Where I come from, it's cornbread and chicken...

Oh hey there, blog. Long time, no see. Sorry that I'm a loser blogger and can only seem to manage to write something like, once or twice a week. Hashtag FAIL. 

Buuuuuut I was busy doing life-like things, so you know...I still win. 

Anyway. So I had a pretty fabulous weekend, thanks for asking. I'll get to that in a minute (hint: there will be photos), but first I'd like to talk a little bit about my family, and what makes me "me". 

I grew up in what is generally considered to be a pretty large family - I'm one of six kids. And before you ask, no, my parents aren't Catholic. It's just how it worked out. Anyway, almost every one of the kids were pretty extroverted growing up, or at least we all were with each other. I grew up in a noisy, active household, and thought it was completely normal to have eight people sitting around a dinner table, all fighting for some air time to talk about their day at the same time they were fighting over the last dinner roll. To this day, I still think of dinner as the "debrief" time, to sit down, enjoy some face time with your family or friends, and talk about your day. I LOVE getting into conversations about things I've learned during the day, current events, or interesting events that happened. And it's all because of my big, crazy family who all always had something to say. 

I was also a middle child (a distinction I shared with my 21-months older brother). And yes, we were totally the forgotten children. Okay, I'm sort of kidding about that, but only sort of. I certainly don't think anyone "forgot" about us - well, me, since I can really only speak for myself - intentionally...it's just sort of how it happened. The first four of us were born within 5 years of each other, and then there's a five year gap between me and Baby #5, and then another five years between #5 and #6. So the oldest four were always kind of in this little group, and then my sisters were referred to as the "little girls". I was always the youngest of the oldest, and the oldest of the youngest, and I never really felt like I had a specific place that was all mine. 

Middle kids, having a blast

That feeling is still with me today, to be honest. I am nearly 30 years old, but I still struggle with the feeling that I'm always in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I can't say that I'm at a place in my life where I really feel like I "belong". I wish there was a better word to describe that than "belong"...that's not quite right, but I hope you know what I'm trying to say. 

All six of us were home-educated (Jolynn went to a private school for 7th-12th grade, but was homeschooled before that), which was awesome and horrible all at the same time. I would have really loved the ability to experience things like home football games, going to my own prom (maybe even helping to plan it!), being able to participate in sports during the school year, being on an honor roll, etc. But at the same time, I know that I was given a phenomenal education that I may not have otherwise received. I was also instilled with a strong love of learning, which has stuck with me. I love learning new things, and find myself endlessly fascinated by the world around me. I am in no way trying to brag, but I am fairly smart, so I have a lot of opportunities available to me that would probably be more difficult for someone who doesn't have my brain or my education. (That sounded elitist - it wasn't supposed to). 

One of my favorite things that I was given through my education was a love for reading, and the ability to read really fast, like around 500 words a minute. This is totally fabulous, because it makes it really easy for me to read lots of books in a short amount of time. Plus it makes picking out Christmas and birthday gifts for me easy for my family, since it's pretty tough to go wrong with a book. :) We weren't allowed to watch a lot of any TV, either, so reading was the only way we had to "escape", as it were, and we did it often. One of the worst punishments we could get was if Mom took away whatever book we were reading at the time...but the best punishment was getting sent to our rooms, since you know...that's where our books were. :) 

I was blessed to be born into a pretty great family. My grandfather's uncle, affectionately known as "Unk" to pretty much everyone, turned 90 last weekend, and his two kids threw him a surprise birthday party down in Kansas City on Saturday. I was supposed to be in South Dakota last weekend, but that fell through, so I went to my dad's house to spend the weekend with him, and we flew down to KC together in his plane. I even got to fly it this time!! Legit, I flew for like 20 minutes, and did some turns, and ascended and descended a little bit and everything. It was pretty much awesome. 

But what was even MORE awesome was the fact that when Dad and I arrived at the party (we were a bit late, so we missed the surprise), Unk was sitting at his drums, wailing away and singing with his jazz band. Yep, that's right, my 90 year old uncle still plays the drums and sings in a band. He's that freaking awesome. 

