Realizations...

So it is a typical Tuesday for me so far.

Went to Radiography lecture this morning, had lunch with Chris, picked up my bathroom bag from his house and went to my parent's house to stay the week while I am in school. I was working on homework and studying {sort of} for an exam tomorrow in Dental Anatomy. Mom and Dad went for a walk {to get their beach bodies my Dad said} and I found myself walking around the house.

First I went into the spare/storage room to establish how many of the boxes left were mine and it hit me.

I am moving out of my parent's home and into my boyfriend's and I was experiencing mixed emotions.
Now this might sound silly since I was married previously so it is not like I haven't lived with a man before. Instead what hit me was that I was moving out of my Parent's house and into another person's house instead of my own place. I have done that already, obviously, and it would not have been a big deal more like deja vu really.

I am happy because it means that I am moving forward with my life and starting a new chapter.

I am sad because I came to enjoy seeing my parents every day and spending time with them.

I will miss having coffee with them in the mornings and talking about so many different things.
I will miss having my Mom ask for my opinion on a project she is working on or going on walks with her and Rudy.
I would be lying if I said I wouldn't miss my Mom's cooking, everyone loves their mother's cooking and I am no exception. 
I will miss having arguments discussions with my Dad over anything and everything.
I will miss hearing my Dad blasting his music and singing along, oblivious to the fact that I am trying to study. He always sounds so happy so I never have the heart to ask him to stop.

These last two years that they have supported me and helped me get back on my feet have been so special to me and have made me realize how much I took them for granted and didn't appreciate them in the past. I was so ready to be away from them as a teen and now I know how much I will miss them when I move out and they eventually move much further away.
There are days that I wish my parents were the kind that called their kids up and annoyingly stayed in touch but I also know that my family is way too independent for that and that they are at that point in their lives where what is happening in my life is not their main focus. This is the time when they get to rediscover themselves as individuals and as a couple. They worked hard to raise my brother and me and now they can sit back and enjoy some quality time together.

I love them with all of my heart and I will forever.

Sterling 47 Photography Blog

Well I finally did it! I started a separate blog just for my photography!

I had decided to call it Sterling 47 because 47 is the atomic number for Silver {get it?} and it is also the number of games that OU won in the longest running winning streak of a college football team TO DATE that my grandfather was a part of in the late 1950's.

So any who, I made a thingy at the top that will take you right to the new blog in the same way that you could go to the Random About Me or the Random History pages. :) Hope you like it!

School Daze...

Ah yes, summer school. The classes that we take for various reasons; whether to get through college faster, improve a previous class grade, or keep from working every single hour of every day.

My reasons are a little bit of all the above mentioned {to be honest}. I had taken an Intro to Sociology class when I first moved to Oklahoma and didn't receive a very notable grade {made it out with a C}. Turns out that that class is the only one on my program application that was a low grade and the director encouraged me to retake the course to bring the grade up, so I signed up for it to take this summer.

Now just for a little bit of background, the first class I took the professor told us on the first day that he had suffered from some medical malpractice that caused some neurological damage and that he would be heavily medicated some days. Great start, right? So we did not get very far in the class without multiple distractions and deviations from topic by the professor. We were asked to perform and take part in different sociological projects that usually involved some highly questionable behaviors on our parts in public. I had some issues with the class, projects, and the professor that unfortunately garnered his attention {and not in a good way}. By the end of the term, he was trying to fail me {I managed a last minute extra credit paper} and I was somehow unable to fill out my evaluation of the professor {I was the only one who seemed to have this issue}.
So needless to say I was not too keen to retake this particular class {I actually waited until the last minute to even register for it}.

I have been in this second sociology class for two weeks now and I am having the same feelings towards it as before, honesty. I seem have bad luck because this professor is recovering from a stroke that has left him slow to finish sentences and string together thoughts. We had to write a paper but he failed to tell us what he wanted out of the paper and left most of the class at a loss as to how to write it much less what to write about. I decided to write about my divorce {thinking that it would be relatively simple since I experienced it first hand}. As I was writing it I started to realize that if I had been able to separate myself from the emotions of being in love and all that warm mushy stuff, then I probably would not have married in the first place. It was a very hard thing for me to go through looking at my relationship like a scientist under a microscope and write about how we were doomed from the very beginning due to our differences. It was after writing that paper that I decided that I would do my best to get a better grade in this class but I would not put myself through any more unnecessary emotional stress in order to get an A.
This may sound silly or even childish but at the end of the day this class should be about learning and understanding why people do the things they do, not about how you screwed up your life and that you should feel ashamed for not helping people who don't want your help to begin with. Both teachers are following that same line of thought and teachings, "your way of thinking is wrong and you should be ashamed for thinking that way". 

Luckily, since this is a summer class it will be over relatively quickly and then I get to focus on more important things like the program courses that are going to teach me the skills that I will need in my future career.

{Bleh, end rant}

Flower Nursery

I love flowers, so naturally I love really pretty flower nurseries as well.
Here in Oklahoma we have a nursery called The Greenhouse and one of my favorite things about it is that they have several arrangements with fountains and benches to give you an idea of how you can pair flowers and other plants.

