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.