time goes by...

It's crazy to me how time flies.  People say that all the time, but it really has gone by so fast this summer.  A few days ago  I got my new passport in the mail.  My old passport was going to expire soon and besides, it was full! :D  I'm pretty proud that I filled my passport.  It wasn't on my bucket list but it should have been.  Maybe now I should put "Fill Up Two Passports" on my bucket list.  I doubt I will because my new passport has twice the amount of pages.  I thought that would be a good idea...but I didn't think about the bucket list thing.  Darn.  :)  But honestly, after this school year, I'm sure how much traveling I will do.  If I'm going to move back to America, it's just not as easy to travel.  It just costs so much.  That's what I've LOVED about living in Europe.  It's so much cheaper to travel around.  And everything is so close.
And actually, I'm not sure how much traveling I will accomplish this year either.  I have to come back to the US for Christmas because I need a root canal. bleh...  I had to put it off until December.  So I'll definitely be back for that.  And THEN my cousin Dallas is getting married in March.  I really would love to come back for that.  Hopefully that will work out.  But that will be my springbreak and will also be very expensive.  So we'll see.  I also need to be saving just in case I can't find a job...which is very much a possibility.  Whose idea was it to become a teacher??  wait...mine.

I was recently at the theater with my friend and saw the preview for the new Mission Impossible movie.  It started out with someone saying, "An hour ago...a bomb blew up the Kremlin."  Then they showed the Kremlin exploding.  I literally put a hand to my face and gasped.  People looked at me like, "Geez lady, it's just a preview." haha. It was SO weird.  If you haven't seen the trailer, you can see it HERE.  Russia is just that close to me, I guess.  And I've never seen that explode.  I've seen the Empire State Building destroyed so many times and even the White House.  That's not even a big deal anymore.  But to see that symbol of Russia blow up...it was so strange.  It's something that I see all the time.  I've thought about it getting bombed, of course.  While living in Russia, there have been 2 suicide bombs in Moscow.  I've blogged about it before.  You can read that HERE if you would like. Anyway, I just thought my reaction was interesting...and a little embarrassing. :)  I can't wait to see the movie.  I guess I'll have to watch it in Moscow.

well, my pictures are done uploading to facebook. :)  This blog was just to take up time while I waited.  Hope you enjoyed it.

baby steps for a 25 year old

A little update on my current doings...I've been driving around the country seeing loved ones.  :)  I drove to Denver to see my sister and brother-in-law.  I made the drive by myself and it was torture. Ugh...I'm never making that drive alone again.  Or if I do, I'm going to stop half way or something.  But I'm SO glad I did it.  I had a great week there.  Denver was beautiful and I took a ton of pictures.  Somethings we did:
-hunted Dog the Bounty Hunter (unsuccessfully)
-hiked up dinosaur ridge (then ran down and made everyone think we were really exercise-y.)
-went to Buffalo Bill's grave
-got Starbucks every day!
-watched a lot of TV (it was either really hot or pouring...besides it was nice to just sit at home and do nothing) while listening to a small dog chewing on a squeaky toy.
-went to Goodwill and bought too many books
-went to the theater and watched Super 8, Water For Elephants, and HARRY POTTER. :D
-watched people exercise at Red Rocks.
-ate at this AMAZING restaurant, Casa Bonita.  A must-see if you are going to Denver.
-giggled a lot

It was a fun week.  Now I am in Shawnee, Oklahoma.  That drive wasn't bad at all.  It is nice to be back in Shawnee but it is SOOOO hot.  We are just trying to stay in the cool air.  Tomorrow we are going to the zoo.  We being me, my aunt Jennifer and her 3 granddaughters.  It only costs a dollar on Wednesdays.  Yesterday we went to Walmart and bought little mist fans in preparation for the heat tomorrow.  We'll see how long we last.
 Last night I went to see Bridesmaids with my cousin, Brian.  And  I have to say, it was one of the best movies I have seen in a long time.  To be honest, it kind of inspired me.  If you haven't seen it, I do recommend it.  You just might want to skip the first scene and ignore all the bad words. :)  Other than that, it was a great movie.  It was about a woman whose best friend is getting married.  She is the maid of honor, but everything kind of goes wrong.  In a weird way, she reminded me of myself.  I really sympathized with her.  I almost started crying when bad things kept happening to her.  Lol.  My life is actually pretty good.  I have a good job.  I have an apartment.  I get to travel.  I have a great family and great friends.  But to be absolutely honest, I have been struggling lately with being single.  I've been single my whole life.  You would think that I would be used to it by now.  But actually, I think that makes it harder.  I just turned 25, an age when most people are married or at least on their way to being married.  It's strange to be back in America where almost all of my childhood friends are married and have houses.  I come back and I instantly feel like I'm 16 again.  I'm back in my hometown, living with my parents, fighting with my little brother, and go to Target every day.  But most people my age are having babies, trying to decide on a color of paint for their sitting room, and planting geraniums in their backyards.  Not that there is anything wrong with that.  There isn't.  It actually great and...normal.  That's what adults do and I guess we're adults now.  Maybe I'm struggling with trying to fit into that "adult" crowd and being single at the same time.  How do people do that?
 I don't know.  Maybe I won't ever figure it out.  But that movie inspired me to think a little differently about my life.  To move on from things that were unhealthy for me and to try and focus on things like living healthy.  Not just physically healthy, but spiritually healthy.  In the movie, she gets some advice from a new friend, "You're your problem.  You're also your solution."  We can sit an complain about lives and the problems that we have, but most of the time, if we just change something small, we can be our solution.
I want to challenge myself to eating healthier and actually using my gym membership.  Why am I wasting my 20s being lazy and eating crap?  I don't know.  I can sit and complain about being overweight but it's no ones fault but my own.  I also want to challenge myself to praying more often and reading the Lord's word.  I haven't been praying as much as I should and as much as I would like people to think.  I don't want to tell people, "I'll be praying for you," but then only pray once or twice.
*sigh*....from some reason last night after the movie, I decided that I wanted to be really open with my blog readers.  I don't know if anyone will read this or not.  Even if no one does, I was honest with myself.  And If you did read this...feel free to hold me accountable.  I think I need more accountability in my life.
At the end of the movie, she drives off with her new policeman boyfriend.  I don't have one of those so I didn't really sympathize with her then.  :)
Anyways, that's all for now.  Baby steps to an awesome upper-twenties life.  Let's see how this goes.