They have a HUGE Koi fish pond with HUGE Koi fish that I always love looking at. {Some of these fish are the size of award winning Big Mouth Bass!}

 

I am a sucker for ornate fountains, too and they have several throughout the grounds.

They also have a lot of yard art, including but not limited to statues and benches. There were four really cool statues where the main body looked like a square-ish pillar with ornate Romanesque busts of different women. They were probably made from concrete but stained to look like stone and they were a thousand dollars each. I thought they were absolutely wonderful. {If I had four thousand dollars I would have bought them on the spot!}

Anywho, I love all of this stuff and I hope I can have a beautiful yard to look at when I get my own home.
{Preferably with a husband that loves to do it or a husband that is okay with me hiring a gardener!}

It has been a while...

So I haven't posted lately {mainly because I forgot about this blog while being caught up in school and program drama} and then something made me think of it. Not really sure what, but I hope it happens more often.

I came out with several really good pictures from my spring break trip to Florida but I haven't gone through them all yet {I had to get right back into school when we got back}.

Here are some of my favorites so far though!

Okay, so these are all from the first full day that we were in Florida.
Our first stop was Pass-a-Grille, which is a little town on one of the gulf "barrier" islands which bares the same name. Mom had been told about this beach, that there would be shells galore and great food as well.

Walking up to the beach was a great sandy path at the very end of the island and a bench that gave you a beautiful view of the sand and water below. {These ladies knew where the best seat in the house was!}

 I loved walking along the beach and seeing kids playing in the sand; building sandcastles, burying their younger siblings {hoping to leave them behind, possibly?} and teens and adults lounging on their beach towels, enjoying one of life's simple moments that only a beach can give you.

 The town had several rental houses, condos, shops and restaurants along the middle of the island so when we were starting to feel a bit peckish we strolled along the sidewalk towards the restaurant that Mom had heard about. Such fun and eclectic sights presented themselves to us; bronze beach bums in skimpy bathing suits, biker chicks with Mohawk helmets and this row of bicycles {some old and some new}, chained and rusting in the salty air.

 Ah, at last we reached the restaurant amply named The Hurricane. It was a beautiful building, my untrained eye thought it looked rather Victorian but sturdier to better withstand those rough gulf storms. We sat out side on a quieter side patio enjoying the cool breeze and people watching the public park that was across the street. We ate conch fritters, fish tacos, and crab cake sandwich from a 1940's family recipe. The food was wonderful.

 Along the inland side of the island we came across a something that I presume was the remains of an old dock or wharf, perhaps. The sun-bleached pillars now supported resting Pelicans and other sea birds and boy were they a sight to see. This particular beauty was just letting the wind run under his wings, not going anywhere but enjoying the sensation of flight {or at least that is what I imagined}.

There are so many more great pictures from our trip so I hope to post more soon. :)
Oh yeah and we did end up finding A LOT of great shells on this beach, but not on this day, so that is for another time!

Seriously...

The weather needs to start acting right and give me some heat and sunshine.

I really want to wear these without freezing my bum off, just saying.

Valentine's Day...

Is annoying.
That is all.

Almost as annoying as this girl....

Weather, School and Dating...

Here in Oklahoma it is cold. Yes, I know it is early February but dang-it I am used to short winters in Texas. Yes, the snow has been beautiful but people do not know how to drive in it. I am by no means a perfect driver but I am not afraid to drive in "bad" weather.
I am so tired of the cold.

School is going well except that I am a bit bored which can be a bad thing for me. When I get bored my mind will start to wander and I will not be as disciplined as I normally would be about outside of class studying. Why am I bored? We are going over topics that I have previously studied in other classes making this class feel like a big review. Granted we are going into a bit more detail with these topics but still nothing mind blowing enough to completely hold my interest.

I joined an online dating site {something I said I would never do} and have met one guy and am "emailing" a handful of others. The first guy I met had {in my opinion} great promise until he decided that we were not on the same page in our lives because I was in school and he was settled in a career already. Fine, your loss dude. I'm supposed to go meet another guy later this week for coffee, I'm a bit skeptical about this guy mainly because I'm not sure he is at the maturity level that I am looking for. I have been emailing another guy that is actually overseas right now in the Air Force and he won't be back state-side until August. We seem to share a lot of things in common as far as our interests and hobbies. I just worry that we will become really close over email and then meet in person later and discover that it wouldn't work out face to face. Oh the hassles of dating in this modern time. He did ask if he could write me actual letters which I okayed quickly mainly because I love writing physical letters and wish people did that more often. The hardest part about all of this is that I am a very physically affectionate person and I want to touch and hold the people I care about, with this guy being overseas that part of me is being neglected.

This is why I need a dog of my own that I can cuddle and pet when I need to be affectionate.

Well I guess I better get back to the grind of things. Bleh.

Amusing...

It's funny {in a boring kind of way} how I told myself that I would not make all the first moves in the future. That I wanted the guy to grow a pair reach out to me first, you know like they used to do.