And now, as promised, here are some pictures from the weekend. 

one: quick airport selfie before getting in the plane to go to KC
two: Papa's plane in his brand new hanger
three: beautiful scenery on the trip, in the backwaters of the Wisconsin River
four: me and Papa on the way to KC
five: state line - that's Iowa on the right side, and Missouri on the left. Cool, huh? 
six: action shot of me flying! 
seven: Unc on the drums. Told you he was cool. 
eight: Grandpa's sister - we know how to have fun in my family! 
nine: Papa's sister, for whom I am named. She's one of my faves. 
ten: Grandpa's sister and her husband
eleven: Grandpa, Unc, and Dad. Handsome men in my family, huh? :) 
twelve: flying by the sunset on the way home #nofilter
thirteen: my tiny little hometown at night.. I tried to get the runway lights, but I was too slow. 
fourteen: a burger from Pete's Hamburger stand - the best burger I've ever had in my life. 
fifteen: enjoying the beautiful day along the river on Sunday 
sixteen: best root beer ever!

I confess...that I'm thankful it's Friday!!

So, it's Friday. And since I haven't joined the lovely Leslie (seriously how does she look that good at 33 weeks preggers?! I need her secrets before I have kiddos of my own) in a while, I've decided that now is a perfect time for a Confessional Friday!

I confess...that the second season of Scandal is finally out on Netflix, and I can't WAIT to watch it. 

I confess...that I would kill to be sitting on an ocean beach right now. 

I confess...that if I could, I'd go to cosmetology school. Too bad I just am nowhere close to being able to afford it. :-/

I confess...that I sometimes get nervous about contacting other bloggers, or saying nice things to them on Twitter because I'm afraid it might come off as creepy. 

I confess...that I love the show Suits, but I hate the current story line they've got going with Louis and Nigel. I mean, cat custody? Really?? 

I confess...that I sort of miss working in a cubicle. Isn't that totally lame?? Yes, it is. But it's still true. 

What do you have to confess today?

Gourmet tongue. Or something.

I'm feeling very creatively stilted lately, if you haven't been able to tell. Every time I sit down to write something, it's like everything just stops, and I can't write anything. It's really frustrating!

But, since I really wanted to write something, you're stuck with whatever random nonsense is currently taking up space in my brain. I'm sorry, and you're welcome. All at the same time. 

- Despite my creative slump, I somehow managed to completely revamp my "About Me" page. 

- One day, I will have a large, beautiful kitchen, and I will have people for whom I can cook. Don't get me wrong, I can cook a little bit for me and Boyfriend right now, but we have a tiny little kitchen, without a lot of space for ingredients or kitchen tools. So I can't quite cook or bake the way I want to yet. But once I AM able to?? Ooooh, look out, I'm gonna be cooking all ze time. And I will get le fat. And I will love it. (P.S. Did you see how I threw a little weird French in there? Yeah, that's me pretending to be an awesome French chef.)

- I didn't watch the VMA's last night, but judging from the Twit and the blogosphere, only two things of note happened: number one, 'NSync reunited for like, 2.2 seconds. And number two, Miley Cyrus made a complete and total fool of herself and Robin Thicke and also made every single person who saw the debacle for which she was responsible extremely uncomfortable. Oh, you missed it, you say? Well here's just a tiny little moment of what you missed. Again, I'm sorry, but you're welcome. But now that you've all seen it, maybe somebody could explain what in the HELL is up with Miley and her ridiculous tongue. Did something happen that has made her physically unable to keep it in her mouth anymore?

-Moving on. Does Blogger ever just really suck to use for any of the rest of you? Cuz right now, this formatting stuff is ridiculous, and is basically making me want to just throw my computer out the window and forget the whole dang thing. 

- Blogging can be tough, speaking of it. It's weird, because there's all this discussion about how there's like, this great wonderful community, and people can make all these great friendships, and all of that... And while I'm not going so far as to say that's not true, because I have "met" a few great people through blogging, I will say that it's not quite what I was expecting. I guess I just know like, what I would do if people reached out to me from my blog, or bothered to send a nice email out of the blue or something, and I think I just expect everyone else to think and respond in the exact same way that I think I would. Which is not a real bright idea, so  I really ought to get over that. 

- And actually continuing on that line, I have a question: I was having a discussion yesterday about whether or not letting go of expectations constitutes giving up on something and/or settling, or if it is just a way of accepting that sometimes, the expectations we place on others to think/behave/react in a certain way can often be the biggest cause of disappointment in our lives. I'm interested in what the blogging world thinks about this. Weigh in, people, and let's discuss. 

- I've got Dance Moms on in the background right now. Holy train wreck, Batman. I haven't watched this show since I left Vegas, and I had somehow managed to forget how crazy the drama is. I honestly don't know if the moms and Abbey are really as psychotic as they look - and I have a hard time believing that they are because, uh, hello, they're CRAZY, and who would want to even ever be around that nonsense? - or if they're faking it for the sake of television. I'm leaning a bit more towards the latter, but either way, it's just crazy. The little girls are really cute and talented though, so props to them. 

