Job Searching equals HELL

So I am convinced that AZ is at it's worst in September. It still feels like summer, but it's not quite fall. It is still blasted hot, and there's not even a chill at night. It makes me reminisce about Utah's September. The colors are starting to change and the nights are perfect. There are good things about Utah and good things about Arizona, and I'm having a hard time deciding where I want to be now. I'm not gonna lie. I miss Utah. I mostly miss running there. That state has all of my favorite races.

I'm still in the middle of job searching, and can I just say that IT SUCKS. It seems like no matter how hard I try, I can't get on top of it. The majority of jobs that are available are either traveling jobs (not out of the question) or jobs in skilled nursing facilities, which I am convinced I will hate every waking second of working there. But I actually have no idea because I've never been in one. Who knows? I definitely do not want to work weekends or Sundays, which is why I've really been trying to get into an outpatient setting. The hours are set, and I've always been more interested in sports/orthopedics anyway. I did have an interview at an awesome clinic in Gilbert (inside Mountainside Fitness!) but they decided they wanted to go with a PT because they needed somebody to cover for the hours that the other PT is there. Forgive me if I'm wrong but ISN'T THAT THE POINT OF A PTA?! As a PTA, I am a valuable tool in growing clinics. I can see patients that the PT has already evaluated, producing a higher patient load while lowering costs. I swear, some people are sadly misinformed or just have no idea what the role of a PTA is. It drives me crazy.

The only thing I can do is keep moving forward. I have applied in many states, given my name and resume to as many recruiting agencies as I can, and still have come up with nothing. The one job offer I had wanted me to work every or every other Sunday. I can put up with a lot of things, but losing my Sunday is not an option. I have told myself from the very beginning that I would never work on Sundays. I had to once during my clinical and I felt dirty and just miserable all day.

Am I being too picky, or is I own personal happiness more important? Should I just take any job I can get (even if I will be miserable every day) or should I hold out for the job that I want? These are the questions that keep me up at night!!!!

Breaking Bad

Can I just take a moment and talk about the greatest show on television?! So during my awful week last week, where I was suffering from hives and itching and all that, I discovered the greatest show in existence. Now, I realize this show is in its 5th and final season (sob) and so it has been around for a while, and I realize I have had several friends tell me I need to watch it, but GOSH DANG IT why did I never listen?! This show, oh man this show is addicting. And it is all I can talk about. And people must think I'm crazy.

Here's the gist on this gem of a show: it is about a chemistry teacher (Walter White) who, upon finding out he has cancer, somehow decides that cooking and selling crystal meth is the only solution to his financial sorrows. He doesn't want his family to end up destitute when he is gone. So he teams up with an old student of his, Jesse (the love of my life) who has fallen into some druggie ways and has been a small-time meth dealer on the side. He's your typical punk kid with no respect for anybody. But I still can't help but love the kid. First off, he's gorgeous. Aaron Paul is one excellent actor and I don't think anybody else could have done such a stellar job with the character of Jesse Pinkman. His character arc over the 5 seasons of the show is what makes him so amazing. You'll just have to watch to find out what kind of person he becomes.

I think that's why I love this show so much. None of the characters are stagnant. The people they were in season 1 are so different than the people they are in season 5. The writing in this show is some of the best television story-telling I have ever seen. And at the risk of sounding like an obsessed fan (which I'm pretty sure I am), I am not kidding when I say that it is truly the greatest show on television. Ever. And I have watched a lot of TV and so obviously my opinion is valid. Haha. Just do yourself a favor, and watch it. Fair warning though, there will be violence and some language but if you can look past that, then you can enjoy it for what it really is. I can't say enough about it. And I'll leave it at that.

Also, I dare you not to fall in love with Jesse Pinkman. Because you will eventually. I promise.

