Can someone build a Torchy's Tacos in Phoenix???

Please?

I am sitting here, relaxing, all cool... and then my stomach screams for food because I did not make anything for breakfast. But all I want right now is some Torchy's Tacos and a Margarita Iced Tea.

My mom should have never taken me to this lovely Texas food chain... Because yes it is

(my apologies for the blurry phone picture, people were pushing me.) 

Please enjoy some food porn now: 

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........

The Thankful Project: A Book

Good Morning, Afternoon and or Evening! Happy tuesday and all other greetings of happiness and joy! Why so happy? Because today's thankful project is about something that has always been dear to my heart... BOOKS!!! Now I know the idea was to pick one book, but I couldn't decide on just one particular book.

** A little back ground about me, I used to get grounded from books. Not because my parents are evil, psychos who didn't want me to be well educated, but because I would read them to fast. And honestly we were a little too far from the public library to go and check out books from it. So it wasn't until High school that I was able to get some decent reading material without my parents needing to buy it for me. This pretty much sums up my feelings:

Now I would like to Note that Harry Potter is not on this list. Although I love Harry Potter and love love love the series, I have yet to read the 7th book and do not feel as I can truly put it on this list. Now I have not read it because I am still in denial, but that is beside the point. So here a books that I have breathed and lived; I became the characters. And each book had an emotional connection in my life.

The Perks of Being a Wall Flower: 

I read this at least a dozen times before it became a movie folks. I had a rough time in high school fitting in and making friends. There were times were I would just sit in my next class during lunch and read. Reading Charlie's story, and how he put such blind faith in just talking to a random stranger about his life made me feel like there were other people like me and just as shy and outcasted as me. 

Catcher in the Rye: 

Now everyone jokes that you have to be a serial murderer to have read and loved this book. But honestly.... I don't see it. I got that the main character Holden, is lost in life. He so desperately wants to be needed and successful to live up to the expectations of his sister, but cannot get a grip of the world around him. 

The Great Gatsby: 

Who doesn't love Gatsby?! Actually I have met one person who does not love the book. But she is a Smut novel reader and cannot appreciate the brilliance of this fabulous book. 

A Time to Kill: 

My first grown up book. This book it is set in the south, and during a time where Race was still highly controversial. I still gobble this book up when I want a solid read. And the ending statement given by Lawyer Jake Brigance brings me to tears every time. I become the members of the Jury. 

Divergent: 

 I will admit... .I only started reading this series because I saw that a movie was coming out and that the actor Theo James was one of the main characters..... And I kind of love him..... But once I started reading this series, my god was I addicted. (Can we say finished book one in 3 hours??) I have been into dysotopian novels lately, and this one, dare I say, compares to the level of the Hunger Games. Now there is more of a love story, but still the internal fight of the main character Tris to decide how she can stay hidden in a Place that does not allow for Divergent. When every one fits in she is trying so hard not to stand out and be noticed, but she is strong, reckless, logical, and modest. 

Now along with books that I adore, I also wanted to list a few books that I want to read this next year. 

• Atlas Shrugged (I know a bit ambitious) 
• The Fault In Our Stars
• The Hobbit 
• Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrin's Children
• Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore 
• The Language of Flowers
• 1984 by George Orwell 

Do you have any Literary goals for 2014? I am hoping to have each of these on my Thankful Project list next year! 

5 Things: Instagram Edition

Well, well, well.... you want to check me out on Instagram. Here are 5 things you should be aware of when viewing my profile.

1) My profile is Private. I was having a hard time keeping certain people from stalking me... so I put it on private. If you would like to add me cool! Feel Free!

2) I take a lot of pictures of puppy dogs. My phone is always on hand so it is always the one thing I can use to quickly take the perfect picture. A lot of my pictures are of Ghillie though.

3) I drink a lot of Starbucks...  a lot....

4) I try to tell myself that it would be mean to report the people that use my hash tags for #ghilliemonster , and then I look at their profile... they're attractive enough and are using it in the correct form.

The Culprits

5) I don't often post selfies... but when I do I often make a funny face.

Find me through the hash tag listed above. Or through my user name KyleaJ .

The Thankful Project: A Choice

It's about to get real up in here…..  

     This is not my story but rather than my moms, and I am unsure of whether or not my brothers know the full story. But a choice that I am thankful for is the choice my mom made when she chose to leave my father. 
     It's not something most kids are thankful for, and when I was a kid I was not too pleased that my parents were divorced, but as I grew older I came to understand why. 
My mom told me the story while we were talking about how my older brother was a lot like him. This was 3 or 4 years ago and my brother was a tad reckless and a tad bit reliant on alcohol. 
     My older brother was turning 5 (i believe) I was just 3 and my little brother was still under a year. Of course we had a family party to celebrate his birthday and everyone was there, including my grandmother Margo. She was the first to approach my father as he was still passed out (still drunk). 
     
