Bitter sweet

Ending of a semester is bitter sweet, the months and months of trying and staying on track hoping everything goes smoothly is now coming to a close. Now my own life starts into trying to figure out if coming back next semester to UW Sheboygan will continue. I’ve had my reservations if I’m on the right track to be the person I want to be when I grow up.  Maybe and maybe not. I know there are plenty of options out there.  I’ve decided to take the fall semester off and focus on my family, with the addition of our family coming in August or September, I need to prepare for a life and view what’s important.

The different paths of the future are endless and the journey seems to have just begun with my life. Yes, summer is approaching and ‘family time’ is needed with my son, my husband and me. I can always put school on hold and enjoy making memories but having a career is more important for my family’s future. We have to do what we have to to make sure everyone is getting taken care of and hopefully, I’ll get taken care of later in life.

I’ve come to a conclusion that I will not be continuing with UW Sheboygan and instead will be transferring to LTC in the Spring of 2013. I have taken a different approach to make sure I can start a career and come back for B.A. I’ve met and adored some new people I’ve met in my journey at UW Sheboygan but every good thing must end. Until I complete my Associates in Radiography through LTC, I won’t be returning to see the faces I’ve encountered here.

In life, in general, is a tough cruel world but making the best of what we have is all we can do. Or if any good would come, like a winning lottery ticket, I will have to make the best of what I have and mostly, what I don’t have. I just hope everyone takes the opportunity to think things through and really focus on what life’s all about. The hardest things are pushing your happiness aside and do what’s best for your family!

So until then, Happy Summer everyone!

Wedding

Weddings are the most amazing yet stressful thing anyone can plan! I was asked to be a brides maid in my sister-in-law’s wedding for this coming April. Deep inside, I’ve never had to really plan a wedding before.  My husband and I went to the courthouse to legalize our marriage and had a quick reception for close family at my parents’ house, so there was no dress, no DJ, or no first dance. I feel a little saddened that I never took the opportunity to just plan a wedding and make memories.  I’m also the type of person that LOVES to plan weddings, birthday parties or just even get-togethers. I love to cook so I normally prep all the appetizers and get party favors.

So when my sister-in-law asked me, I had already started to plan to hire a DJ, and get someone to do the hair for the wedding. It seems I might be over my head with the whole planning, but I love to do it!

So with the whole wedding going on, what really goes into planning a wedding? How much do decent weddings cost now-a-days? I’m glad it’s not me planning the wedding and I think that was one reason why I never had a wedding of my own.  It’s the money you must fork up to make sure you make memories and make sure your guests have a great time.

Is it really worth the stress and the headaches to plan a wedding that will only last a day? So until I start to really get into the wedding mode of helping out my sister-in-law/bride, I might have to eat my own words of seeing how easy planning a wedding might be.  We’ll see!

Sushi!

When you think of sushi, what do you think of? What types of word comes to mind?  I hear all the time from people who have never tried sushi before, they tell me, it’s gross, nasty, and how can you eat that?!  Well, people have a miss-conception of sushi.  As Alton Brown from the Food Network said in his show, Good Eats, sushi is defined as rolled up rice, not a piece of fish on rice.

I admit, when I tried sushi the first time, I hated it, it was one of the worst things I’ve put in my mouth.  Of course, I’ve always hated seafood, like tuna, salmon, and white fish, but I had to try it.  Someone once told me that you are ignorant if you don’t understand something and make judgment on it.  That always stuck in my head, and I knew I had to try sushi for the first time.

The first time I tried sushi was at this local Sheboygan restaurant called Grotto’s.  I had a California roll with crab meat, avocado, cucumber wrapped in rice and nori.  When I took my first bit, it smelled like the crab meat was pulled out of Lake Michigan and thrown together in a second.  I literally threw my food up at the restaurant because the smell was too strong for me to even taste the sushi.

Until I went to California on a visit, was I able to get a good taste of sushi in the land of possibilities!  I had gone to a restaurant called Koji’s, right in the middle of the Hollywood strip.  I can’t remember the name of the roll I had but it was nothing like I had when I went to Grotto’s.  Cucumber, avocado, rice, onions was wrapped in rice, around the sushi, they had wrapped a thin seared steak on it.  I had dipped that in soy sauce with a little wasabi paste, and boy was that DELISH!!!  Finally, sushi was no longer a battle of just trying, it now is more of trying to find or even make sushi the way I like it, my own! Yum!

Electronics

Music is such a big thing in this world right now in society that it’s hard to get away from now a days.  Many people bring their iPod, nanos, mp3 players, and yes, even boom boxes to where they go.  I had gone shopping with my little sister this past weekend to get a prom dress for her and when we arrived at the malls in Milwaukee, it seemed though everyone had some type of headset on to listen to music as they were mall walking or shopping.  I personally have not invested in one but I had bought one for my husband for his birthday a few years back.  I admit, I somewhat live under a rock so it’s different for me to sit there or walk to places with an iPod strapped onto my arm or in my hands.

Even working out, people take music as their inspiration.  I can say, I  don’t work out at the gym like I should but when I hear people talk about their trips to the gym, that’s what they have to live by in order to get through the reps or the walks they’re doing.

Society has an image of using things like an iPod to get through things like getting through life with it.  Younger kids are now prone to have one as they do things, like chores, or just sitting in their room to just listen to music.  Whether it’s to get though a heart break, or to dance, or even just to do homework. 

