Nancy's Rocking Thoughts

My Favorite Christmas Memory

Everyday this month, our company CEO has been sending out emails related to Christmas, most of them have to do with Safety because this is the time of year we see an increase in accidents. Some of the emails have been fun, for example the one where he asked for people to share their favorite Christmas movie quote or the one where he asked what your favorite Christmas memory was. I was thinking really hard about my favorite Christmas memory. I didn’t actually respond to the email because people were replying all, which is a major pet peeve of mine. I did not want to reply all, but knowing that everyone seemed to have replied all, also made me not want to just respond to our CEO so that he didn’t think anything about it, not that he would, I’m just paranoid that way.

I thought I could share my favorite Christmas memory here because I do love Christmas! I love the ambiance, the feeling in the air, the music, the decorations, the peppermint mocha, the fun print Christmas pajamas, and Alex’s cookies. My very favorite thing is usually inviting people to my house to see how jolly it is, share a meal, drinks, talk, and laugh, but obviously this year that is not going to be the case.

So why do I love Christmas so much and what is my favorite memory?

Growing up I was always hopeful for Santa Claus. Even though I knew he wasn’t real, I secretly questioned whether he could be real, what if he does exist and he is the one who delivers presents. If by chance he was real, I didn’t want to miss my opportunity, so I secretly waited for Santa… but he never came. I remember going to church and being aware it was Christmas Eve; church usually gave us a small present which I happily accepted, but I so wanted to go home to sleep and wake up in the morning just like little kids always did on Christmas mornings in the movies, I wanted to wake up and see that Santa had stopped by my house. I know Christmas isn’t about the presents and I do have fond memories of the season, I’m just setting the stage for my favorite Christmas memory.

I think the magic of Christmas that you see on TV or in the movies really has a way of making you extra hopeful and inclined to believe things you wouldn’t normally, especially at a young age. Santa did not appear that year, even when I woke up and didn’t see presents, I rationalized that I must have the dates wrong or that he hadn’t quite made it to Los Angeles yet, what did I know, I was only a kid. I know if my parents could have, they would have gotten us something. My mom always did what she could by signing us for things or taking us to community events.

That Christmas evening, my older brother Tony came to visit us, he no longer lived with us because he was now in college and guess what guys?! He brought us Christmas presents! I had to be 7 or 8 because my little sister was was still a baby and not quite walking well yet, which I remember because he got her one of those walking corn popper push toys. I got real Barbies, you read that right, plural! I know to most 7 or 8 year old girls, it might not be a big deal, but this was the first time I remember owning a real Mattel Barbie. Not a dollar store plastic wanna be Barbie whose limbs fall off every second and whose body parts deform if you hold it too tight. I played with these same dolls well into my tweens. I cannot explain the feeling I get just thinking about it, its a high I want everyone to experience and it is the reason I love Christmas so much. I want to make the people around me feel the way I felt when my brother showed up with love, its not even about the Barbie, its about the thought, that even though he was older and I’m sure too cool to be thinking about his little sisters and probably too broke in his own right as a college student. He showed up and made our day. That Christmas is the only picture I have of me with Christmas presents.

I’ve always rocked Christmas sweaters. That baby doll is the present I got from church the night before and those are the most awesome beautiful Barbies, best presents ever!

That is my favorite Christmas memory. I have spent so many holidays with very little, even after that one, so I overcompensate now by going all out for it. After thanksgiving I blast the Christmas music and put out decorations everywhere I can fit them. We always had a Christmas tree, but I always wanted a picturesque holiday home and so I go a bit mad with the decorating each year. I also want to be the person my brother was for me, that’s why I always try to go out of my way to get something for everyone I care about, to let them feel the joy I felt that Christmas I got presents, not because getting Barbies was awesome, but because my brother took the time to think about me and make me feel joy.

One consistent happy memory I do have of my childhood was when the City of Bell city hall/community center had their annual holiday. This was a day where it felt like everyone in the city would stand in line to meet Santa, take a picture, and get a gift. After standing in line and receiving your present from Santa, you would exit the hall and be able to participate in different stations with activities, things like making a popsicle stick frame ornament. We would get there really early and stand in line drinking hot chocolate, I should say my mom stood in line while I ran around just like all the other kids. We never paid to take pictures with Santa, I actually hardly remember going to the mall in those days, but the one and only picture I have with Santa was taken at this event from the City of Bell. I hope they know how big of an impact things like these can have on a child, sometimes it’s the only thing they get. These days I volunteer my time as much as I can, not only during the holiday season, but during this time of year it feels extra special because I know how much I appreciated all those people volunteering their time.

My only picture with Santa taken at the City of Bell community center during one of their holiday events.

This was our second Christmas in Fort Worth, this was our living room. We hardly had anything, but we always managed a Christmas decoration and I believe the presents were from a Catholic charity my mom had signed us up for.

This was my tree the first holiday I hosted in San Antonio about 5 years ago.

I will have to post a picture of what my house looks like now when I don’t have wrapping paper and ribbon everywhere, prior to this I spent my evening wrapping homemade Nordy Bars and Cookies to take to all my coworkers tomorrow. Life is good. Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving Ventures

I’ve been living my life these last few days trying not to trip over Christmas decorations, as I tried to transition from Fall to Christmas décor. I told myself I was going to work over the long thanksgiving weekend because my bid is due this week and I still have quite a few tasks to finish, but instead I brewed a lot of coffee, ate pie for breakfast, watched Christmas movies, and shared way too many bread rolls with Scout. Life is good and like everyone else during thanksgiving, I’ve been thinking about all the things I’m grateful for.

