About Me Part 2

After sharing my life story, I decided that it might be good to also share some of my likes and interests. Maybe I can keep this one shorter and sweeter. 

If I have to live a day without coffee I think I’d rather not live. I really do think I mean that. I have a need for caffeine and an irrational love of oat milk, and being the creature of habit I am, I always latch on to my few favorite coffee spots and I never let go. I’ve met so many people through my love of coffee that I believe it’s a sign. Even when I visit the Dallas area the baristas always remember me. And now I have met someone in Denver at my new local spot, who also happens to work at the writing events that I go to from time to time. Coffee really does bring people together. 

The close - if not equal - rival to my infatuation with coffee, is my obsession with books. I think that even though I read through elementary school and somewhat in middle school, I would consider my serious reading journey to have started in high school. That is when I discovered The Hunger Games and The Mortal Instruments, Twilight and Nicholas Sparks, among so many other authors and stories that defined me. I buy more books than I can read, and I love every moment in a bookstore where I know I’m about to spend more than I need to bring a bag full of books home that won’t even fit on my bookshelf. Better to have it and not need it, right? Joking aside, there’s nothing better than cuddling up under a blanket near the window and drinking coffee and reading as a nice rain comes down outside. That’s probably my ultimate happy place at any given time. Rain will always seal the deal for me, book in hand or not. 

I love games, board and video. Raised on retro Nintendo, Super Mario 3 might be one of my first loves, a game that my mom and I would always play together. We would always play one player and share our items and lives and she would always teach me the secrets she knew. Animal Crossing was my next obsession, a game that my cousin and I wasted a whole summer playing on the GameCube at our Nana’s house. Then I met Caleb and I learned about games that required internet, and that changed the whole game for me, no pun intended. 

From Minecraft to Baldur’s Gate 3 - a game that I spent a literal all nighter playing and completing before I moved to Colorado, which happens to be one of the best experiences of my gaming life so far - Caleb has taught me a lot, and now gaming is a big part of my life. I’ve also gotten him into board games, slowly but surely. We love strategy games - at least I pretend I know what I’m doing while Caleb flourishes and beats me every time - and we love our new favorites like Tokaido, Namiji, and Parks, where you travel, sail or hike to collect experiences in a chill/laid back type of atmosphere. I’ve also tried to learn Magic for the first time in my life, so that’s been interesting. And I’ve finally learned how Civilization VI works. Caleb also doesn’t understand my love for puzzles, and how I can spend hours on end studying identical pieces and finishing a 1,000 piece picture in a single night or two. I tend to hyper focus where he tends to jump from thing to thing. But I think we balance each other out.  

I love running, biking, yoga, swimming and hiking. The last couple years have been a lot about finding and accepting myself, and all of these things have helped tremendously. These things have gotten me through hard times, and have even seen me through to new friendships and life changing experiences. I’ll save that rant for my travel blog post(s). Also, shoutout to my favorite sports complex and joint water park back in Grand Prairie, The Epic. It really was epic, the indoor track that I used to run on, the free pickleball on the weekends. I’ll never find a gym like that one. 

I’m pretty sure everyone else knew it but me - my grandma first - but I think I was always meant to pursue writing. I love it so much, and now that I’ve found it again - or rather, now that it has found me at the right place and at the right time - I know I’m where I’m supposed to be. I got the once in a lifetime opportunity to put my heart and soul into it, and I’m determined to not waste a second of it. Did I mention I have the world’s best husband? I have also been lucky enough to find a writing community right here in the heart of Denver, where I’ve gone to countless events like seven hour lock ins and book clubs and I’ve met so many nice people. Now that Caleb has a regular figure drawing class and I have a regular writing event, things are really starting to feel like we can really make a creative life here. I’ve also finally entered my first writing contest, and though I didn’t win or make the short list, it made my day to receive some positive feedback from the writing community - in other words, people that weren’t my husband who was coerced into reading my crappy first drafts of my short stories, which I love him dearly for - for the first time since I started pursuing this crazy venture. I’m still on cloud nine about it, and I hope that I get more opportunities like this in the near future and beyond.   

I’m the world’s most obsessive planner, and I love to learn things that I have no use for. If I’m not budgeting or planning my weekly goals, I’m learning Scottish Gaelic for no one but myself and trying to tackle Spanish for the millionth time. But for some reason I love this just as much as everything else in my life. My only regret is not using the Gaelic when I went to Scotland, but more about that later.

The span of my interests in movies and television are so great that we’d be here all day if I decided to share them all with you (see my About Me page to learn about these). But just know that if you don’t know SpongeBob enough to quote it at least once a day, and if you can’t enjoy more deep and dark things like Game of Thrones, then I don’t know what we’ll talk about. I love everything, yet I’m still selective somehow. Really, just take a look at my lists.

If I thought my taste in movies was complex, my love for music is even more so. Between my grandma and my mother, I was raised on 20’s music all the way through the 80’s and up to the present. There’s only a select few genres I explicitly don’t like, like death metal and screamo. I just prefer not to be yelled at for a whole song, but Linkin Park is definitely okay. Lo-fi and EDM have become my best friends on this writing journey, and I’ll always love Taylor Swift in her country days and Coldplay has the top place in my heart. The only concert that has rivaled my Coldplay experience at AT&T stadium in Arlington is the Band of Horses and The Black Keys show Caleb and I saw in Dallas. But so far those are my top two concert experiences. And one of my favorite mornings in Denver so far was when Caleb threw on an Oldies station on Spotify and we had the best Sunday morning ever. I honestly believe that was the most perfect Sunday. My favorite night has to be the night we discovered a Twitch DJ who was having an emo night. We stayed up until three in the morning jamming out to My Chemical Romance and Green Day and it was truly epic.      

