Thank You Veterans

I know Veterans Day was yesterday, but I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge all of the soldiers out there and all of their families.

I've been lucky not to have any one extremely close to me during my life time have to go to war, but I can't imagine how difficult it is for all those who have experienced it.

My grandfather and my uncle are veterans and my two cousins are currently serving our country.

I saw this video on Twitter and I knew I had to share it with you. This really touched my heart and made me bawl my eyes out, but it's extremely meaningful and I hope you will all take two minutes to watch it.



Do you have a family member or a close friend in the military? What has your experience been like?

THANK YOU TO ALL THE VETERANS AND PEOPLE CURRENTLY SERVING IN THE MILITARY!

Where In The World Wednesday

It's Wednesday and that means it's time for Where In The World Wednesday, my new weekly feature!

The lovely Feris made me a button that anyone can use if you also decide to participate in Where In The World Wednesday (which you should!). Just save the picture to the left and make sure to use it in your post! Thanks so much Feris!

The idea of WITWW is to post a picture of you in someplace in the world...it doesn't have to be somewhere foreign or tropical. Just a picture of you somewhere that you consider traveling.

If you decide to participate, make sure to post it and then post your link in the comments so I can check out yours!

Me in Paris (pre-food poisoning)

Stay Classy, San Diego

I'm back from the lovely city of San Diego, California!

I have to say...all you Californians are quite lucky, because I'm pretty obsessed with your state!

San Diego was absolutely beautiful. We landed on Thursday night around 9:00 p.m. Um, I'm not sure if this happens anywhere else, but landing in San Diego is SO scary because the city is extremely close to the airport...literally, buildings surround the plane as you are landing.

Our hotel was very nice. We woke up and had room service (very classy and VERY expensive...oops).

Then, we headed to the world-famous San Diego Zoo. I wasn't that excited because zoos don't really thrill me, but this zoo was out of this world. It was incredible and I had a great time. My favorite animals were the koala bears, the panda bears and the orangutans! The orangutans were SO hilarious. We watched them for literally thirty minutes.

My new friend!!!

Baby koala bear!

After the zoo, the PR conference I was attending officially began. Over the course of three days I attended various sessions on entertainment PR, health care PR, social media, travel and tourism PR and much, much more. It was all a bit overwhelming, but I learned a lot. I was a little disappointed because the people there were not very friendly, but I did learn a lot, and that's all that matters.

I also got a chance to hang out in the Gas Lamp District which is popular for its nightlife and restaurants. We found it to be very expensive, so we just grabbed dinner and one drink there.

Italian food..yum

On Sunday, we were able to walk around Seaport Village which was absolutely adorable. There were many shops and outdoor musicians with lots of people just wandering around on a beautiful sunny afternoon.

I loooove this statue! Perfection.

My friend and I at Seaport Village

I wish I had more time to explore the area and I would LOVE to visit LA, but I was mostly there for business (how weird is that to say?!) this time.

Overall, it was a great trip and a nice break from "real life." I'll be back to reading and commenting very soon! Can't wait to catch up on my reader!

Have any of you ever visited San Diego or anywhere in California? What did you think?

Weekend Update: PR Edition

Let me just say, I love San Diego! I think I love California in general.

My weekend started on Thursday, since that's when I came to CA, so I'll start there.

Thursday: Headed to the airport...made it through security super fast (anyone ever use the "expert traveler" line? I never knew about it before but my friend who I'm traveling with said all you have to do is walk through like you know what you're doing and you pretty much bypass the long security lines). Awesome.

We got Chickies and Petes (love the crab fries) and then got on our flight. I took some anxiety medicine before the flight since I have a pretty bad fear of flying and I think it worked. The flight was really smooth and I was very calm. I got a lot of homework done and relaxed a bit. Once we arrived in San Diego, it literally took five minutes to get our luggage and another ten minutes to get to the hotel. Amazing.

Our hotel is really nice and we literally have the comfiest beds and pillows in the world. The three hour time difference has really thrown me off which is weird because I quickly adjusted to the six hour time difference in Rome.

Friday: First, on Friday, my friend and I headed to the zoo! I wasn't that excited because I'm not a huge zoo person, but let me tell you, it was AMAZING and I would definitely recommend it. We literally stared at the orangutans for 30 minutes because they were SO funny.

As I've mentioned before, I'm here in San Diego for a PR conference. Friday afternoon began with a few sessions presented by other students. After that, there was a mini-social.

Saturday: Saturday was the first FULL day of the conference and we had a ton of stuff to do! I'm not getting as much out of the conference as I would have liked, but that's okay. I'm really surprised because many of the girls here are very rude and snobby. I thought everyone would be pretty friendly and sociable, but I guess I kind of should have expected that there would be snobby people here. Oh well. I guess that's life, right?