Before I get to my most recent reason to be thankful, I want to share a blog post I started on Wednesday night when I let curiosity get the best of me and I stumbled upon some new information about my ex-husband. Some background information: I still follow my former sister-in-law on Instagram because she is artsy and posts cool pictures and because she posts pictures of my ex-husband’s niece who I knew since she was born and it just didn’t seem right to completely erase them like they never existed. Following her on Instagram is really the only way I’ve gotten some tad bits of information on my ex because there was this women with a profile picture of herself and him that was always commenting on posts, so naturally, I clicked the profile and saw that this was the woman he was now in a relationship with. Through the last two years, I also learned that he had a daughter with her and that he named her Melody (the name I had picked out for our imaginary child when we were happy together). On Wednesday evening as I browsed through my phone, I noticed a comment with that familiar picture and initially I ignored it because what can I possibly get from snooping on this woman, nothing, so I passed. The second time I saw the comment later in the evening, I was at least one glass of wine in and was feeling sappy (the way I do during the holidays sometimes). I caved, I looked at the profile and this is what i wrote on my phone shortly after:

“I just read that you are married again…You always told me that you would never do this again with anyone, that if we didn’t workout, that was it, you were done.

I don’t know how I feel about it. I hope you treat her better than you did me, I hope your daughter made you change your ways, I hope…I don’t really miss you anymore, but somehow there is still at tear rolling down my eye, I don’t know why…. I love my life, like I said last time, I’m right where I wanted to be, it’s still just hard thinking of what I had, of what made up my life before.

I know I’ve written so many things that don’t paint you in the best light, but there was a reason I fell for you and there is a reason I always kept going back…I believed that I was written in you and that you were written in me…I believe you were reclined in a chair in my heart and I in yours until the day we would both be reclined in a chair outside our house old and gray talking about the good ol days… I wanted it to be you, I wanted it to be us…”

You are written in me was one of his favorite things to say and write, it only took me a few seconds to open up my box of memories and find something that had it written. The top image is from a Christmas card he gave me; the bottom two images are from a journal he kept while i was away at field camp. He gifted me this journal when i returned home. Field camp was mostly in Montana, he has the shape right, but not the placement. This journal has so many things for just a few weeks, I plan to write about his entries and everything that went down during that time.

I was very in my feelings after that, I’m always surprised to see how I react to things. I did remember Wednesday night seeing that he got married and I remember that i was trying not to sob and have Alex find me on the couch crying, so that is why I opened up my WordPress app and started writing. I did not remember what I wrote until I read it tonight. All I want to add to that is that I’m thankful for the good memories we had and the lessons learned, I’m thankful and hopeful that he is happy and that his new family is happy and he is better for them, and I’m super thankful to be where I am in life and to have my boyfriend, who is my partner in life, not my fiancé, but kind of like my husband.

Thanksgiving was very noneventful and perfect. Alex and I stayed in our sweats all day while prepping our thanksgiving meal. His mom was on our only guest, we ate and watched Christmas movies as I started to unleash the mess of decorations that is still taking over my house. Friday we slept in and after Alex left to work I had my coffee and slice of pie for breakfast and eventually made it to my office to do some of that work I wanted to do, but didn’t end up doing. Instead my boss and I worked on getting the perfect planner for the new year (we went with a TUL discbound cover and a combination of different calendar/planning sheets from thecharmedshop.com, its actually pretty awesome), we visited the excavation site because it had been raining and we needed to make sure our stockpiles were holding up, and then eventually I did get one solid hour of work in. The real exciting thing came when i got home that evening, this is what I was most thankful for that day:

You know I secretly hoped I would get the best score ever, but hey, I’m happy I passed and when I eventually get my license, it won’t be any different than the one that someone with a 70 or someone with a 100 gets! ☺️

I passed my exam!!!!!! Of course I cried. Alex and I took tequila shots, drank the largest bottle of wine we had, and I basically decided that I deserved the whole weekend off, so I enjoyed time in my pjs and tried not to think about all the work that I knew was coming and that I am now freaking out about, but still, I’m making time for my blog post because balance!

Busy Bee Ventures

I don’t have to say that life has been crazy, we all know it’s been unprecedented times (9 months into the pandemic) and that maybe these crazy times or maybe the heat from global warming has made people act a bit crazier than usual. Fortunately or unfortunately for me, I’ve been too busy with work and life to take too much time to think about, which is good because it’s in my nature to over analyze and worry. I spend so much of my time working these days that I broke my own rule about writing a blog post a week due to sheer exhaustion. I was starting to feel sorry for myself, but I’ve recently found myself repeating the mantra that I’m exactly where I wanted to be.

There have been times where I sit in my office and just read and research all day, nothing back breaking, and nothing too incredibly exciting. Those days I find myself wondering if I get paid too much for what I do. I end the day feeling guilty that I got paid in one day just about what my mom used to make in a week while I was growing up. Then there are weeks like last week, my second week out of my office onsite for what is apparently the underground storage tank removal from hell. I say apparently because it’s my first one, so I have nothing to compare it to, but everyone says they are never this complicated. While in this active construction zone, I’m the health and safety officer, official note taker, photographer, and general as needed labor. I set up a table and chairs as a makeshift desk for me and the project manager to set up our laptops and work on things related to the tank pull and sneak in our regular duties when we can.

A view of the table. I have everything I need, which is mostly my cup of coffee!

A view of the excavation at the end of the day.

One of my new regular duties is to look through this database of bid opportunities to see if there are any that look worthwhile to pursue and I send them to upper management to say yay or nay. I found one that looked very promising, sent it out, and got a let’s do it. I’ve been involved with large bids before, but normally a project manager takes the lead on them, but somehow I became the lead on this one. I had secretly wanted to take the lead on one, but the reality of being given this opportunity while I’m not even working in the office induced major panic, especially because there is a time sensitive compliance plan attached that I have no prior experience with and after reading it a few times, I still wasn’t 100 % sure about. Long story short, I’ve been getting up at 5AM to get ready for work, going to work and working until about 5:30PM (If I’m lucky), driving the hour it takes me to get home (traffic), spend 30 minutes sitting contemplating my life, finally get up and have some sort of dinner with Alex, and then work for a bit until I’m too tired to keep going and go to bed (sometimes I don’t even get to that last work part). All the while stressing about all the other commitments I made to myself that I’m neglecting for this (like working out and this blog).