I’ve been challenged to find good local places for once now that I’m in Denver, but back in Dallas it was chain restaurants all the way. From Cane’s to Uncle Julio’s, Dallas must have been the food chain capitol of Texas, at least from where I’m sitting. I’ve enjoyed local Denver joints as well as local chains and even chains I never had back in the DFW, like Illegal Pete’s, Denver Pizza Company, and the like. I never thought I’d have a favorite/regular ramen place or a regular whiskey bar, but the surprises just keep coming in Colorado and I’m loving every second of it so far.

Weekends spent at Michaels and Hobby Lobby quickly turned to Meininger’s and The Wizard’s Chest, where we get all of Caleb’s art supplies and go nerd out at the gamer/nerd store next door and I buy way too many new board games and puzzles. But I don’t think we’d have it any other way.

If I spend any time on YouTube, I’m watching Nerd Forge, Uncomfy, and Critical Role videos mostly. Caleb and I love Lirik’s Sub Sunday on Twitch as well, and sometimes I like to catch up on Living Big in a Tiny House - because this is mine and Caleb’s literal dream one day. Besides the artist and author colab we’re trying to create of course.

If you want to make me laugh, throw on a Theo Von or a Shane Gillis special. I’ve had the privilege of seeing Shane live here in Denver as well as Bill Burr - who I’ve seen live in Dallas - and I also love Dave Chappelle, Trevor Wallace, Tom Segura, Christina P., Bo Burnham, Matt Rife, and so many others. These comedians have made me laugh until I cry, and some are so brilliant and insightful that their specials resonate and stick with me to this day. 

I’m a burgeoning sports fan, and I have finally branched out beyond football. Despite they’re record as of late, I am and will always be a Cowboys fan. It’s safe to say I’m pretty loyal to my native/home state, because I also love The Texas Rangers and The Dallas Stars. I got to see the Rangers win their first world series, and I think that buys me at least 5 years of bragging rights. And I almost saw The Stars make it to the Stanley Cup, and let me tell you, I’ve got it out for The Oilers right now (as of 2024). But by default I became a Panthers fan just so The Oilers didn’t gain any more supporters during the championship. I love the familiarity of football, the simplicity of baseball, and the rowdiness of hockey. I’ve seen the Cowboys beat the Eagles in person, and I’ve seen The Stars play the Colorado Avalanche twice, and I watched Colorado get knocked out of the playoffs. Let’s just say I didn’t make any local friends that night. Sorry Denver, I live here now. I do have to say that the Rockies stadium puts on the best Fourth of July fireworks show I’ve ever seen. But that’s as close as I’ll come to breaking loyalties with my native state. Sorry again, Denver.   

The topic of travel will have to be a separate post for sure, because when I look back over the last couple years I realized that I’ve gotten to go to a lot of really cool places, and some of these places changed my life entirely. From Tennessee to New York, from New York to Scotland, I would say that I’m starting to become a novice traveler, and I hope to one day achieve my dream to see all of the national parks in the U.S. Now if they would just stop making new ones, maybe in a decade or so I could catch up…

I still dabble in art, but more on a hobby-like basis just for myself. Decades from now I might be finished with my Avatar The Last Airbender tribute/fan art sketchbook with drawings from every single episode, but I’m afraid I’ll just have to keep you posted. I also enjoy participating in Inktober on Instagram, and I actually completed every prompt for October 2023. Though I didn’t keep up with my Insta posts…I’m still trying to finish inking them if I’m being completely honest. But hey, I drew something for every day for the first time since I started participating. All this to say, I enjoy art on my own terms. It takes away the pressure that art school always put on me, and this way it doesn’t kill my passion for it. I also believe that the reason that I stuck with art was so that I could show Caleb that he was absolutely 100% born to do it. I have happily stepped back so I could watch him shine, and so far I’m very proud of him and I know he’s loving it. I’ve told him since high school that he had a gift, and I can’t wait to see him do this full-time in the future. 

I am a lover of the simple things too, and I think this would be a good place to end this rant about me. I love talking to my best friend/husband Caleb, taking the long way home and going on road trips with him - where we’ll always stop at a Buc-ees or a Quik Trip if we see one - where we talk and laugh and it’s like we’re the only people on the planet. I love going home to see family and going to my local haircut in my small, one horse town, where I can have a conversation with the hairdresser and chat like we’re old friends. I love mine and Caleb’s weekly inspiration meetings that we started doing, where we talk about what went well and what didn’t and what we’re working on and hoping for in the weeks to come as we both chase our dreams together. I love my Wednesdays, where I get out of the apartment and go to my new local coffee shop and I spend hours writing or reading or just getting my life together while I sip iced lattes and watch the people come and go. 

I love the day that I realized that I had enough words for a complete novel. I love the fact that Caleb and I made a risky but exciting financial decision that will ensure we’re debt free by September of 2024. I love impromptu lazy PJ days, and that feeling of a clean apartment, accompanied with open windows and a scented candle burning on the counter, and when we’re lucky, the sound of a saxophone player on the curb ten stories down on the street, playing beautiful and familiar favorites that I can hear in my living room. I love First Fridays art walks in RiNo, all the friends that are still in my life and all the new ones I’ve made. I love the fact that liquor stores are open and bars can serve said liquor on Sundays - come on Texas, you need to catch up. I love the feeling of fall, the decorations, movies, weather, Inktober, Oktoberfest, and Halloween traditions of dressing up as Morticia Addams, carving pumpkins, making orange sorbet punch and watching It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

Through all my moves, my gains and losses, it’s been a pretty well rounded life so far. Looking back it’s crazy to see how I ended up where I am now. And I wouldn’t change a single thing about me or the paths that I chose to get here. And I guess that’s all I’ve got on this particular rant about myself. If you made it to the end, thanks for sticking it out.