Side Note: Now any one who knows my brothers and I knows that we are bears when people wake us up. If we wake up on our own it's cool, but to be woken up; watch out. Our father is the grizzly bear of being woken up. 


     After he didn't wake up and come out after my grandma told him to, my mom tried. And she gave him a choice. Be a part of the family or lose your family. 
     He made the choice to stay in bed. My mom made the choice to leave. I know that was one of the bravest things she could have done. She was now a single mom, and we were not the sweetest of children. I was a brat, my older brother was the spawn of satan, and my little brother... well he is his own form of special. We were definitely a handful for her. But I would not trade her for the world. (Hi mom!)
     Fast forward to today; I choose not to see my father. My brothers will on occasion, my little brother more often, but since our arrival back in Arizona I have kept my distance. 

So there is a little family history. 

The Thankful Project: A Room

Ok, no judgements please. One room in my two bedroom single wide…. Yeah you read that right. Well my favorite room is my bathroom. For two reasons:

1) it is the only room in my house that does not collect dust. I kid you not, every other room in my house gets coated by dust and dirt because my dogs bring it in. But my bathroom is clean, organized, and peaceful. 

2) it is the only room that my dogs will not go into. There for, it is the only room that I can be by myself. (I am preparing for motherhood) so I can go in there and sit in the shower or on the floor and read with no interruptions. Plus it is the coldest room in the house, so If I don't feel good  or have a migraine, then it is a good place to go and cool down.

Just saying.

The Thankful Project: Something on My Own

Well, something on my own, that I am thankful for is living on my own. Truly and solely on my own. It's not easy, and I often have my grandparents over to fix things (they are the landlord). But it's just me. I have to buy my own food, provide for my pups, and do my own laundry. 

I really wish I had someone to do my laundry....... 

The Thankful Project: Day 15 An Annoyance

What?! I am catching up! 
An annoyance…. does it count if I have like five? I think so, so here are 5 annoyances that I just can't get over. 

1.) People who chew with their mouths open or smack their lips when they eat. IT is so seriously annoying!! 

2.) When my dogs think it is cool to destroy the trash…. they do this by knocking over the can and shredding the contents.  

3.) Awkward silence over the phone… I mean I don't like talking on the phone duct when I do you better keep the conversation going. Too much awkward silence drives me batty. 

4.) Telling a story multiple times, and hearing one multiple times. I don't like repeating myself, and I will only allow for myself to do it three times. If you aren't there then I am sorry. And hearing stories repeatedly, I mean come on I was there, I saw you do it, and if I didn't then I heard what you did 6 times. 

5.) When the ladies at work adjust the volume for the radio at work. It starts off at a nice level for the day and then someone thinks that they can't hear it and BAM it is so loud you can't hear yourself think. 

The Thankful Project: A Blessing

A blessing in my life, well my life is blessed. When I take a breath, when I talk to my mom, and when I go to work every day. To me those are all blessings. Simple as that. 

The Thankful Project Day 13: An Ability

Today, instead of detailing just ONE ability for which I'm thankful, I wanted to follow Kenzie's foot steps and share a list of abilities I am thankful for.  A list of 28, in fact... one for every day of the project especially for the first 10 that I missed. This year has been on all ends of the spectrum, and sometimes I forget everything that I can do, that I take advantage of. So with out further a due... 

I am grateful for the ability to:

1. Breathe 
2. Walk 
3. Hold down a full-time job
4. Eat anything I want without fear or danger
5. Hear
6. See
7. Touch 
8. Read
9. Drive 
10. Pay my bills
11. Buy things I need
12. Talk 
13. Dress myself
14. Laugh
15. Cook, especially bake, when I want to 
16. Scrapbook, and make it look cohesive. 
17. Blog 
18. Vote 
19. Work a full-time job
20. Give back to others
21. arrange flowers
22. Walk in heels
23. drink clean water
24. Take a shower every day 
25.Sleep in my own house
26. Play, sleep, cuddle, and feed my two dogs 
27. Provide for my family when they need help. 
28. Talk to my mom everyday 

Some of them seem simple, and some of them seem trivial. But to me they are all aspects of my life that I take advantage of on a daily basis. I am thankful to have the ability to do all of these things.