I kept taking small moments to think about how I haven’t had one real workout his month, how I haven’t had one blog this month, how I haven’t packed one lunch this month. I realized that another thing I haven’t done is take the moment to stop and organize my time. Instead I’ve been running through the motions trying not pass out, feeling sorry for myself wondering if everyone else is working this hard and wondering why I’m working this hard. I kept thinking not everyone puts in more than 40 hours a week and not everyone produces the amount and quality of work that I do in the same amount of time and then even thinking about how much they make compared to me?! This was just making me cranky and I had to snap out of it and remind myself not to worry about anyone, to just worry about myself and focus on my work and I know everything will fall in place and come back around. After all, this is exactly where I want to be. I wanted to be in the field, I wanted to be in charge of a project, and I want to be badass on the delivery of those so I will do whatever that takes.

So here I am worrying about anyone else and starting my blog again. I’m trying to incorporate exercise by walking around the jobsite during downtime and helping do heavy lifting. I bought a salad from the grocery store down the street instead of piggy backing from whatever take out place the field technicians go to. Little wins!

I started this entry with the intention of introducing my cats because I realized I still haven’t introduced my cats and I can’t have Scout thinking that she is the end all be all, plus talking about my cats makes me happy and with everything being so crazy, I want to be happy dammit! Unfortunately, explaining why I missed the first part of the month got lengthy so stay tune to hear about my cats soon!

A preview of my cats, i feel like these pictures pretty much summarize their personalities!

Comparing Ventures

Life has been busy; I can’t believe we are closer to the end of October than the beginning. I feel like October just started, time really does fly after a certain age, I think mostly because we are in the motion and habit of things and before we know it, we look up and its October 21st and not October 1st. For my birthday I went to Big Bend and Guadalupe Mountains National Park. I know in my last post I said I was supposed to write about the parks in this post. Initially this blog was kind of suppose to be an adventure blog where I share my travels, mostly my national park road trips because it’s one of my absolute favorite things to do. I want to write about all the adventures I had on my trip, but I feel like there is more pressing and important things to write about and one of those things was something my mind kept going back to on that trip.

I have been to Big Bend before, but only for school trips, not for pleasure. Who am I kidding?! School trips were always a pleasure, but the mapping and hiking was all around the same spot in Persimmon Gap. Going to map Persimmon Gap for my structural geology class was the first time I camped for longer than one night and my first National Park visit ever. Geology sparked my curiosity and fascination with the great outdoors, but that first trip to Big Bend made me fall in love with everything about being outside! Even when you accidently use a cactus to grip as you climb up a rock or when a different cactus breaks your fall down a gully, you must love it! This was also when I finally made friends with the other geology students as we bonded over the misery of walking around all day in circles mapping rocks that seemed to have no rhyme or reason. Sometimes I want to go back to see how I would do mapping that area now, but thankfully I resisted the urge to drag Alex that way. Big Bend really is a treasure, I’m thankful we got to venture further into the park (Persimmon Gap is right at the entrance) and it did not disappoint! I was so happy to be there, but I’m leaving that for the next blog because I only mentioned my first time at Big Bend to lead into my first memory of the Guadalupe Mountains.

This picture was from my first trip to Big Bend in March 2013. My mapping partner and I are taking a lunch break, enjoying the view, and wearing awesome hats!

Before my trip with Alex this month, I’ve only ever driven past/through the Guadalupe Mountains. The time I recall driving through the mountains was the time me and my ex-husband were on our way back from a weekend trip to Roswell, New Mexico. I had turned on my GPS to lead the way back to San Antonio and at one point I noticed that the next turn wasn’t for another 1.5 hours, so I decided to give my phone’s battery a break and turned off the GPS thinking that I would just turn it on when we were closer to the next turn. The thing I didn’t realize was that the GPS was including the time change, so really the next turn was in only 30 minutes because the time it showed we were making the next turn was corrected to show the hour lost when crossing from mountain to central time. When I realized we were going into the Guadalupe Mountains, I scrambled to turn my GPS back on before we lost signal, but it was too late, we had missed the turn and added a significant amount of time to the trip because we didn’t have signal in the middle of nowhere and our only option was to follow the road until we did. Eventually I did get signal and realized we were now projected to get home like 2 hours later than we had expected, and he was irate. After making me feel like an idiot, we weren’t talking, but you could feel the hostility and tension in the car. I was quietly sobbing trying not to make too much noise in the passenger side…then came the vivid memory that my mind kept going back to this time around.

This picture was from the afternoon leaving Roswell, wearing a hat my ex-husband had picked out for himself. March 2015, this was the last photo I have from this trip, normally I take pictures of the drive (especially when there’s mountains), but that was not the case this trip.

The road we were on had long segments without anything in sight besides the mountains. It felt like the road was endless, going on forever with tension building until I suppose he couldn’t take the anger anymore. He pulled over and I had no idea what was going to happen, but I could tell he wasn’t in a clear state of mind. After pulling over, he got out of the car and reached into the car for his gun. I had no idea what he was going to do, I was numb, I just sat there. He walked around to the back of the car, I was not looking at him, I was sitting still not looking back and holding my breath. I heard a shot. My heart dropped. Before I collected enough courage to turn around and look, I heard him emptying his clip by firing at the ground. I can’t tell you what my biggest fear in that moment was, I can’t tell you if I was still sobbing or if I was numb, but I can tell you I felt relieved and utterly helpless. It was very scary, but inside I was thankful that he shot those rounds at the ground and not me or himself. I would like to say that this was the only time he ever pulled over and fired his gun in anger, but it wasn’t. The last time I experienced him doing that is an even scarier story October 2016 after leaving a friend’s Halloween party, but that’s a different story. That instance was a deciding factor of finally really being done, that next month was when I told him (and meant) I wasn’t going to do this anymore.

