday

As you may have noticed I was on hiatus for the weekend.  Also, I'm skipping Military Monday today because I don't even want to think about the military or the Navy or the fact that my significant other is joining today.

I had a great weekend.  I ended up in Virginia with Kyle and his parents.  We went to this lovely little winery called "Narmada".  They had really good wine and Drew Stevyns was there.  He's a musician and he's just wonderful.  You should all check both the winery and Drew out.

Also I don't know if I mentioned this but I'm now home for the summer.  I don't know if its the better choice but I'm here with the people I love so that's good.

I started and ended my summer job hunt today.  I'll be starting work next Tuesday at this darling local bakery called Sweetie's and I'm so excited.  Mostly because it won't be just a counter, customer service job like I thought.  I'll actually be helping bake!  I'm totally pumped.

That's all for today.  Summer is a hard time to blog.  Happy Monday!

That whole Life Changes Thing? Well...yeah

I haven't been around the blog for a couple days.  I've been trying to get adjusted to living alone and taking classes.  At first I was here because there was one class that was keeping me here.  I couldn't take it online or at another campus.  While I was taking that class I could justify being in State College and almost torturing myself.  Apparently, I don't do well alone when I'm three hours away from my friends and family.

On Tuesday I decided to drop the class that was keeping me here.  It wasn't because I knew that if I dropped it I could go home that was actually the last thing that came to mind.  The class was going to be a lot of work and after a consultation with my advisor I really wasn't going to need it.  So why take it?

It wasn't until a little later that I realized that class was the only reason I was in State College.  I could transfer the other two classes to the online versions and I could be home free.  That seems pretty exciting right?  I haven't been happy here so it should have been a no brainer.  I should have been able to tell myself just go home.

Turns out, it wasn't that easy.  I had come up here with the mindset that I wanted to prove to myself that I could be on my own for an extended period of time.  I was trying to justify staying here.  And at one point I was going to just stick it out because I thought that it's what others would want to see me try to do.  The turning point was when I consulted my mom and she said the exact opposite of what I expected.  She said to come home.  So I thought and thought and thought about it.  I talked to Kyle, my mom, my therapist and my 2 best friends.  And after making the biggest deal out of a relatively small problem I decided to go home.  Now I'm not there yet, I have to pack and drive there but by the end of the day today I'll be home.

I can't say I'm ecstatic about my decision.  But if I would have chose the other path I can't really see myself being any happier.  I have a really tough time making decisions and this one was probably one of the toughest but I talked myself through it and ultimately I think I'll be happier.  Although in the very long run this whole thing probably doesn't even matter.  I read an article about decision making yesterday and it said to ask yourself the question, "How will this decision affect you in 70 years?"  The truth is this isn't a big decision and in 70 years I'll probably have forgotten that I even worried about this or I'll be laughing because I made such a big deal about it.  I even went to the trouble to blog about it.

Happy Thursday!

It's Tuesday

Today is Tuesday, in case you didn't know.  I couldn't think of a good title today because I have just so many things to talk about.

I returned to State College on Sunday.  It was really tough.  After two years of living here I've gotten used to leaving my family for long periods of time but this time I had to leave Kyle back home.  We're both taking classes but his are at a branch campus closer to home while mine are at the main campus.  It's been a long time since I've cried as much as I did on Sunday.  I cried in the car, I cried in Wal-Mart and I cried in my apartment.  I was surprised yesterday morning when I didn't wake up crying.  I think I've got it mostly out of my system now.  I'm pretty pumped for my classes.  I love, love, love my marketing professor and I think everything is going to be okay.

As short as the week was, I did have a great time at home.  It rained a lot so I didn't get to take my darling Sadie to Ohiopyle but I got to do everything else on my list.  I made my mom a gorgeous cake that I'll be featuring in a Blue-Eyed Baker post soon.  I also got to see one of my bestest friends and remind myself how out of shape I am by going to Zumba with my mom.

Nice segue! I am totally out of shape so let the exercising begin!  I told myself that while I'm here for six weeks I'm going to lose at least a little bit of weight.  I'm still refining my routine but get ready because when I go to the beach this summer I am going to look smoking hot (hopefully).  Also get ready for a new series on my fitness routines and some healthier recipes.  I might be changing things around because Fitness Friday has a lovely ring to it.  Or maybe alternating Fitness Friday with Blue-Eyed Baker. We'll see.

So in summation, I had a great time at home, adjusting to a new situation is hard and the next six weeks are hopefully going to be a good time for some renewal.  Happy Tuesday!

OH! Also I hit over 1,000 views on Sunday. Yay!!!

Where is home?

In the past 4 or so years I've asked myself this question over and over.  Where is Home?  I don't actually know for sure and I don't know if I ever will again.  I'm sure you've heard countless people say, "Home is where the heart is".  And yes that's probably true.  But what happens when you don't know where your heart is?

Little kid drawings always speak to my nostalgic side.

When I was little my heart was in one place.  Millsboro, PA.  That's where I grew up.  I lived with my mom and dad and siblings as they came along.  My grandparents lived across the street and my cousins a.k.a. best friends lived close by and eventually moved to Millsboro as well.  That was home for 15 years.  I knew nothing else and I didn't want to know anything else.  It was pretty much perfect.

When my dad died in 2005 we still lived in Millsboro but things got weird because dad wasn't there and things started feeling less like home but if I would have been asked I still would have said that Millsboro was my home.  We then moved to Coal Center which is a pretty okay place and I started college and I started feeling more displaced.  We were still in between houses and I didn't know which one to call home.  I later started dating Kyle and staying at his house and I became even more confused.  Kyle's family felt like a new addition to my family almost immediately and I spent a lot of time at his house in our two years at Penn State Fayette because it was convenient and it was where I wanted to be.

I now have an apartment that I live in for the majority of the year in State College.  While I'm in State College I frequently call the apartment home but I don't think State College will ever be "home".  I like it there for the most part but for me it's definitely a place of transition not a place to settle down.

With all of these different places to call home I can't actually think of a place that I can permanently designate that way.  Sometimes it's State College, sometimes it's where ever Kyle is, sometimes it's Coal Center with my family and sometimes it's still Millsboro because that was the most perfect time in my life.  I had 15 years of "normalcy" in Millsboro and then it was all taken away from me and I haven't yet had another period in life where there has been consistency so forgive me if I still want to call a place I haven't been to in months "home".

Sorry for the sappiness, sometimes it just has to be that way.  Happy Saturday!