When I was growing up, I never really had things like that to help me through some things kids today go through.  I wonder, can they ever survive without electronics and have a healthy life like I did?   One can only imagine what music does to you but will society ever accept the fact that iPods, nanos, or mp3 players might not be gone one day like 8-tracks?  Only time will tell where we and society might lead to, until then, I’ll just have to sit back and still wonder, what will happen when things don’t exist anymore!?

Tacos!

Tacos tacos tacos, I am in love with tacos! I’ve searched around Sheboygan for the best tacos and I finally realized I have a favorite place just for tacos!  I love food and my favorite food of all times is tacos.  I’ve tried tacos from Taco Bell, Guadalajara’s, La Conquistadora, and even El Comino.  But my all time favorite place to get the best tacos, I believe, is from El Durango’s on Indiana Avenue in Sheboygan.  I don’t know if it’s how the meat is prepared or if it’s the hot sauce that gets me to fall in love with it, but overall, it is the best tacos in town!

To me, tacos have to be prepared with the minimal toppings.  This doesn’t mean that the tacos are on flour tortillas and with lettuce, tomatoes, and sour cream.  Instead, a real taco means there is meat, unseasoned with taco seasoning, chopped up cilantro and white onions.  Of course, and my favorite, a slice of avocado right on top!  That just screams, eat me!

I have to admit, I would love to be a food critic one day, but for now, I think I can be my own critic of the food in my own town.  Dreaming of opening up a restaurant of my own is one of my goals in life.  I feel that food really does feed the soul and when you cook and have people fall in love with it like I’ve fallen in love with El Durango’s tacos, which just means you’ve found what you’ve been searching for.

So if you would ever have a craving for tacos, take a trip to El Durango’s and have a chicken taco with everything on it, and as a must, you have to have some hot sauce on top of it, trust me, the taco will melt in your mouth!

What to be when I grow up

Growing up, I think almost every kid kind of knows what they want to bed when they grow up.  Well, in my case, I’m still trying to figure that out myself.  I knew at a young age, I’d either wanted to be a Chef and own my own restaurant, or a teacher.  Still, at almost 30 years old, I still have no clue to which direction I should gear my life towards.  I’ve been in ‘college’ for about four years now, but due to circumstances in my life, I couldn’t attend full time and here we are.  Still hoping and praying I’d be done soon so I can move on.

Growing up, I know I love food and I love to cook, but my question to myself was, do I really want to be a Chef as a career or do I really need to buckle down and find a career and maybe cooking would be a hobby instead?  Still trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up is still a hard task if you are 18 and just graduated from high school or a 30 year old, like me.  It’s hard to swallow the ‘real world’ and I’m still trying to make good choices to have a good life.

Even though, I’m married with a family, it takes a toll in my life just trying to go through every day trying to understand what I want to do in life.  Yes, by all means, I would have loved to win that big Mega Millions this past week and make everything ok but my hopeful dreams may need to be on hold until that winning lottery ticket is in my pocket. 

Although life in general is a surprise, I have to take it by the balls and just roll with it.  I sometimes feel I want to give up and work in factory all my life, because it sounds easier than working hard towards my goals feels too much of a reach then reality.  Having a family and especially kids, change my perspective of what really matters in my life.  I think to myself, I need to set a great example for them and make sure they see how hard I work so they can see that life doesn’t come on a silver platter.  Only I can make a difference in my life and change what my parents weren’t fortunate enough to give me.

Now the question is, what should I be when I grow up?  That’s still a lingering question but hopefully something will help guide me to what I’m meant to do and be in like…..Hopefully soon!

Sliders

Netflix is a great way to watch movies, TV episodes, and TV series with a click of a video game counsel or a DVD player with WIFI built in.  When I was on bed rest, all I did was watch shows and movies after shows and movies.  The best show my husband got me into is a show called Sliders.  Jerry O’Connell stars in the 90’s show, along with Sabrina Lloyd, Cleavant Derricks, and John Rhys-Davies.  Even though I only really got into the first four seasons, they were the main characters that had great roles in the show.

I thought Sliders was one of the best television sci-fi shows out there, even though the show was only aired in various parts of the world once season five came along.  Jerry’s character was Quinn Mallory, he was a physics graduate who developed a vortex to see if his theory that other universes exists.  He succeeded and along the way, his friends, were accidently sucked into the vortex as well. 

What was interesting was during the shows, I thought to myself, what would the world be like if we went through the same thing? If every day you woke up, and it’s still the same day, same year, but the outcome is different.  For instance, in one of the episodes I remember was when Quinn and his friends warped into a world where Kromagg’s (alien looking creatures but walked and talked like humans) ruled the world and humans were the ones being caged and treated like animals and second class citizens.  What if one day you woke up and women were captured to breed Kromagg’s babies, or if one day you woke up, the world that you remember like homes, buildings, schools, and people didn’t exist?

I may sound like a dork talking about this show but sometimes we really need to think of what’s going to happen in the future.  Yes, that may be a long shot where Kromagg’s will rule the world but maybe it won’t be Kromagg’s, maybe it’ll be apes, who knows!

All I know is, Sliders was a great show, I loved Jerry’s character Quinn so much, my husband and I named our son Quinn.  I hope in the future, they continue or even make a movie of the show again, I know I’d be one of the first ones in line to see it, and hopefully Jerry stars in it! That would be amazing!