Before that final I’m done, I always said I couldn’t do this anymore, not that I’m not going to do this anymore, why is that? If anyone out there has the answers, please enlighten me. Why wasn’t this instance a deciding factor? It was a long silent drive, and I can’t recall what words were eventually said, but I know he was remorseful and must had apologized to me because I remember him stopping at the Starbucks in Boerne right outside San Antonio. Now that I think about it, maybe stopping at Starbucks was his apology, I know he needed coffee to make it through the last bit of driving we had left and I know I didn’t get off to go inside, so maybe when he was in there he realized oh crap, we are about to get home and she isn’t talking to me, so he bought me latte. It makes me feel so cheap writing that, writing that having a latte somehow made everything okay. I always question why I stayed so long. I know that in the moment after he fired the gun in the middle of nowhere, I had no other option but to stay with him, to sob in silence and not make it worst…after all, where could I possibly go? Where could I go even when I went home, he was the only home I had in San Antonio and all my life was here. This is where I worked and went to school, this is where I learned how to drive. I grew up here. I didn’t know anywhere else and unfortunately, I didn’t know and trust anyone else here. I knew I couldn’t financially support myself and even if I could drop everything and go back to Fort Worth, I didn’t want to be burden on my family, my parents can barely take care of themselves, who was I to go ask them for help?

I sound so ridiculous justifying why I stayed. I stayed because I thought it was still more convenient to stay than to leave. When I said I couldn’t do this anymore, instead of I’m not going to do this anymore, what I was really saying is that I couldn’t, or that I didn’t think I could do the hard work of leaving, of choosing myself, and working hard to get myself to where I needed to be. Someone should have told that Nancy that she can, and she will. I had no idea how I was going to make it without him, I couldn’t afford the apartment, all our debt was in my name, I do not like being alone, I had no family here, etc… but I managed my apartment and debt by temporarily getting into more debt, that held me over while I made the moves necessary to get through it, I wasn’t alone for long, Alex just showed up and stayed, and even though I don’t have any family here, being out of a relationship that made me feel guilty about building other relationships, has allowed me to build relationships that are as close to family as you can get. My point being, if anyone needs to hear this, you don’t have to do it anymore and you can choose yourself.

Ending Note: I feel bad for framing him in such a bad light, after all, I still overall think he is a good guy. He just has so many issues that he needs to workout out, trauma from his childhood that has never been addressed. I always forgave everything because hey, it’s not his fault he’s this way, it’s his mom’s fault, he is a product of his circumstance. I know I have trauma from my childhood and issues I’ve had to deal with and constantly work on. I also have trauma from that marriage and poor Alex gets the worst of it. I never spoke up before because I feared my husband’s Mr. Hyde response, but now with Alex I just let him have it. I’m like “I don’t care, you know where the door is.” Honestly, if I was dating me, I would be like bye! Sometimes I fear I’m my ex-husband in this relationship, that I’m the toxic one.
I just can’t believe how different this experience at the Guadalupe Mountains was. I was dying trying to get to the top of Texas, complaining about not being able to do the very thing I had dragged Alex there to do. I always set out to do these things forgetting that I haven’t been very kind to my body and that I’m not in the shape I once was. I was feeling horrible about myself the whole way up, having to stop after only a few steps and I kept apologizing to Alex for putting him in the situation and dragging him out there to do something I couldn’t even do. I kept waiting for him to get mad and blow up on me for dragging him out there and complaining the whole time. Waiting for him to get tired of my complaining and turn around and head back down before reaching the top, but he never did. Instead he just waited patiently for me to get to him before starting up again, he asked questions, and looked for cool rocks to ask me about.

I’m overwhelmed thinking of the difference in my two experiences in the Guadalupe Mountains. The feeling of pure bliss when we made it to the top and Alex turns around to high five me and immediately finds a place to sit down so we can enjoy our tuna with Tapatio because snacks are life and I think the hiking snacks are one of the main reasons he agrees to go hiking!

Alex and I have this habit of “toasting” our food, just to say cheers and enjoy! Tuna with Tapatio is a staple for hiking, only superseded by tortas! The picture includes us “toasting” our tuna and I didn’t get the Tapatio in the picture, so I included the chili we made when we got back to camp later that day, to show the Tapatio. 🙂

We did have tortas that trip, but we had already ate them all and I didn’t get any pictures, so for fun, I’m including a picture of us “toasting” our tortas after completing Angels Landing in Zion National Park.

My Venture with 30

I turned 31 last week. To celebrate and take the first break from everyday life that I have taken in a while, I decided to take a few days off following my ASBOG exam. There is nothing like camping and hiking to remind me why I love being alive, why I love the earth, and why I became a geologist in the first place…oh and that Alex is a better person than me!

A quick follow up on my exam: I won’t know my results until a minimum of 60 days out. I was very confident the morning of the exam, I showed up and hour early for check-in and there was already a long line, but that was not going to kill my vibe. What did kill my vibe? Reading the first question and realizing I shouldn’t have been so confident and then being the last person left in the exam room. I took my time and read every question more than once to make sure I was understanding what it was actually asking, but before you I knew it, there was 15 minutes left and I didn’t have a chance to go back and look at all the questions I was questioning. I have no idea how I did, I’m secretly hoping I passed, but if I didn’t, it was a learning experience and I paid $200+ for an awesome mechanical pencil that says ASBOG!

I went to waffle house after the exam to drown my sorrows in waffles and yummy smothered, covered, and peppered hash browns. Waffle House is always my happy place!