My Body Hates Me

Scene: Two weeks had passed since I got my second foot surgery. Things were going good, except for the fact that I was bored all the time and had pretty much watched everything on Netflix. Well, wednesday night my operated foot started itching. And I mean itching, almost like there was a million mosquito bites on my entire foot. I removed the ace wrap and during the night managed to nearly destroy the white gauze wrapping that surrounded my foot. I had scratched my foot so much to where I was bleeding in some spots. Well, over the next couple days, the itching continues. My mom buys some new gauze, and we unwrap my foot all the way (not gonna lie, the incisions looked nasty), clean it up a bit, and then wrap it up all new again. And then on Saturday, I wake up and BAM my lips look like Angelina Jolie's. Huge. Red. And super uncomfortable. I hated life that weekend. I didn't go to church because I seriously looked like I had a botched plastic surgery. Luckily my doctor's appointment was Monday morning. I called my dr Sunday to tell him about what was going on, and he said he would take a look and see what was going on the next day.

Well the next morning, we unwrap my foot and lo and behold, any skin that was covered by the steri strips (strips of cloth-like stuff that basically kept the incision closed) had erupted into large, pus-filled blisters. My doctor informed me that I had built up an allergy to tincture benzoin, which was the substance they used to make the steri strips stay on the skin. During my scratching, I had made the blisters worse and transferred some of the substance to my face by touching my face after scratching. This was why my lips blew up like they did. Well, since the incisions weren't healing very well, he cleaned the areas, applied some new medication, and wrapped it all up again and said I needed to stay an extra week in the boot. :( This was sad news. I was so looking forward to riding my bike and finally working out again!

Well cut to two days later. I had broken out into hives all over my body and my new dressings on my foot were soaked through with dark yellow pus. Um grooooossssss. So I went back to the doctor, and he cleaned me up again and put even more gauze on it, which seemed to do the trick. I'll spare you guys a picture of my foot with the blisters and stuff because it is nasty! So now I've been an extra week in the boot, my hives took over my life for four or five days (before a steroid treatment finally kicked them to the curb) and I am really, really hoping that I will finally be rid of the wraps on my foot and my stupid walking boot for FOREVER. Doctor's appointment is tomorrow so fingers crossed that the incisions look good!

So basically after the most hellish and miserable and depressing week of my life, I am about to be free again! I'm really hoping for good news, mostly because I am so sick of wrapping my foot in plastic bags before I take a shower.

Alicia vs Feet, Round 2

After my Montana trip, I wanted to get my second foot surgery done asap. Luckily I was able to get scheduled for Aug 1st, and my life since then has consisted of Netflix, movies, books, laying around, sleeping in, and eating. So, needless to say, I am currently very, very excited to get out of my walking boot and back into a routine that somewhat resembles a normal life.

This one was different this time around. I actually had people visit me! Haha. Also, I managed to be on one crutch by Monday, and no crutches the next day. Last time, I went a whole week until I was on one crutch and then I barely managed no crutches a couple days later. I think it might be because I knew what the pain would feel like this time around, and so I was able to put up with it more easily.

Another big change was that my foot has been itching now, non-stop, for five days now! Enough so that I managed to destroy my wrapping and give myself bruises and blisters where I was scratching! Yeah, I wasn't messing around. My mom eventually bought me some lotion, so I unwrapped my foot, cleaned it up a bit, and put on some new wrappings and lotion on. It now feels a little better and hopefully my doctor won't be mad at me on Monday for taking off the wraps. Haha!

Basically, Tuesday is a new beginning. I am SO excited for bike rides, swimming, the gym, and starting my training. I can't run until October 1st or so, but I am going to start upping cardio in other ways so that when I do eventually start running again, I won't be back at stage 1. This means the elliptical and spin bike will be my new best friends. I am also going to focus on weight training, especially legs and core. My muscles in my legs used to be pretty robust and strong, but since my first surgery they have all but wasted away. I am just a flabby and weak version of my former self! Haha. I'm excited to get back into shape. I spent an hour or so the other day planning the next 10 weeks of training and working out and it is honestly the only thing keeping me going.