The Thankful Project Day 12: An Opportunity

So I realized that I am slightly behind, but an opportunity that I was thankful that I received was my job. My boss had no rhyme or reason to hire me, and I already had a decent job for a person my age (20 at the time). But out of the blue he called me because my aunt and mom told him that he should look into hiring me to replace his only employee. So one random day in January he called to interview me. I took the opportunity because it could only give me more experience in interviewing, and what was the worst he could say? He had called me for the interview. After an hour of just talking and scenarios, he told me that I would be a perfect member to the team, but he wasn't sure when he could hire me. I let it be known that if the opportunity came up to work for his company, I would. 

Fast forward to now, I have been here for 4 and a half years, and my boss; well I feel as if he is a member of my family. I have had a total of 2 days of training, and lots of screw ups. I have switched career choices, worked on vacations, and didn't even flinch when I signed on two days after getting out of the hospital. Sure I complain and bitch about it a lot, but looking at it I wouldn't want to work anywhere else. Well except  if I could scrapbook for a living... Then it's fair game. 

My opportunity was given to me, on sheer faith. And I try to make the best of it every day. 

5 things: Twitter Edition

Ok so here is my newest little series: 5 Things you would learn about me from my social media. That's a mouthful so I just cut it short to 5 Things.

5 things you would learn about me from my Twitter Account.

1.) I watch entirely too much TV. From the Vampire Diaries to Sons of Anarchy and then on to Suits. I realize that I tweet entirely too much about TV. But hey they put hash tags on the screen for a reason!
(And I wonder why I am single.....)

2.) I bitch about my coworkers, a lot. Or about being at work, or being by myself in the office, or the fantastic lunches that we have. Or that I need more coffee to function at work.

3.) I swear... again a lot... but not as much as I do in person. Still probably more than I need to though.

4.) I watch Pitch Perfect so much that it should be against some sort of cinematic law. I watched it 3 times this weekend alone. It is ACA-Awesome!

5.) I am totally random. There is never any rhyme or reason to anything that I post, which can be fun and dangerous at the same time. But I am always reliable for some form of laugh.

If you have a twitter, and like to tweet like all the young kids do, look me up! Just Click on any of the twitters on this post!

A follow for a follow! (gag I cannot believe I just had the nerve to type that)

The Thankful Project: Day 11- Something I was Taught

I am 24, which means I still think that I have a lot of learning and growing to go. Everyday I try to work on my life eternally and self reflect on who I am as a person, and what the day has taught me. 

The most valuable lesson that I have been taught is that of acceptance. Everyone is different, and not to sound too Lady GaGa, we were all born different. 

I will say that to say that people were born gay, straight, left, right, or any other way is stupid. It is not a scientific thing that we were wired to like a certain sexual preference. I mean someone may have figured out how we are genetically programmed to work that away. But I disagree. I have learned that as we grow into the adults that we were meant to be we find a piece of ourselves. Some find their religion, some find their culture, and some just find their voice. Either way no two people are exactly alike in personal beliefs or values. And we as humans should be more accepting of another persons differences. 

Life taught me that even though someone is different, that we all have the same functioning body parts. We all have a brain, we all have a heart, and we all matter. A person is a person after all, no matter how small. (yea I just totally tried to quote Dr. Seuss) 

What I want to continue to learn is patience. I am too quick to come to conclusions or get upset at how others are handling things. I would like to continue trying to handle the skill of patience. 

And one random thing that I am glad I was taught, was how to put my hair up with a pen. It seems childish, but right now it is a life saver!  

The Thankful Project Day 10: A Memory

I stumbled upon the blog Chasing Happy and her thankful project. I am not normally one to vocally express all of the things that I am truly thankful for. But after reading Kenzie's I became inspired to start writing my own. 

Today is about a memory that you are thankful for. 

A memory that I am thankful for, yet scared of is one that happened earlier this year. I had been admitted into the hospital on January 4th with a small case of what they thought was pneumonia. And prior to my regular nurse Deb leaving, she looked at me and said that something else was brewing. And boy was she right. Within 8 hours, I went from being able to breath on my own with a little help because I was panicky to having to be intubated and knocked out. 

My memory comes from when we found out, that I was not going to be able to breathe on my own. I had a swarm of nurses and doctors by my bed, asking me a series of questions all at one time. And then one that I knew I needed to be asked. Do you want us to call your grandpa? 