Back to turning 31. I remember watching a Friends episode, “The one where they all turned 30.” They are all so sad about turning 30 because they are getting old, but I can honestly say that I don’t relate, I want to be grown. Recently one of my younger friends shared something that said “I’m stuck somewhere between I’m still young and damn I’m almost 30” and my response was I’m thirty and I’m still young! I’ve asked many people that are older than me when you start feeling like an adult because I truly don’t feel it yet. I do adult things; I wake up and go to work, I drink coffee, I drink wine, and I pay bills, but I still stop and want to look around for the adults in certain situations.

I recall a few weeks ago my parent’s restroom plumbing had broken pipes, so they couldn’t shower and my dad had attempted to fix the issue himself, which resulted with them having their water turned off for a bit. My dad has always been a handyman, but almost a year ago he had a stroke that impaired him and as much as he wants to be the person he was, he simply cannot do the things he used to do. I’m at work and I get a text from my sister letting me know that my parents don’t have water and that she doesn’t know what to do. I remember thinking that I don’t know what to do either. My parents are the adults, why was she asking me?! The truth is that because of the stroke and other things, they are no longer as capable as they used to be and my sister turning to me made me realize, oh crap, I’m the adult now! I know one can think that the solution can be as simple as just call a plumber for them, but it really wasn’t that simple. I’ve mention I have humble beginnings and my parents live in a very modest home (to phrase it nicely). Their house is not up to any code and many items have been rigged to work, so no licensed plumber would touch it without having the whole house taken down and redone. Long story short, me and my sister figured it out, but in a turn of events, my dad decide he didn’t need help and somehow fixed it himself. I still stay up at night wondering how that plumbing is holding up, thinking about when I became the go-to adult, and thinking there is no way I’m ready to be the adult in the family, yet here I am. My name is Nancy Pasillas, I’m 31 and even though I look and act like an adult, sometimes I eat chips and pie for dinner, I neglect to do some things, I always have questions, and I feel young as hell! (If you are wondering…I also feel good as hell, thanks to some hyping up from Lizzo)

I think part of it is that I know I should never stop growing. I’m constantly working on being a better version of myself, being a better Nancy than I was yesterday. Some days are better than others, but overall the trajectory is to gain knowledge, gain skills, and be the best version of myself I can be. I don’t know if I’m ever going to feel like an adult because the bar of adult, of being mature, is always getting pushed higher.

My 30^th year of life was awesome for many reasons, starting with my birthday: I got to fulfill a dream of seeing The Cure live in concert, followed by an amazing road trip with Alex, where we visited the Petrified Wood Forest, Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park, the Grand Canyon, and ended with an impromptu stop in El Paso, which always leads to good times in Juarez. I know Mexico sounds scary to many people, but every time I go to Juarez, I basically have to get dragged back to El Paso, I never want to leave. Great drinks, great food, great music, and always great company with my brother.

My 30^th year of life brought so many changes in my life, it’s definitely a year for the books. As I have mentioned before, I finally started the career I’ve wanted, but always thought I would never have. I grew as person so much, especially because shortly after my birthday is when my dad had his stroke and being the adult (that I didn’t know I was), I took FMLA from work and temporarily stayed with my mom to take her to work and do things my dad would normally do, while spending my days in the hospital waiting for the next step in my dad’s recovery. If I was ever unsure about my love for Alex, this time in my life solidified it. He was everything during that time. He took care of things at home, he took care of personal things for me (like being my liaison to pay my first ever ticket), I got stopped by the police for the first time ever and consequently got my first speeding ticket ever. He traveled what I felt like was every weekend to go see me, which doesn’t seem like much, but he worked Saturdays, got out of work to make a 4 hour drive to see me for a few hours and drive back 4 hours to come back home and be at work on Monday. I mentioned earlier that he is a better person than me and I realized with those actions (that I wasn’t even referencing when I stated that), that he really is. Most people (including myself) wouldn’t take that inconvenient drive for just a few hours with a person that is so stressed out, she isn’t very much fun to be around to begin with, and to top it off, most of those short hours spent together where next to my dad in the hospital. He makes it hard to get mad at little things like not taking out the trash, ha!

He is a better person than me because he deals with my crazy ideas like packing up and driving to Big Bend and Guadalupe Mountain National Park to do some hikes that I’m not in the shape to do, but still do anyway. This post is getting lengthy, so I will tell you all about my 31^st birthday adventures at Big Bend and Guadalupe in my next post!

A sneak preview to our adventures, we climbed to Guadalupe Peak, the highest point in Texas.

I Can And I Will V

Did I ever mention why I started this post that is taking me forever to finish? On Friday I will be taking my Fundamentals of Geology exam, the first step to becoming a licensed professional geologist. I’m the worst procrastinator of life, no idea how I have made it this far, even now as I told myself I was turning on my computer to study, here I am getting thoughts out of my head to make room for all that studying I spent countless hours stressing about, but not actually doing.

What is it about knowing that it’s not tomorrow, that makes me put off something so important that they recommend studying 6 months in advance…I’ve been out of school for five years, I should have been more dedicated to this thing I’m passionate about.

The day I started my I Can and I Will post, was a day at work were one of my coworkers who is a staff geologist came into my office for a casual chat. All the geologists in the office had been talking about taking the ASBOG, which this guy convinced us all to sign up for, the problem is that we all signed up except for him (I guess that makes him a procrastinator too). On this day he said something about needing to submit his application and I told him the deadline had just passed and that I thought he had already submitted. I said this because there was a day he walked into my office to drop off a copy of the application and I told him I had already submitted and been accepted to take the exam. After he made me pull it up on my computer and he realizes he missed the deadline, he says something about how they’re probably going to cancel it anyway because of the pandemic. I say something along the lines of I don’t think so because the exam is twice a year and they already canceled the one in March and canceling the exam is messing with peoples livelihood by hindering the ability to get a professional license.