Once I start running again, then it starts to get crazy! First, the turkey trot. I have high hopes for my first race back. I am hoping to get in under an hour, and I know with plenty of hard work I can achieve this goal! After that, there aren't many races until February. Ragnar. My favorite race and my favorite weekend of the year. I should start putting together a team soon! After Ragnar, I might possibly consider the Phoenix Marathon. Not the half. The full one. I know, I must be crazy BUT I have my reasons that shall remain unnamed for now :) I won't sign up until I know I can handle high mileage without damaging my feet. I won't know more until about 3 months before the race, which is plenty of time. All I know is that I've had dreams about training and racing and I cannot wait to get back into it. I've realized I'm kind of nothing without running. I'm about to find myself again!

Other than that, nothing new in my life except the dreaded job hunting. Ugh. My previous jobs were all pretty much handed to me and so job searching for my first big girl job is so hard and intimidating! I could potentially go anywhere, to any state, and it is kind of sending me into a quarter-life crisis. I have put off growing up for SO long and now that it is finally here, I don't know where to start! I've applied for many jobs and so far haven't had any luck but I have no doubt something will work out eventually. Anyway, that will consume my life for the foreseeable future, and I'm hoping I can get on my feet as soon as possible!

Montana Trip (part dos)

Settle yourself down and be ready for a doozy of a post, full of pictures (yes, me! I put pictures in a post!) and too many words.

We finally made it to Belt, MT. It's a tiny town of about 800 people, and there's no stop light, just a couple stop signs. I honestly could say it is my dream town. It is nestled in a small valley and is therefore protected from all the worst weather. It is surrounded by green hills on all sides. The Urick's house is just amazing and so adorable. It is tucked underneath a grove of trees at the end of a dirt road just outside of town. I fell in love immediately. The house, the trees, the meadows, the creek nearby; it is my idea of paradise.

Something about small towns just make me happy. Making money is not a huge goal for most people. Houses are small, stress is low, people are just generally happier. My iPhone didn't work in some parts of the house, and I found that I didn't care! Technology isn't a huge deal in small town Montana like it is in Gilbert. I felt like I didn't have a care in the world. I love that everybody knows each other in that town. Some people say they wouldn't be able to handle living in a small town because it's so far from everyone else, Target is too far away, they would get bored, they wouldn't be able to handle the isolation. I don't know about all of you, but I know I would love living in a small town for all those reasons!! It's hard to put into words exactly what it is about small town life that I love. I think I just envy how much simpler, stress-free, and slowed down life is. Not that my life is all that crazy (because it isn't), but I just felt so renewed after my short time in Belt. I want to go back!

Sydnee, her brother Clint, Chic, and I headed to Glacier National Park the day after we arrived to Belt. I was so excited! The drive there wasn't too crazy exciting, just miles and miles of green wheat fields blowing in the breeze. Can we talk about why they call Montana "Big Sky Country"? Guys. They are not kidding. It is physically impossible to take in all of the horizon in that place. It blows my mind how much sky there actually is! I had the misconception that Montana is mostly mountains, in fact it is the complete opposite! The area that we were in was very flat, and the majority of those flat areas are turned into agriculture. Good thing the wheat fields are beautiful! (To me, anyway.) That's why GNP is so shocking to the eye, the mountains rise up out of the flat land very suddenly. The peaks cut into the sky like knives. The landscape in GNP is so breathtakingly beautiful that pictures cannot even begin to capture the epicness of such a place. I'm still going to post my favorites though :)

Our first real view of Glacier National Park. I almost cried.

Sisters!! 

Sydnee and Clint. The best two people in Montana!

The most photographed place in the whole park. Goose Island.

The first day we went for a hike along St Mary Lake.

Sigh.

This bighorn's name is Big Nasty, as named by the park ranger.

The air coming out from under this snow pack was freezing!

My friend, Big Nasty.

It was a 4-mile round trip hike to Avalanche Lake. All of those waterfalls were loud!

This glacier water was freezing cold. It felt like knives!

The round shape of the valley is carved out by long-gone glaciers.

Just chillin.

The stripe in the middle of the mountain is The Going-To-The-Sun Road. Built in the 1950's, it stretches from the east to the west side of the park and is 52 miles long. Not for the faint of heart!

Big Sky Country sunset.

Wheat fields for miles. I loved it!