The sessions I went to yesterday were pretty great though. I'm learning some good tips, but mostly just feeling completely overwhelmed about PR in general!

On Saturday night, I went out to dinner in the Gas Lamp District and walked around a bit. It was super expensive, so we didn't really go to any clubs or bars.

Sunday: Today is my last day at the conference and unfortunately, I need to really buckle down and write my paper that's due tomorrow! I'll be going to a few more sessions today.

All you West-Coasters, I have to say...I really love it here!

What have you done this weekend?

You Know You're An Adult When...

...you go to a holiday craft show, marvel at all the adorable items and wish you had your own house to decorate.

Yep.

Today, I truly felt like an adult.

My mom asked me to go to a craft show with her and I was honestly AMAZED.

First of all, it was in someone's house. They completely transform their house into Christmas-land for an entire week. I think the lady must send her kids and husbands away because literally even the kids bedrooms are taken over with merchandise and decorations. At one point, I was in a room and my mom said "hey look, there's the toilet..it's kind of hidden." I had no idea we were even in a bathroom; this house was seriously transformed from the basement to the third floor.

Second, the stuff she had was adorable! I don't normally ooh and ahh over decorations, but today I was all about it. I saw so many cute items and kept thinking about how I want to decorate my house someday. I helped my mom pick out some new Christmas decorations since we recently re-painted our house and it's all very classy.

One thing that really set this craft show apart was the smell of the house. When you walked in, you were literally taken over by the smell of....Christmas? Okay, just kidding, it was the smell of Apple Cake, but literally the house was so warm and smelled so good that I honestly thought I walked into Santa's workshop. She literally had cakes baking and was pulling them out of the oven and packaging them to sell. She had a ton of other baked goods and had free samples out which was delicious.

Okay, and want to know what makes me even more of an adult? The fact that I really just wrote an entire blog post about a craft show.

Oy.

Where In The World Wednesday

I'm thinking of starting a new feature on Wednesday's called "Where In The World Wednesday." Basically, each week I will post a new picture of me in some place I've traveled to (or if not me, a photo I took at a place I traveled to).

If a lot of people participate, it will be a fun way to see where some of our favorite bloggers have traveled! It doesn't have to be recent, it doesn't have to be somewhere foreign or tropical. Just anywhere you consider traveling!

If you decide to participate (I hope you will!) make sure to post it and then post your link in the comments so I can check out yours!

Me in beautiful Positano, Italy

Writing Woes

As many of you know, November is National Novel Writing Month (better known as NaNoWriMo).

I was SUPER excited about NaNoWriMo this year because I was determined to actually do it and finish a 50,000 word novel in a month. Everything was pretty much set in place for me:

Interest in writing a novel? Check.

A few ideas? Check.

A reading/writing blog with tons of others who want to do the same thing? Check.

Actually telling people about my goal to write a book? Check.

With everything in place, I'm having a lot of trouble writing. Granted yesterday went a little better than Sunday, but I'm still pretty worried about the rest of the month.

I don't really have the time to commit to NaNo. I know, I know. If I don't have the time now, when am I going to have the time? But seriously, I'm going to school, running a student organization and going to San Diego this week. When I'm not trying to catch up on sleep, I'm writing a press release, or taking a midterm, or tutoring people at work. I do want to write a novel, but I want to do it on my own time.

Second, I'm having trouble with the whole deadline of a month thing. I know writing (and PR too!) is a very deadline-intensive field, but 30 days to write a 50,000 word novel is a bit absurd to me. I want to write (and I don't even care if I write crap the first time around) but forcing myself to sit down and write for 30 days straight even when I'm internally freaking out just isn't working for me.

Also, someone on my NaNo page literally finished the entire 50,000 words in ONE DAY! How insane is that? The "competition" or constantly comparing myself to others aspect of NaNo also hurts me. I feel like writing a book should be done on my own time and at my own pace without the distraction of others.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE writing. This is absolutely what I want to do in some capacity with my life. I'm just worried because as I started writing, I was realizing...wow, this is crap. Why does everyone tell me I'm such a good writer?

I know this is the first time I've ever attempted a novel, but still...I thought it would be a little easier than this.

Please reassure me that this is just happening because I'm nervous and because it's my first time. I'm so worried that I'm not going to be able to accomplish my dream of writing a book because I've just learned now that I suck. I know that writing a novel is hard. If it was easy, everyone would do it.

I know I have a story inside me. I know with the right amount of practice I can do it. I'm trying not to beat myself up over wanting to quit NaNo, but inside I really am mad at myself even though I told myself from the get-go that I probably wouldn't make it through.

I really don't have anything against NaNoWriMo. Actually, I think it's really awesome for people that it can work for. I don't even know if I'm going to give it up right now, but I'm going to try not to beat myself up if I do decide to leave my novel alone for the moment and re-visit it during winter break or a time that I can better dedicate myself to writing.