Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Moved!

So, I now live in Dewey (with my dad and brother). It's so nice to not be afraid of the summer heat bearing down upon me!

I haven't found a job yet, but am not in a huge rush for that (I'm enjoying unemployment at the moment, haha). Although, if anyone does know of anyplace in Prescott/Prescott Valley that's hiring, please let me know. The job market up here isn't too great, from what I've found so far.

I'm doing a lot of sibling bonding with my brother, which is awesome...we're going on a road trip in May, but I think that will be it's own post in and of itself, so I won't go into detail right now.

I love having a dog again! Sadie, our dog from when we lived with our parents (mom and stepdad), moved here with Travis, so I've been having fun with her.

Email me if you'd like my new address.

That's it for now, but I'll definitely be getting back into my posting routine again soon.

PS-It's pronounced "press-KIT," not, as many not-genuine-Arizonans think, "press-KOT." That's just the way it is.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Nostalgia

As psyched as I am to get out of the desert (and just in time to miss the heat!!), there are definitely many things I'm going to miss about Phoenix. I already posted about my love for the Downtown Phoenix Public Market, but I realized that I needed to do more. I have many memories of my four years here, most of which are focused around specific places (businesses), so here's a compiled list of those (I'm only listing the ones that don't have locations in Prescott) and a little about the awesomeness of each one:


Clothes/Accessories: Buffalo Exchange. What more can I say? I'm not big on fashion, yet I'm definitely picky when it comes to clothes (ie: I don't like most of the clothes I have). This place has never let me down. When I go in there, if I even let myself glance at the clothing (versus just looking at accesories, like belts and sunglasses), I just can't keep myself from buying something, I really do love the style of their clothing.


Shoes: Cowtown Skateboards. Okay, so I don't skateboard (although if I had a bucket list, learning how would most definitely be on it), but skate shoes are the most comfortable shoes I've ever worn. And Cowtown has nearly every skate shoe known to man, all in great quality. I love their atmosphere, too (they have a couch! in a skate shop!).


Groceries: Trader Joe's. Again, I love the atmosphere (that goes for pretty much all of these places-that's a huge part of why I like them)...there's a lot of variety here, they always have samples for you to try, and almost everything is available in organic. I think I'd like working there. But, sadly, there's none in Prescott.


Restaurants: The Fry Bread House. If you've had Indian fry bread at the state fair...or at a fast-food place or roach coach...you haven't fully experienced it, because this place has the ultimate fry bread, made the way it was supposed to be made. If you live in Phoenix, please try this place out at least once. You can't go wrong.


Furniture: Ikea. Given, I've never actually bought anything here, I love their furniture, and when I have my own place I plan on furnishing it primarily with Ikea furniture. The style and COLORS astound me, they're like nothing I've ever seen before. I want to paint every room in the house I'm buying someday, 2-3 colors per room, with all different patterns: sponged, striped, checkered, polka dots, and solid. Ikea furniture would fit perfect in my colorful rooms!


Fun: Dave and Buster's (A.K.A. Jillian's). I've always liked arcades, and this place is one meant for grown-ups! It has some pretty awesome games, and although I've only been there once (my alcohol-free 21st Birthday) I really like it, and would love to go again. (side note-I went to one of their locations back when they were called Jillians, but it was a thing for work and I didn't really like the people I worked with so it was kind of a dud.)


Tattoos: Liquid Visions Tattoo. Now, I wouldn't recommend them now, but they used to have an artist (I think his name was Mike) who was completely awesome. His prices were very competitive, and the quality was beyond great. All but one of my tattoos were done by him. Sadly, he left Liquid Visions, and apparently it wasn't on very good terms, as they won't tell me where he went (and I don't know his last name). I've been back there for touch-ups since he left, and was extremely dissatisfied with the service. So, I guess I'll just mourn the loss of my artist, and not go back there again.

So that's it! My favorite places in Phoenix!

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Puppy Pix Post

So I know I'm obsessing a little too much over Friday the 13th (maybe I jinxed myself when I posted Friday??), but I have to blog about what happened. Four things. Four. In one day. I'm not superstitious, but geez...I think I may stay in home all day next Friday the 13th! (me, on Friday, March 13th):


My day, on Friday, consisted of:

1) At work, my friend (who was planning to quit in March) decided she'd had enough and basically quit, on the spot. Of course, this isn't a huge deal to me, since Thursday's my last day...but she was one of only two confidantes I have here (I do have a third, but she's not in customer service so I very rarely see her) that I can rant to about BS we deal with (in our department, gossip spreads like wildfire, so if I talk to anyone else about things, I have the possibility of making it worse for myself).

2) Also at work, someone received a promotion. And to make this really simple, there's 4 levels of superiority here. I'm on the lowest level. The secretary (which doesn't really qualify for a level-basically, below me) was promoted to the next-to-the-highest level, as in, two steps above me. In spite of me leaving, this favoritism and hypocrisy still BUGS ME TO NO END.

3) After work, I went to Ross with Krystina (who I LOVE hanging out with-you rock, Krystina!!!) because she needed to buy some clothes. It was my first day of officially having the car in my name (rather than Russell's), and guess what I did?!? I locked myself out of the car, while it was running!! Luckily, Krystina has AAA, so we called them and she went in to shop while I waited (for 45 min.) for the AAA guy to come let me into my car. I was sooo very happy to see him when he got there :)

4) After getting back into my car, I went into Ross and Krystina wasn't finished, so I started looking around and found a pair of shoes I liked a lot (I hadn't been planning on buying anything, but they were perfect for work and I loved them, which doesn't happen much with shoes). So, I decided to buy them...then came my final catastrophe. I was using a $100 bill that had been given to me by the couple who bought our tan truck. Guess what? It was a fake. Yea. As if my day hadn't been harrowing enough already. So I had a fun visit with the cops (Ross wasn't going to report it, but I asked them to call the police on my behalf so I could get a police report about it). How I looked when the cops got there, to prove my innocence:

They were really nice, though (we got 3 cops and a security guard-we must be VIP criminals!)...they made a lot of jokes and really calmed the mood, since I'd been somewhat freaked out about having tried to use a fake bill to make a purchase. They did tell me, though, that I'm pretty much SOL with that hundred dollars I just lost, unless I can get the people to pay me back for it (which I doubt will happen). Oh, and I don't want to point any fingers or sound insanely racist, but guess what nationality the couple who bought the truck were? If you know AZ at all, I'm sure you'll only need one guess (hint: the husband didn't speak English). And of course, that's going to offend someone, so in advance: I'm sorry.