He asks me if I’ve been studying and I’m honest and tell him I’ve been thinking about studying a lot, but haven’t done much of what I felt like was productive studying (It’s really hard when geology is a huge subject and there is no official study guide for this exam, what do I focus on?!?! The answer is everything, but that is ridiculous and overwhelming). He then says that it’s all the same because I’m not going to pass anyway. I raise my eyebrow and I’m sure my eye is twitching accompanying my wtf face? I tell him that just because I haven’t been studying doesn’t mean I’m not going to do the work to make it happen. I didn’t sign up and pay over $200 to fail this test. He talks about how most people fail the first time they take it, which isn’t entirely accurate because the passing rate is about 50%, which means just as many people pass it.

I have this decorative wood sign on my desk that says “I CAN AND I WILL”, so being a bit dramatic, I walk over to the sign and point to it while telling him that I can and I will pass the test on my first try. He walks away with a whatever shrug and I was left fuming thinking about all the things I could have said; like just because you can’t pass it on your first try, doesn’t mean I can’t pass it…or at least I get too take it because I didn’t slack on submitting my application…I sat there thinking about everything I had done to get to the point I was, working for the type of company I always pictured myself at. I made it through over 6 years of school overcoming obstacles, taking the bus rain or shine, waking up early and staying up late getting things done. There is no way I was going to let him be right.

I told Alex about it when I got home and he’s like do it, I know you can. Since then, every time I told him I was going to study but was slacking instead, he would pretend that his phone was ringing and he would say hey, it’s so and so calling, he said you are not going to pass your test. It always made me simultaneously laugh and roll my eyes, but it reminded me that yes, I need to study. Here I am less than a week away and I’m like man, it’s going to be really embarrassing if I don’t pass.

Even if I don’ pass, I’m still going to make it happen. Just like I made getting my degree happen even though things kept coming up that delayed it a bit. Never give up, always get back up. Sometimes I think that I’m 30 years old and I haven’t done this or that. I could have taken the test straight out of college when everything was fresh in my mind. I should have finished school 2 or 3 years earlier than I did. I should be a project manager by now, not just starting my career.

Then I think (with a little help from Alex) that just at the beginning of this year, I couldn’t see myself ever leaving banking and actually getting a job in my field. I think that not that many people have their master of science in geology (I’m the only one in my office), especially not many women and even less Latinas. I’m an achiever, I spend so much time thinking about the next step, how can I be better, what do I have to do to master this craft. I often forget to appreciate everything I have already done, but thanks to my coworker, that day I remembered that I can and I have done many things to be proud of and that I can and I will do many more.

Wish me luck!

This is me during field camp in Montana in 2013. You can see the road in the background, that is where they would drop us off in the morning to map and where they would pick us up. Long days walking up and down ridges and gullies trying to paint a picture of the area. I’ve never been in the best shape and hiking up was strenuous every day, but look at the view!

I Can and I Will IV

It’s no surprise that shortly after I started school, he lost his job at the appliance store, except this time his brother lost his job too and with neither of them working, we had to vacate the apartment. I was still working at Handy Andy, but those $8 an hour didn’t go very far towards a two bedroom apartment, a car payment, and living expenses. We moved in with his aunt and here is where it happened the first time, it might have happened in small ways before, but this is the first time I really felt betrayal and deceit.

He had done so many things prior to this moment, but I always justified it because he had a rough upbringing and I figured his anger issues were an outcome of this. Eventually I will start at the beginning and talk about all those things and the things that made me fall in love with him; I know it’s long winded, but I’m still just telling my higher education story.

At his aunt’s house we had a room with just a bed and a dresser, nothing special. I appreciate them taking us in and we did pay them some money for the room, but man was it uncomfortable living there, this part of the family always gave me a bad vibe, so I could never be comfortable there. One evening when I got out of the shower, I walked in the room to lay down and he was already laying down, seemingly asleep. I turn off the light and laid down trying to go to sleep, but even these days, it takes me a long time to actually fall asleep, but to anyone looking, it definitely appeared like I was sleeping. So as I’m laying there, I feel him sit up and normally I would question this and say something like “where are you going?”, but honestly that room is all we had, there was nowhere to go, so I stayed quiet to see what he was going to do. He sat at the edge of the bed and got on his phone, this isn’t like today where you can be on your phone surfing the web, checking Facebook, reading the news, this was an old flip phone over ten years ago, he could have been playing snake, but he wasn’t.

I waited for what felt like an eternity and then slowly got up and behind him to see what was keeping him so long on his phone. Donna. She was his lead singer’s sister. Have I mentioned he was in a band and had dreams of making it big and becoming a Rock star? Yeah, I know how to pick them…he had the long hair and he played guitar…I even thought he could possibly do it one day, but I outgrew that real quick, he did not.

He waited until he thought I was asleep so he could talk to Donna. He went out of his way to wait for that moment and do what he was probably thinking about and waiting to do all day. Was this the first time, or did he always wait until I fell asleep to talk to Donna? I didn’t always go to band practice with him, so I’m sure he was talking to her there, and was it just talking? Everyone knew we were married, she saw us together all the time and I hate to talk about women this way, but damn she was a whore and want to be ghetto model! Sorry, I don’t usually say things like that, but I still remember all their names and I still remember the feeling I felt at the exact moment I discovered what was going on with any of the women he has “talked” to. Every single one of the women he talked to knew he was married, it’s flabbergasting to think about, but I guess he always knew exactly what to say. Even after we separated, I actually got an apology message from a girl, I didn’t even know existed, apologizing and telling me that he made it sound like I was bad guy. Now I feel bad for calling Donna a whore, she wasn’t the one married to me, who made a commitment to our relationship, it was him.

