Today I have to look back

Well tomorrow is the day that I have said I have been waiting for my whole life.  What day is that you may ask?   It’s my 35 year old birthday.  I have heard that woman usually have a breakdown at 25 or 30 in their lifes.  I had mine at 25…. Oh how I remember it.  It lasted a year and I even cried on my birthday with all of my friends in my van, remember?  Bill, Tracy?.  I couldn’t help it.  My mom was driving us around from bar to bar and I was in the back crying.  I remember thinking I had accomplished nothing.  I had just moved from Alaska back to Colorado and I was trying to create a job for myself in financial services and insurance.  I had no money and barely a job, I had moved back with my parents (for a short time).  When I did apply for a job they would take one look at my resume and tell me that I should go back to being a Veterinarian Technician, however I had already known that this career was over for me.  One day I just got soft and I couldn’t work with animals anymore.  I couldn’t put them to sleep; I couldn’t bear to see them in pain; and I wanted to make more money.  I say that my motherly instincts had finally caught up to me.  That time of my life was over.  I wanted to be something different.   But what?

Speaking of different do you want to know how many different jobs I have had in my life?  Here I go…  Waitress, volunteer at a forensic psych ward for kids, volunteer at an animal shelter, student, flooring installer helper, bartender, financial services & insurance sales, Vet Technician (I worked Emergency, as a Surgical Assistant for a Board Certified Vet, & I have worked at a Vet practice for routine care), Sold books, sold flooring, bail bondsman, flooring business owner, real estate agent, Sales manager-flooring, Phone Book Sales (Advertising),  Softball Coach, Umpire, Concession Sales, Drug tested horses, Nursing Assistant at a Human Hospital twice, Worked on a Horse Breeding Ranch (Internship), Mother, Day Care Teacher, Owned a business Housesitting for Animals, Co-Owned a Brazilian food Trailer with my husband and worked at Festivals, An English Teacher & Today I like to also call myself a writer.  I think I gave 100% all of the time, some of the jobs I did to get from one place to another, some of the business I liked but were not what I wanted to do forever.  Today I do know I want to be in business by myself and work for myself but anyway.... 

Back to what I was saying, a common thought I have had since I was 20 was “I just can’t wait to be 35 so that I can look back at my life and see what I have accomplished, just who will I be and how just how did I get there?”  Well Today I have just turned 35, So today I have to look back. 

Is it what I was expecting to see?    Did I accomplish enough?  Well that answer is….. YES!!!  I feel that the hard work of growing up is over!  I know who I am now!  I have 2 kids over 2 years old and my family is complete!  

Granted, I still have no clue of what the future holds, but I do feel more confident now, that when I do know I will get the job done.  I feel that I have the answers within and don’t need to look around for someone to give me a golden opportunity.  I know that I do not know the future because the future that I think I see dosn't exist, but the feeling does.  I realize that my desires are stronger than the doubts that I fill my head with.  I am proud of what I have accomplished and feel that maybe now I can stop trying so hard and possibly just enjoy my life.  Breathe.

Not that I want it to come as fast as I looked forward to 35, but I will say it again today… what can I accomplish by 60. 

Jill In Brazil: Food

Jill In Brazil: Food: "We are headed to the beach tomorrow for 3 days. We are all so excited and ready to go. Today my dad and I took Benny to school a..."

Food

We are headed to the beach tomorrow for 3 days.  We are all so excited and ready to go.  Today my dad and I took Benny to school and he rode his bike.  The weather was beautiful and when we got there he was running around playing with the kids and having fun.  It was nice to see how good he gets along there.  When he gets to school he has coffee w/milk and bread and then at 10:30 he eats beans and rice, salad and fresh juice.  At first he didn’t like it but now he loves beans and rice. 

Everyone eats beans and rice every day here.  You can stop and eat Launches – a place where you get sandwiches.  A Padaria- is a bakery where they have sandwiches, breads and pastries.  Or you can go to a place where they have lunch by the kilo.  It is a buffet style where they make all of the traditional Brazilian dishes, which is Beans, rice, salad & protein.  They always have a couple of styles of beef and a lot of salads to choose from.  My mom had a great time eating there and loved it.  Or you can go to a restaurant like where we went last night for espetinios .  These are skewers of meat, cheese or even breads.  The waiters bring them around and you pick what you want to eat and put it on your plate.  There are also pizzerias and churrasco’s.  Churrascos are places like a buffet that have salads and sides but the guys bring around large cuts of meat and shave it at the table if you want it.  I prefer the skewers and 100% the Pizza.  I always stick with Pepperoni if they have it as this mine and Ben’s favorite.  However they usually don’t have pepperoni so we go with a margarita pizza.  Sometime we get calabrasia which is sausage but the whole pizza is usually covered in a pound of sausage and it gets to be too much.  The local favorite here is the Portuguese pizza.  I am not a big fan but it is the most popular for sure.  On a Portuguese pizza you will have sauce, cheese, peas, eggs and Ham?  Its some sort of meat.  I will find out for sure the next time we go out.  Or if anyone knows…. Help me out here.