Krystina and I did have fun after that, we made chocolate-covered strawberries (her for her boyfriend, me for myself), ordered pizza, and watched a movie. Fun fun!

PS-I'm moving to Prescott (Dewey, actually, but nobody knows what I'm talking about when I say that) on Sunday, Feb. 22nd!! Woohoo! How happy I am to move out of Phoenix:

I'll be spoiling the 'bachelor pad' that my dad and brother have worked so hard to set up. Throw a girl in the mix, and it's just ruined. :) (yes, I'm just moving in with my dad and brother, and no, they're not extremely upset about this-maybe they'll get to eat some real meals now!)

And in honor of Valentine's Day:

Friday, February 13, 2009

Happy Friday the 13th!!!!

How creepy is it that Friday the 13th (alleged bad luck, horror movies galore-including the one about Jason that came out today by the same name, celebration of bad things happening in general) fell on the day prior to Valentine's Day (love, love, love) this year??? I guess it's inevitable, since obviously Valentine's Day is the 14th, so the day before will always be the 13th, and eventually that would've fallen on a Friday. I feel like I'm talking in circles about this, but it's kind of funny and ironic.
It's also ironic (not quite funny, but I'm sure I'll laugh about it years from now...maybe...) that exactly a year ago tomorrow, I got married to you-know-who. And now, here we are, laying that marriage to rest. RIP. I know. It's kind of weird that I'm talking this openly about it when it's not even final yet (believe me, it'll be final shortly...the court just has waiting periods that are unavoidable, so it's a drawn-out process no matter how you go about doing it). It's strange, you would think, logically, the legal system would want to make it difficult to get married, since too many people (like me, apparently) go into it without being serious enough to stick to the "'til death do us part" part of it, and easy to get divorced, since obviously it's not working out. But it's the opposite! When we decided to get married, we went to the courthouse (with our two witnesses), applied and paid the fee, and did the whole she-bang with the justice of the peace, all in like an hour. And the majority of that was sitting there waiting (come to think of it, I recently went to jury duty for the first time, and that consisted of a lot of waiting, too...I think the entire legal system likes to make people WAIT! It always seems so easy on Law and Order, though...hmm.) Anyways, so that was that, we were married. Now we want to end that, and geez! There's 50 million forms, first of all. In all, you have to make like 4 trips to the courthouse. There's required waiting periods in between steps. Etc., Etc. Don't they realize divorce is going to be hard enough as it is?? Do they really think making it so much more difficult is going to convince a couple to stay together??? I was discussing this with a friend of mine, and I think what she said summed up my feelings well:
"'So what's the secret to a long marriage?' 'Well, I wanted to get a divorce, but there was just so much paperwork!!'"
It's not going to change our minds, you know?

Okay, well I'm done with my rant. In spite of my negativity, I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and a happy Valentine's Day! Enjoy it :)

Monday, February 9, 2009

Please Pray...

...for this family.


They lost their little girl, Cora, yesterday to a very short struggle with cancer (they found out about it two weeks ago, on January 25th).



March 5th, 2009 would've been her 1st birthday. I can't imagine what her parents are going through right now.



I don't know them personally, but I found out about her from another blog, and wanted to spread the word for prayers for them.

Friday, February 6, 2009

My first post!

Well, I could post about how wonderful my new blog is, etc. etc. But I don't feel like that would do my blog justice, because there's not too much I can say about that. Sooo, here's a real post for you!

I've been telling everyone I know about this and the feedback has only been semi-enthusiastic. So maybe this is something only I would be excited about, but I decided to share it anyway. I'm really into finding healthy recipes and healthy foods, and at the base of all that is healthy produce (since I assume that's probably the least-processed of anything I eat). I go for organic-I know, some people say it's just a ripoff, but until I have space for a garden where I can grow my own veggies, I'm going to get the healthiest ones available. I'd like to keep from putting pesticides, antibiotics, and any other gross stuff they spray on those things into my body if I can help it.



Anyway, I think the epitome of healthy, flavorful produce is farmer's markets. They've grown the produce themselves, so there's no middle man. I feel like I can believe what they say, because they're not some giant corporation who has no idea how many hands have touched their product. And it tastes better. Who knew?



Until now, I never really knew about any good farmer's markets in the area, so I settled for the grocery story produce section. But recently, I discovered the Downtown Phoenix Public Market, and let me tell you, I am IN LOVE. They have jams, chocolate sauces, crackers, nuts, eggs, (pita) chips, and veggies galore! They're on the Southeast corner of Central and McKinley (the first street south of Roosevelt), and it's just an open lot where all kinds of vendors (even non-edible ones, like jewelry vendors) set up their booths/tables/etc. There's live entertainment (a guy with a guitar and a sound system, who sits in a folding chair and plays/sings a variety of different types of music) and a book exchange, take one/leave one (for free). They're open Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings, but I've only been there Wednesdays, so I'm not sure if anything's different on Saturdays. Anyone who likes some good in-season produce should check it out!