This is the random message I received. I said my final I’m done to him in November 2017 and he officially moved out December 2017, he did still try and talk to me, but not much. This wasn’t even the woman that was the last straw for me, I still have no idea who this is, but she knew who I was.

I confronted him and got into an argument and it ended with him leaving. He left to stay at his parent’s house and I was left in this house with strangers (like I said, I never got good vibes there), juggling work and my first semester back in school, while having no support system. Thankfully, their house was close to a bus stop and close enough to my job that I could walk if I needed to, but this was not the best part of San Antonio and I was still very new to the area, so I was uncomfortable all around; so uncomfortable that it wasn’t long before forgiving him was the best option.

No surprise that he was in-between jobs, after the appliance place he worked for a company that was a book and magazine vendor for stores like Target and Walmart and then he joined this medical transportation company that wrote him a hot check the first time he got paid, so things weren’t looking well financially. Living at his aunts or parents was not an option, but we could not afford to live on our own, so we moved in with one of his good friends, his wife, and their brand new baby. We rented a room upstairs and had our own restroom, so that was an upgrade.

I finished my first full year of community college at Palo Alto, I had done it, only one more easy breezy year to go and I could transfer to UTSA and pursue my new found love of geology! Alas, nothing can ever be as simple as just one more year. At the beginning of that fall semester, we had been living with our roomies for almost a year, battling the same issues we had consistently had, and one day, I just took a leap.

August 2010 I left him for the first time and only other time besides my final time. School has always been a priority, even when I was only 20 years old, starting my second year of college in a city I still didn’t know, with all my family four hours away, and living with my coworker in a trailer park.

I Can and I Will III

We moved back in with his parents and I was able to transfer to a Family Dollar in Universal City, so at least I had a job this time. He had found a job at a place installing custom shutters, an employer he would promptly convince me to move to so we could afford to move into our own apartment. At 18 I had the worst job I’ve ever held, I worked in a warehouse sanding shutters with a handful of older Hispanic women making a few cents over minimum wage. This was brutal, these older women ran circles around me; I was not made to be sanding shutters. This was also the only job I was ever fired from, you would think it was because I wasn’t very good at it, which I’m sure was partially the reason, but here is how it happened:

My husband decided to quit the job installing shutters because he simply didn’t like it. The next day I still wanted to go to work because after all, I didn’t quit, only he quit. I woke up, packed my lunch, and argued with him to take me to work (we only had the one car and I still hadn’t really learned to drive), he was hesitant but eventually agreed to take me. Since I had to convince him to take me to work, I was late. I was exactly one minute late and when I ran into the warehouse, the manager simply smiled and waved bye-bye to me, it was humiliating, I can still vividly picture that moment.

I wanted to go back to school more than anything, but we were working on just trying to get by. I found a job at a grocery store only a block away from our apartments, which was perfect because I could just walk to Handy Andy. He got a job repairing fences, but he quit after a bit over a month. We couldn’t afford to keep the apartment and he eventually got a job with his brother at an appliance store, which was in the opposite side of town, so we moved in with his brother and I transferred to a Handy Andy that was closer. Leaving our own apartment and moving in with his brother allowed us to have some financial breathing space and I started working on saving to payback the funds I owed TCC so I could get back in school.

We moved in with his brother September of 2008, I was enrolled and ready to start my first fall semester at Palo Alto in August 2009. It was not easy, I had to jump through many hoops and had to show up to speak to a counselor and financial aid on more than one occasion. I also still didn’t know how to drive, so I had to learn to take the bus in San Antonio. The first time I tried doing a trial run to get to Palo Alto, I somehow ended up at Ingram Park Mall and waited 3 hours for my husband to pick me up because I didn’t want to get even more lost. Eventually I figured it out, it took 3 buses and 2 hours to get me to class, but I couldn’t have been happier, finally a step in the right direction!

My Palo Alto college ID, I have no idea what I’m looking at!

Those days I woke up early to take the 2 hour bus ride to school, got out of school and took the 2 hour bus ride to work, and had my husband pick me up from work at 11pm when we closed. When you really want something, you do what you have to do to make it work, little did I know the hard work was just starting…

I Can and I Will II

I graduated May 2007, moved to San Antonio that graduation weekend, and was married June 9, 2007. It’s really crazy to think about that time in my life without having a “what were you thinking?’ Edward James Olmos as Abraham Quintanilla in the Selena movie moment.

I moved to San Antonio with nothing with someone who also had nothing. We were living in his parents’ house, he didn’t have a job, and I’ve never had a job. We were driving an old car (for perspective, it actually broke down on our way to SA) that his parents had let him borrow. He was trying to find a job, but was not successful, and we survived from the bit of money we received as wedding presents. I cannot recall exactly what happened, but in July he got into an argument with his mom (probably because he hadn’t found a job yet and we were mooching, I do recall being told I used too much toilet paper amongst other things), so we packed our things and headed back to Fort Worth to live with my dad.

I did not know how to drive, but I knew how to take the bus, and having grown up in FTW, I was very familiar with the area and was able to get my first job at the Family Dollar on Lancaster. This is definitely not the place you want to be, so I promptly enrolled to start classes at Tarrant Community College (TCC). I qualified for the Pell Grant, which was more than sufficient to cover tuition and books.