On Sunday, we went to church in Whitefish, which is a town 30 miles west of the park. Fun fact, my Grandpa had gone to church at this same building only a couple weeks before, a couple days after he started his Canada-to-Mexico biking trip. Whitefish is a beautiful town! I loved the West side of Glacier NP, it was much more mountainous than the East side. 

After two glorious days in Glacier, we headed back to Belt. I had to return the rental car on Wednesday, so we headed back to Idaho on Tuesday. I almost cried when we left Montana. I honestly wanted to stay forever. During those four days there, that was the happiest I had felt in a long time. We made it back to Idaho that night, and waited around all the next day at the Mattsen's for our car to be finished. The mechanic called me around 8 p.m., informing me that it was finally done! Chic and I were shortly on our way back to Utah in my faithful Roadrunner. We arrived in Orem late that night. Once again, we had another fun day the next day hanging out with Heather and Kayla. Little girl was crawling so much better than she was even a week previously! Too much cute for me to handle!!

The next day, after 12 exhausting days of stress and bliss, we headed back to Arizona. It felt really good to be headed home finally, although I did feel like I left my heart back in Montana. I cannot wait until that wonderful state and I are reunited. Hopefully sooner than later.

I could only find two drawbacks to Montana. One, the winters. The winters there are hard, snowy, cold, and LONG. Two, everything is super spread apart, so gas a big expenditure there. Belt was 30 miles outside of Great Falls, so to go to the movies, big grocery stores, or basically anything else, you were looking at a 60-mile round trip. However, the driving time passes quickly because their speed limits are a bit higher there. Can you say 70 mph on country highways?? The race car driver in me loved it. 

Needless to say, I will be back in Montana eventually, maybe and hopefully for a longer term thing. If I could find a PTA job there, I would be there already! That's how fast and hard I fell in love. Now if only I could make that happen between me and a man. :)

Montana Trip (Part 1)

Ever since I saw a friend's pictures of Glacier National Park several years ago, I have wanted to go. When I moved up to Utah and had a roommate from Montana, I knew I definitely needed to go. Sydnee and her family were nice enough to let us come up and stay with them in tiny Belt, MT (20 miles outside Great Falls). That place is amazing! But, before I can get into the awesomeness that is Montana, I have to talk about the 5 days it took us to get there.

Day 1- Monday, July 1st. The little sister and I leave hot and sweaty AZ for slightly less hot Utah. We make it with no problems and arrive in Orem at our brother's house that night.

Day 2- Tues, July 2nd. We hang out with Dustin, Heather, and little Kayla who is just learning to crawl. I think I may be biased, but she is the cutest thing ever. We have a relaxing day of eating out, Netflix, and teaching Kayla to climb on the love sack.

Day 3- Wed, July 3rd. We accidentally sleep in, but are the road by 10 a.m. I planned on filling up again in Idaho Falls before jumping off into the great expanse that is Montana. We pass Pocatello, then a small-ish town called Blackfoot. Two minutes north of Blackfoot, I hear a thunk noise, the engine light comes on, and the car begins to decelerate. I'm surprised I didn't panic, because honestly I had no idea what was happening. I pulled the car over to the side of the interstate, and immediately called AAA, which I had never used before. All I know is that I had the card in my wallet and my mom said to use it in case of emergency.

Well this sure felt like an emergency to me! They called me a tow truck, which arrived about 20 minutes later. Not bad! The driver was a super nice guy who felt bad for us two girls stuck in rural Idaho. He was LDS and really helpful, probably not the same experience we would get in AZ :) He took us Danny's auto repair in Blackfoot, and we waited while they looked at the car to figure out what was wrong. Silly me, I thought it was just a simple battery problem. Turns out it was really complicated!! Something about the timing belt, water pump, pistons, all this car stuff that I knew nothing about. Long story short, the car took A WEEK to fix!!

So of course when we find out that it was a long repair, we had to find somewhere to stay until we could figure something out! My parents, bless their hearts, were working on finding us somewhere to stay from 900 miles away. My mom found a Bishop Mattsen (the Church is true, y'all!) and him and his family took us in! There's not much I can say about them because they were honestly nice beyond words. Treated us like their own! So luckily we had a place to stay that night.

