I love... [Day Two]

Day 02- The meaning behind your blog name. And a truth: something you love about yourself.


When I first started my blog, it was Cosmetology School and Combat Boots. Well, I graduated school, and lost part of my name. Cosmetology and Combat Boots is pretty self explanatory. I'm a hair stylist and in love with a dude in the air force. Right now, the cosmetology part isn't in my life much. I can't find a job doing hair. It blows.




Anyway, something I love about myself is my ability to change. Being with a guy in the military really helped with this one, and really requires me to be this way too. I don't really look at anything as set in stone anymore. Everything is pretty temporary, and I'm ok with that. Steve tells me he's coming home an month later? Ok, no problem. I work at a shitty job trying to talk people into buying cellphones? No big. Not forever.






Also, to make up for my shitty picture in the last post, here's one from this weekend.

Challenging Myself [Day One]

As I no longer have time to think for myself and I'm a failure of a blogger, I'm going to do the 30 days of me. Actually, I found two versions and I'm doing both.

Day 01- A recent picture of you and 15 interesting facts about yourself.  And a truth- something you hate about yourself.

Well, I sat here for about 20 minutes trying to get a decent picture of myself, and it didn't work out. I'm tired as hell, and it shows. Oh, does it show. Also, my nose needs to go away for awhile. So you get this picture, from July. I've posted it before but it makes me happy. I was being the light-tester-model for a friend's photo shoot.

1. I've colored my hair since I was in 4th grade. I've tried out all types of colors, but I think dark brown suits me the most.

2. I went to cosmetology school, where we learn that you color your hair, and dye Easter eggs. You tweeze your eyebrows and pluck a chicken.

3. I am currently living with my sister and her husband. Plus their two dogs. The dogs own the house.

4. I really love tacos. Yum.

5. I always thought I would be the first of my friends from high school to move away, and now I'm one of the only ones left.

6. I work at a kiosk in a store selling cellphones, and I have zero problem saying I don't know an answer. Which happens a lot. I am good at finding out the answer though.

7. I am a TV junkie. I love 'my shows' and I love finding new shows. I'm currently getting into Nip/Tuck.

8. I really enjoy exercise, but I have almost zero motivation. Once I get myself doing it though, I crave it.

9. I really don't enjoy making lists like this. I feel like I don't even know myself when I freeze at number nine.

10. I took French in 6th and 7th grade, and then again in high school. Most of it didn't stick, but I'm still in love with it.

11. I am just like my mother. We say the same things at the same times, we laugh the same, we find the same things funny, and we both have tempers. 

12. I'm 5'2" and I like being short. 

13. I used to want to be a teacher. I can't even imagine that now. I'm horrible at teaching people things. I am a fast learner and I get frustrated when people don't catch on quickly.

14. I love nail polish.

15. I cry when I get angry. It's so frustrating.

And for the 2nd part...

I think writing about something I hate about myself is an odd, yet honest way to start off. So here we go. I could say something about my too-big nose, or my ridiculous laughs, or the way I can't seem to keep my room clean. Sometimes those are all true, but I'm going to go balls out on this one. I hate my depression. It bleeds into every other part of my life. When it comes in, I can't stop it and I can't make it go away. I can feel it coming on like a cold or something.

Anyway, that's what I hate about myself. I have learned to live with it though. 

Going backwards to go forward.

 I'm sure my title makes little to no sense. That might be because it is 4:45am and I haven't gone to bed yet. As I've mentioned, I recently moved. Yes, at 20 years old, I just now moved out of my parents' house. And yes, I made the huge leap, and am now living with my sister and her husband.

I'm refinishing a bunch of stuff to pull together my room. I'll do a post on that later, once I actually finish a project. In the midst of all this moving, I've been making multiple trips trying to get all of my things from my parents' house. I finally found a few boxes I was looking for, which had a lot of the stuff I saved from my childhood.


When I got to the box with old toys, I was surprised that I remembered all of it. The first picture shows some of my baby doll clothes. I loved dolls. Everything in the first picture is special though, because my grandma made it. The big blanket on the bottom matches the diaper bag. She also made matching outfits for me! My sister always got similar items, but usually in different colors. My grandma is BA. (If you don't know Caitlin-speak, that means badass. Don't tell her I said that though. I don't say stuff like that in front of her.)

And then I found some of my Barbie clothes. There was a gallon sized ziploc bag stuffed full of clothes. The sad thing is, I know I have a ton more somewhere else, in addition to a bunch more Barbies. As you can see, Rex didn't really know what to thing. Maybe it was the butchered 80's style bangs my sister or I gave the doll.

Bonus shot: one of many mermaid outfits we had. I have no idea why we had so many. Also! Multiple gymnastics outfits.