It seems that being forward and brave {would that be the correct term?} is just a part of my nature because I seem to be putting myself out on a limb quite often lately.

I am getting better and better about opening up and not being so shy {which is awesome and all} but it is also re-enforcing the fact that when I see something I want, I go for it.

I guess because I am having to wait for so many other aspects of my life to develop that I don't have the patience to wait for a guy to screw up the courage to talk to me.

I have never considered myself beautiful so I'm not sure what I am doing that is keeping guys at arm's length from me.

Oh well. I can't dwell on this little issue.
When the time {and guy} is right, it will work out somehow.

Painting...

I really enjoy painting. I feel accomplished after finishing a piece.

Last night I decided to paint something (really someone since I prefer to paint portraits) so I grabbed a canvas and my paints and sat down at the computer to find my subject.

Originally I wanted to paint this picture of a girl/woman drinking coffee and you can only see her eyes peaking over the rim of the cup. I have seen this picture twice, once on pinterest and then at a restaurant where it was part of the wallpaper.

Naturally I looked for it online but couldn't seem to think of the right search keywords to find it.

So then I thought, well dummy, just use one of your own pictures.

I settled on this one, I loved how the shadows enhance the picture once I made it gray scale.

I like to either paint in gray scale or in a warm or cool color scheme but still sticking to a gray scale style.
I have painted only in cool colors (green, blue, purple), warm colors (yellow, orange, red and brown thrown in) and I have also used one color in gray scale fashion (greens only, reds only). In one of my favorite paintings I used a gray scale for the subject's face, clothes and body but used warm color highlights in her otherwise black hair (the girl actually had something similar in real life and I really liked the colors).

So when I started thinking about how I was going to paint this picture I decided I wanted to do a gray scale style but with blues. I did not pick blue because I was depressed or anything like that, I just wanted to use it because I had not in the past. (I take that back, I have done a portrait in blues before but it was a commissioned piece and I stupidly unfortunately forgot to take a picture of it.)

I paint...

One of my many hobbies and loves. I may not be very good but I love it all the same.

Planning a vacation... {Warning: Post is a BIT lengthy}

So I haven't really traveled anywhere in my adult life.
Sure, my parents took my brother and I to Galveston, TX once and then to San Diego, CA once but that was when I was younger and didn't appreciate where I was. I only remember bits and pieces of those trips.

Last year for my birthday, my parents took me to the south eastern point of the state to a lake for a weekend. It was really pretty and I took over 600 pictures on that trip.

I decided right around Christmas that I wanted to actually go somewhere {out of the state} for my spring break from school.
My first thought was to go BIG, so I picked Ireland.
I have always wanted to go to Europe {nearly every single country, actually} but then I talked to my parents and was persuaded that if I went to Europe they would want me to go with someone. I really wanted to go by myself because it would have been adventuresome and brave of me to do.
Then I saw the price and nearly choked on my coffee.

So that bummed me out a bit and I decided to do something state-side. But where??
There are SO many places {even in the US} that I want to go visit.

Watching some travel and realty shows with the folks and came across St. Augustine, FL. There is this REALLY cool old fort there that I had heard about and wanted to see one day.

Done.
I announced right then that I was going to go there. Once again my Dad was concerned about me going by myself and strongly recommended against it.
I asked my friend what she thought about it and she said it sounded like fun but I could tell she wasn't exactly as thrilled as I was about going.

A few days passed and then the subject of going on a cruise was brought to my attention. Hey, that sounds awesome! I could go to a couple different places AND say that I have been on a cruise all at the same time! {Big smile and both thumbs up to this idea, it had my quick approval.}
My Dad asked how I would feel about my Mom going with me so that I wouldn't be alone.
I have ZERO problem doing that since I currently do not have a boyfriend to ask and it really bothered my Dad letting me go anywhere by myself.
Next day we started looking at cruises and figuring out the logistics.

That is what killed it for us... the Logistics.

The airfare, the cruise, the excursions, etc. were quickly adding up and the time frame that we were working with was pretty tight.

So we set our sights back on Florida.
I will not say where in Florida we picked {you will get to find out when we get back} but we narrowed our destination area down and contacted a rental property about rates and such. {You have no idea how excited I am about all of this!}

The adventure continues...

Been a while...

School and work pretty much took over my life there for a while.

-I met a guy that I liked but he had some personal issues he was working through, so we are now somewhere between acquaintances and friends. {Moving on to new prospects.}
-Stressed over getting good grades in my classes and somehow managed to get A's in the end. {Whew!}
-Submitted my application for the Dental Hygiene program {Now I just have to wait until March and then hopefully May.}
-Spent a somewhat stressful Christmas with my grandparents in Texas. {Alcohol was involved, enough said.}
-Got sick for about a week {Nothing big.}
-Now back on the trail of getting ready for school to start back up again and looking for an entry-level job in a dental office for experience.

Christmas with my immediate family was pretty cool though. My nephew is getting cuter and cuter every day!

Need I say more? {He loves his blanket.}

My Mom started a blog recently, I am pretty proud of her for doing it and keeping it going as regularly as she is. {I should probably be taking notes, huh?}