Day 4- Thurs, July 4th. Oh, the blessed Independence Day! Here me and Chic thought we would be spending it in Belt, instead we spent it with complete strangers in a small town in Blackfoot. My mom had reserved a rental car for us the night before, and I had to use my credit card in order to get it. However, I hadn't used my card in forever (or made a payment on it) and so there wasn't enough on it to rent the car. I was so sad! I was hoping to get to Belt that night. I debated getting a hotel room for the day until the payment went through on the credit card the next day (dang you holiday!) and me and Chic were just gonna kick it in Pocatello since the Mattsen's were on their way out of town for the day.

However, the Mattsen's said "nope, you're coming with us!"So we ended up spending the day with most of their entire extended family at a lake in eastern Idaho! You would think it would be awkward but we were just grateful to be doing something fun on the 4^th. Their family took us in and treated us like one of their own. It was a super fun day!

Day 5- Friday, July 5^th. The credit card has to work this time. It just has to! I called the credit card company early in the morning and specifically asked them if I made a charge for x amount of dollars, would it go through? They said yes and so we were once again on our way to Pocatello to get our rental car. Luckily my mom was able to find us a cheaper one than the one before, and I was excited to finally be on our way again! I was on edge when the guy ran my card, and when his face fell as he said, “I’m sorry, it declined” I thought I was in nightmare. WHAT. Hands shaking, I quickly called the credit card company again and asked them why my card wasn’t going through. I could barely keep my voice calm because I honestly was about to lose it! Well they fixed the problem in a couple minutes, the card worked, and we GOT THE RENTAL CAR finally! And that takes us to part 2. Also if anyone can think of a good spiritual application for this story, please let me know. I know that breaking down and going through all that stress was supposed to teach me a lesson, I'm just not sure what it is!

I miss running.

You guys. I have not ran a single mile since February 23rd. Do you know how messed up that is? I managed to finish Ragnar, but after that race I couldn't run at all. My feet hurt way too much at the end of the day and it was so disheartening! And since I got my first of two foot surgeries on May 16th, I have missed running like I never thought I would. Watching friends train for and run races just brings this aching into my heart. As of right now, it looks like I won't be able to run until the end of September. I try not to think about it, but at the same time it makes me so excited. I feel like I have a new lease on life. With these new feet (I know, I talk about my feet way more than a person should) I should be faster and more efficient. I will run without pain. I get to run without bulky orthotics in my shoes. 

I have dreams about training for races. I just spent the last hour reading some of my race recaps from last year and it made me so freaking excited for this fall, and basically the rest of my life. I already have grand plans to run two full marathons next year. Phoenix and Big Cottonwood. Also I want to run as many Ragnars as I can. I'm thinking Del Sol, Wasatch, Vegas, and the Zion Trail and McDowell Mountain Trail Ragnars. Also Top of Zion relay. Also Red Rock relays. Guys, there are just too many races that I want to do! I expect most of my spending next year to be from races. I have to make up for 2013, right? Just writing this makes my heart full with joy! AH!!! October could just hurry up, please.

Although I may not be able to run, I can still do some easy hiking (aka nature walks, haha). Which is why next week, I am travelling to MONTANA for the 4th of July!! I have an old roommate from Montana and because that state has been on my dream vacation list for as long as I can remember, I figured it was now or never. Chic (the 15 year old clone of myself) and I will be driving to Utah on Monday, and heading to Montana on Wednesday. Thursday we will celebrate the 4th in the style of Montana (think small town parades and rodeos) and then the next two days we will spend in Glacier National Park. Be prepared for pictures galore because there are no words to describe how excited I am for this trip. I am my best self when I am in the mountains, and I am definitely at my happiest as well. 

Oh and guess what is happening on July 19th? My better half, my Mexican, my beaner, my BFFAEAEAE is coming home from her mission!!! Hannah Banana Mae Mecham Garcia (one of those may not be her actual middle name) is coming back into my life. You guys. YOU GUYS. My life has been incomplete since she left. I want to cry just thinking about her coming home. Oh gosh.