Some things I didn't see- My scuba diving Barbie, my sleeping Barbie, whose eyes 'closed' with warm (or cold?) water, my Ken who grows a beard with warm water, and "shaves" with cold water, my Barbie salon furniture, my stove, and OH MY GOODNESS the memories are flying back. I had way too much stuff.

I even had a 'candy shop' that molded Bubble Yum into different shapes. Oy.

Bonus story time... I had a Pocahontas Barbie that came with a bunch of accessories, including a fish. I cooked that fish over a lamp. That went well. Really.

Metal and Monochrome.

*First off this is my 3452345234 time trying to do this post because my phone sucks.*


I realized as I was getting dressed the other day, that I wear a lot of jewelry and a lot of monochromatic colors. The jewelry in the picture is all of my 'basics', and I I usually add on a necklace, bracelet, maybe a ring and some different earrings. My wardrobe consists of mainly black, gray, and some white. My go to outfit is jeans and a black shirt. If I'm going to work, I wear black or gray pants. Exciting, right? But it's me.


So there you go. Something else about me.

Disclaimer- This post is useless.

I don't have time for my normal stuff anymore. Cooking, watching tv, scrap booking. I either am working or attempting to wind down.

Such as right now. I got off work at 8:30ish, and after finally filling my gas tank, I got home around 9. My normal thing to do is watch TV and mess around on the internet. Specifically watch Bones on Netflix and check my Google Reader. I want to blog. I do. I need to get my thoughts out. I love having my life recorded on here. I just can't get my brain in the right mode. This is as close as it gets.

What cooking does for me.

Please don't judge me for my cellphone picture. ;)

I love cooking. I love baking. I just love being in the kitchen. I love putting all the steps together, and coming up with something delicious. Cooking is therapeutic for me. It makes me feel calm and happy.

So, I think I'm going to start posting more food. Recipes I've made, all that stuff. Maybe eventually I'll start a separate blog just for food. We'll see.



And to start off, I made taco salad tonight. It was the best taco salad I'd ever had. So I guess I'll put the recipe here, even though I sort of winged everything. I'll make it for two people, since I made enough to have it for lunch tomorrow, aside from the shell.

Shells:
2 flour torillas
cooking spray or olive oil

Taco filling:
1/2 lb ground turkey
1 cup rice, cooked
1 can of black beans
1 T cumin
salt and pepper

Salad:
Romain lettuce
1 avocado
1/2 cup shredded cheese
Salsa
Optional, dressing

Heat oven to 400. Slightly warm the tortillas in the microwave, about 10 seconds. Turn two ramekins upside down on a baking sheet, and spray with cooking spray. Lay tortillas over ramekins and spray the top. Bake for about 10 minutes or until brown.

Brown turkey. Add garlic, cook another 2-3 minutes. Mix in rice, beans, and seasoning. Set aside. If you are going to be using dressing, toss that with lettuce, and add to taco bowls. I used a little bit of a garlic dressing. Top lettuce with meat mixture, and add whatever toppings you'd like.

So good.

Employment

So. I'm now employed. I think it is terrible that I already know I won't like it. I've worked 4 days. That's it. It's sort of nice having something to do. It's nice having somewhere to go. I don't mind how tired I am. I just hate retail. It rots my brain. I'm a hair stylist, not a retail slave. That sounds so arrogant. I'm lucky to have a job, but I guess in a way I feel like I deserve more.

I don't want to go into specifics on where I work, but I work in a store (duh) at a booth where we sell cell phones. Nothing too bad, I don't really mind it. The part that I don't like is that it isn't doing hair. I spent a year of my life going to school and working my ass off to be good at hair, so I could get licensed to do hair, so I could get a job doing hair. It got me nowhere.

The only salon jobs out here are booth rental which totally sucks. I can't afford to pay rent to work right now. On top of that I would have to pay for all of my product and equipment. I also have a teensy clientèle since I'm just out of school.

Part of me is scared that I'll forget. Practice makes perfect, and the more I was doing hair the better and faster I was. I don't want to have to start all over. Also, who wants to hire someone who doesn't have a job for 6 months after they graduate school, and then that job is selling phones? Really?

I feel like I've failed. Steve is the only person I can talk to about it, and he doesn't get it. I mean, he understands the concept of why I feel bad, but he thinks the fact that I have any job at all is great. Which it is, don't get me wrong. I'm really glad I was able to find a job when there are so few here. I enjoy money. Really.

How can I not feel bad though? All through cosmo school, and even after, people kept telling me how they just KNEW I would do good. They knew I would be successful. How can I do that when I can't even get a job? I honestly don't think I'll get a job as a stylist until I move out somewhere else.