From there they gave me a sedative to try and put me under so that they could put in a line and intubate me. Little did they know, that even though my eyes were closed and I could not move I was not under, and I was still very much awake. I remember the pain from them putting in the line, and me just thinking and screaming to my body to make some sort of movement. Anything to let them know that I could feel it, that I was still conscious. I could smell the tart and tangy smell of the Iodine, and heard the doctor saying that it was in place. I was finally able to get my eyes to flutter, and heard Deb's reassuring voice. The next three days were very much drug induced and a lot of sleeping. But after that, I don't think I minded. 

It is a scary memory for me, but one that has affected me greatly. And for that I am thankful. Because of that moment, I knew that any breathe that I took from that point on needed to be worth something. I prayed to god to help, and it was a prayer that had been answered. 

It's been a Sturgess day.

Random fact of the day... Every movie that I have watched this morning has had Jim Sturgess in it today. This guy is seriously underestimated as an actor. Simply amazing, and gorgeous.

Well... Let the Christmas Festivities Begin

I know, I know it is way too early to be thinking about Christmas right? Wrong my friends! Yes it is way to early to be thinking about decorations and music, but never too early to start thinking of Gifts. Mainly because those things cost money! Even if you do only have a certain budget.

This year I plan on keeping a lot of my gifts either home made or smaller. Mainly because I will cause myself to go broke otherwise, but it also is a great way to show someone that you put some serious time and effort into making something special for them.

So here are a few things that I want to make for my girls at work, because well we are trouble together and they are two of my very favorite people.

First Gift Idea: Memories

They both have significant others, so something along the lines of a wall piece, or art piece would be perfect for them. 

Here is an example of something that I did previously that I am going to go off of. 

Now this took an entire day to plot out, and about $60 total for supplies. But I had enough stuff left over to put into a number of my own personal scrapbook pages.

For Andrea, I would love to do a richer jewel tone tray with bright colors. She is full of joy and life, and I want something that portrays that. 

For Vanessa, Well that my dears is simple. Butterflies, warm colors, and bling! Lots and lots of bling!! 

Second Gift: Inspiration. 

Both of these beautiful people look for inspiration and quotes. I want to create something for them that has a quote on it that I feel represents what they mean to me. 

Third Gift: something involving alcohol. 

The one thing we all have in common... booze. We love it in a, we don't need to go to AA meetings, but we would drink during lunch if we could. 

Now I have already had a request for my Bailey's Fudge, and I am thinking about making a slew of alcoholic treats!

Anyone have any recipes?

What gifts do you plan on giving this year? 

SuperMom

So I may not have real live eating, breathing, human children; but I have two fur children. And when one throws up at 3 in the morning, you are up quicker than a Christmas Isle in Walmart. Let me tell you that is where I was this morning, with my stomach of steel. And when said child tries to stay up and pace the house; you get your stern voice on and tell him to go get in bed. And then you, as a mom sleep with one eye open to make sure he is ok. And you are quick to make the coffee when you tell him that it is ok to get up. 

Anyone else been through this? 

Port Aransas, TX

This last weekend was that of an adventure. Mom, Lucy the Unicorn, and I traveled down to San Antonio to see a good family friend Cari and one of her kids Cody. Now there were several moments where I wanted to cry because I used to watch Cody, and mostly his brothers and sister, when we were younger. And now... he is legally allowed to drink, smoke and get tattoo's. Talk about feeling slightly old. But Any who! Early Saturday we headed out to the small island town of Port Aransas, Texas. 

And we stayed on (close by in a small sketchy on the outside, but actually pretty nice hotel) the beach! Now after getting the room and seeing what we had to work with, us three musketeers decided that we needed booze to complete this trip. sssoooo....

(mom hidden on the left, me in the middle, and Cari on the right) 

After the booze was bought and drinks were started, well to the beach we went.

We were playing with the dead Jelly's along the beach.... there were a ton and I felt like a little kid again poking at the dead animal. eeeeewwwwwww^^^

*Sing with me now... I've got my toes in the water, Ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, and a cold beeer in my hand. Life is good today. 

Now after about 4 of those Bud Light Straw-ber-Ritas you start to get a really, really, good buzz going. And if you are anything like me.... you start to try and turn yourself into a sand mermaid.

And you agree to go out to multiple bars, where the maintenance guy for your hotel buys you and your girls a beer. 

Last but not least we went to a few more bars, where Cari (pictured above) was hit on by someone we can only assume would have killed her and hid the body had we left her alone. We went as far as leaving and then coming back and he still found us. He has been donned as the creepy mexigang. In agreement we walked out, found our cab guy Art, made him go to What-a-Burger, and went back to our rented ocean front property. 

Woken by nausea and a really bad hangover, we decided to head back out to the beach and walk along the jetty. 

Thanks for having us Port Aransas. Till Next Year!