Back in the USA

So my trip home didn't go quite as smoothly as I had planned.  The night before my big flight home, I stayed up all night having fun with friends.  We went to see Swanlake at the New Opera theater in Moscow.  I had recently watched Black Swan.  That movie is seriously so weird.  Very well done but bizarre.  It actually made me a little depressed after I watched it.  It was disturbing.  Anyways, it was a good movie nonetheless.  Having watched the movie, it made the ballet a lot more interesting.  I think the version in the movie was better than the live version that I saw.  During one of the intermissions, we were sitting there talking and we saw a group of twenty-somethings across the theater.  By the way they were dressed and the way they talked, we could tell they were American.  Americans just stand out in Moscow.  They are easy to spot.  Most of the time.  After the ballet, my friend went up to them, "So...where are ya'll from?"  And they said, "Texas."  :)
After the ballet, we went to the restaurant at the top of the Ritz.  It is SO expensive but has a great view.  We just sat there and chatted.  By then, it was almost 12am.  I was debating whether or not I should just go home and finish packing (Because at this point I wasn't done packing...I seem to save myself that joy until the very last minute).  I decided that I would just tough it out and stay up all night.  After the Ritz we walked over to Red Square.  It was beautiful at night.  But there was this crazy street cleaner truck driver.  He did NOT care if he drove right past people and drenched them with water and whatever other chemicals they use to clean the streets.  He was tearing around Red Square spraying the street and we had to run for our lives.  It was pretty funny actually.  And a good memory.
After that, we made our way to Starlite diner.  GREAT burgers and shakes just for the homesick American.  We stayed there until about 2:30am and then all piled into a cab and went home.  Once I got home, I had about 3 hours to pack, shower, and clean.  My car was coming at 6am to pick me up.  I was able to do it.  I woke up Megan at 5:50am and said goodbye. :(
Once at the airport, I found Jeff's mom and friend.  We made it through security and passport control pretty quickly.  Probably because we were so early. :)  All of us had no sleep at this point.  They kicked us out of the gate area to clean and we had to stand there and wait.  It was torture.  We were so exhausted.  I even put up a status on facebook about how tired I was.  I don't even really remember doing that.  I was falling asleep.  Once on the plane I was happy to find out that it was a pretty empty flight.  Most of the 12 hours, I was able to lay down over three seats and semi-sleep well.
Once we got to Houston, I had to say goodbye to June and Linn.  They were headed to Oklahoma and Alabama.  I noticed right away that my patience has "changed," let's say.  Walking on the moving walkway (just a flat conveyor belt that moves so you can get where you're going faster) people were just standing on it.  They weren't even standing on the right side like you're supposed to!  I was getting so frustrated.  I wasn't even in a hurry but I'm SO use to walking fast and getting where you need to go as quickly as possible, that I just could not stand waiting behind them.  People who were not on the moving walkway were walking past us!  I had to tell myself to calm down.  "You're not in a hurry...it's ok..."
I was also waiting in a huge line for an elevator.  I needed to go down but only the up button was pushed.  But I needed to go down!  So I walked to the front of the line and pushed the down button.  It made sense to me, but I think I made everyone mad.
So I finally made it to Minneapolis.  I called my parents and they were in Duluth waiting for me.  I got to the gate and saw that the flight was leaving earlier.  I thought, "O wow, I'm actually going to get there sooner."  Then the guy got on the horn and said, "We were hoping to leave 30 minutes early, but this flight has just been cancelled due to fog in Duluth."  WHAT?  Cancelled??  They said that they might try and find us all a bus to Duluth.  I waited for a little bit and that I called my parents and they said they would drive to Minneapolis to get me.  The whole reason I bought a ticket to Duluth was to save them a trip all the way to Minneapolis.  Now they had to drive to Duluth AND Minneapolis.  Story of my life.
So I went to get my luggage and sat by the baggage claim area for 3 hours.  So, I had stayed up all night in Moscow, took a 12 hour flight to the states, then another flight to MN, then had to sit at the airport for 3 hours and then a 4 hour drive home.  UGH.  But I made it and I'm happy to be home.  LONG trip, but worth it.