I’m going to take a moment and get on my soap box to say that community college is so worth it! I know it is not the typical college experience, but it is a very good way to transition into a university, especially for kids that did not go to the best schools because universities can be really overwhelming. Many of the professors I had at community college were simultaneously teaching at a university, meaning the quality of lectures is the same, with the added bonus of smaller class sizes in a community college. I remember my first semester at UTSA I enrolled in General Chemistry II and the class was easily over 100 students, there is no way the professor knew who I was and he was not approachable. If I needed help or had questions, I had to go to the teaching assistant office hours. After that experience, I decided to take all my remaining non-geology science classes at a community college because the expertise is the same, sometimes even better, and the ability to have a conversation in class with the professors was priceless. Not to mention that taking that one chemistry class at UTSA cost as much as taking a full semester (4 classes) at community college! I had zero student debt going into UTSA, but post UTSA I’m feeling like I’m never going to get rid of the student debt I accumulated, ask me how many times I went to a football game?! That’s right, none, but I sure did have to pay fees for having a team…I can go on forever about higher education, but I won’t today, the point I’m making is that there is no shame in community college, in my opinion, its actually the smarter way to start.

I forgot to mention that when we came back to Fort Worth, we no longer had the car his parents had let him borrow. His brother had given us a ride to Fort Worth and here we used and eventually purchased my dad’s archaic 1980- something dodge ram. He found a job working at a halfway house, which he seemed to enjoy for the whole 6 months he worked there.

I remember the day he quit, it was the day they held the first Mardi Gras parade in Dallas in 2008. We had gone to dinner at Razzoo’s in downtown Fort Worth with my brother and sister-in-law; he was supposed to go to work that evening, but instead decided to do a no call no show so that we could take the TRE to Dallas and go to the parade. I was not and will never be okay with this, I am very loyal to any job I hold and it’s like pulling teeth trying to get me to call in, it doesn’t happen, I almost never call in. This was the beginning of a never ending cycle of finding a job and quitting a job at a moment’s notice, with no prospects ahead.

This was in February, which means I was in my second semester at TCC. We had used the left over money from the Pell Grant of my spring semester to put a down payment on a PT Cruiser from CarMax. He got a job at Best Maid Pickles, a job he actually also had while we were dating before he left to San Antonio, but he didn’t last a month.

One day when I got home from school/work he told me he was ready to go back to San Antonio, I didn’t understand why until my dad knocked on our door and apologized. I guess while I wasn’t home, he and my dad had been in argument, I didn’t get an explanation as to what happened, but he no longer wanted to be at my parent’s house. Obviously, I didn’t want to leave, I was in the middle of a semester, not even the middle, I was almost done with the semester and I did have a job. Despite not wanting to, I found myself at TCC crying while withdrawing from my classes and walking to the bookstore to try and sell my books back, but they did not buyback books in the middle of the semester. We could have waited so I could finish the semester, what difference would one more month make, but he wasn’t having it, and he was my husband.

I hated him, here I was again, doing what I didn’t want to do for him. I was humiliated, how could he be okay seeing me sob while walking across TCC giving up on my dreams. I know giving up on my dreams sounds dramatic, but I truly felt that way. The reason I really started sobbing was because when I went to withdraw, they informed me that because I didn’t finish the semester and it was paid by the grant, that I would owe money back to the school. Not only was I quitting school, but I was adding the obstacle of a debt I would have to pay before I could enroll back in any school.

This is the TCC transfer section of my transcript. My first semester I got two A’s and two B’s; the second semester was the first and only time I ever withdrew from classes, those Ws always pushed me to try my hardest even in the most impossible classes, I was determined to never quit again.

I know I must sound super crazy being with this guy (and this is only the beginning), but he was charismatic and loving and knew exactly what to do to always get me to come back to him. Looking back I can say he was manipulative, but that Nancy didn’t see it that way.

My Venture with Scout II

I cried my whole way home from work today…

I cried because I felt mentally drained in that moment. I’ve been busy with work and things that come up in life, all the while keeping in the back of my mind that I needed to write a blog post because I told myself I would post every week and if I can’t keep a promise to myself, then who can? I feel like I have been falling behind, but I’m working on catching up and none of it really has to do with a blog post at all.

I know there are so many things going on in the world and I almost feel silly for feeling like this. Coming home is usually a sanctuary, but it’s been havoc these days. Every day I’ve gotten home this week it’s been progressively worse, it’s always something and today I didn’t even have to get home, Alex messaged me as I was getting ready to leave work.

Left: My conversation with Alex this morning were we agreed to talk about a game plan for Scout tonight; Right: The text I got as I was leaving work; Note: We have a kennel, but we wanted to get a bigger one so she has more space.

We had a pending conversation about Scout because she seems to be regressing in her training and treatment of our home. She started by nipping at our shoes and nibbling at our couch and pillows. We adjusted by starting to always pick up our shoes and we tried to communicate as best we could that the furniture isn’t for chewing. We got her more toys, even a subscription to bullymake (pricey, but worth it for the quality and fun designs). Tried longer walks and Alex has even recently tried more intensive walks by walking her while he rides his bike so they can go at a faster pace than they can while walking.

All of this has been to no avail, she has destroyed everything!

Okay, she hasn’t really destroyed everything, but she has definitely done major damage. One good thing is that because of the pandemic no one is really coming over these days, so they can’t see my patchwork. We kept giving her chances because we didn’t want to hinder her, she has a large personality and no one puts baby in a corner! It’s hard to ignore her loving personality and it hurts my heart knowing she will be locked up in a kennel all day while we are at work. It really is like any other relationship that we have to work on; I want to tell Scout that I love her, but I don’t like her very much right now, not that I don’t like, but that I don’t appreciate that she has destroyed things that we work hard for and that we go to work to build our home and provide for her and her three cat siblings. I cried on my way home because I can’t communicate that with Scout and when we put her in the Kennel she is going to tilt her head and give us that cute confused face that is going to melt my heart…but we have to go back to square one. I don’t want her to be unhappy and to hate us.

Apparently today is also national dog day and I feel horrible for not having the urge to immediately post a cute picture of Scout. I never thought a relationship with my dog was going to have this depth. All of this and I still wouldn’t give up on her, but I’m definitely open to any ideas and suggestions from veteran dog parents, we need all the help we can get!