- I've decided I am going to participate in a couple new things for the month of September. Number one, I'll be participating in "Blogtember", with Jenni. Jenni also orchestrated the "Blog Every Day in May" challenge that I did, and I really enjoyed it, so I'm looking forward to doing this as well. 

AND, even though I'm really not a runner at all, I was inspired by Kenzie's post to show solidarity to another Kenzie during the month of September. So now, in support of Kenzie, I will be joining in on the #runningforsupernannykenz campaign. You can keep up with me on that via Instagram, if you feel so inclined. You'll probably see a lot of pictures of me looking about like this: 

Annnnnd that about does it for me. Hopefully my brain will feel better in the coming days/weeks/months, and I'll feel more inspired to write, and to write things actually worth reading. We'll see what happens! 

Top 10 Best Things About Being Unemployed

Okay, so basically, I'm pretty sure everybody knows that (at least for  the moment), I'm not unemployed anymore. But I was unemployed for a while, and I gotta tell you..as much as it really pretty much bites the big one to not have a job - see also, no income - there are some pretty okay things about it. 

So here I have broken down for you the top ten best things there are about being unemployed. Should you ever find yourself in such a position, re-read this list and be grateful. 

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1 -You get to sleep late. For someone like me, who really isn't a morning/get out of bed happily person like at all, the ability to sleep until you wake up naturally is pretty dang nice. Plus, you have the added option of getting to wake up, and then realize you don't have to be anywhere, so you can roll over and snuggle under your covers and go back to sleep. Who doesn't love that? 

2 - You can binge-watch TV shows. Netflix makes it possible to watch entire seasons of awesome TV shows without the ridiculous expense (and inconvenience) of having to change out of your pajamas to go to the store and actually purchase said television show in DVD format. Plus, when you finish one season and really really really have to know what happens after the cliff-hanger season finale, you can just easily start watching the next season without having to get up off the couch or out of bed to switch a DVD. Laziness at it's finest, y'all. 

3 - You can read a lot. Reading is basically the coolest thing since sliced bread, people. Actually, I think it's cooler than sliced bread. I love getting new books, getting to know the characters, trying to guess the endings, etc. And sometimes I learn new words, which is awesome, and I get all kinds of inspiration for things to say, conversation starters, ways to win arguments, etc. Having enough time to read as much as you want is basically bomb.com. 

4 - You have no reason to adhere to standard meal times if you don't want to. Lunch at 2:30pm? Sure, why not? Dinner at 11 at night? Absolutely. See, the reason you can do all this and get away with it is because you can sleep in late in the morning, so you can stay up late at night! Eating at 11pm and going to bed at 2am is no different than eating at 7pm and going to bed at 10pm, so there you go. Eat whenever your little heart desires. 

5 - You can take your sweet time getting ready for things. No need to rush around in the morning trying to make yourself look presentable. No having to worry that you snoozed your alarm one too many times and now you might not have time to curl your hair just right, or put eyeliner on. No worries now, mate! Take a long, hot shower, and just enjoy all the free time you have to primp. 

6 - You can save a lot of money by not eating lunch out somewhere every day, or stopping on the way to work to grab some Starbucks, or breakfast. I mean, yeah, you don't have any money coming in, so saving is just the smart thing to do anyway, but still. You're far less likely to waste money you don't have on things you don't need if you don't have a steady paycheck coming in. 

7 - You have workout freedom! I don't know about you, but I always hated the idea of working out on my way home from work. It's such a busy time at the gym, so there are always people around (and I hate working out around people), plus it's just annoying to have to work all day and then anticipate a workout between work and being able to go home and turn off your brain for a while. Also, you can forget about me getting up early to work out before work, because getting up earlier than you have to is just silly to me. But now, since you're unemployed, you can have a work out in the middle of the day if you want! The gym will be less crowded, there won't be as much traffic.. There are a lot of positives to this point. 

7 - Happy hour can start early. Who wants to wait until 5pm to start happy hour? Not you, no sir. You're not working, so having a beer at 3pm is completely acceptable. Pop that top and get to it. 

9 - You can social media the heck out of everything, all day long. No one is going to care if you spend your day chatting it up with people on Twitter than actually attending to the pile of work on your desk. There's no reason to use incognito windows in your browser, or make sure that your mouse hovers over the "Switch to Desktop" area so you can hide your Facebooking from your boss. 

10 - No one is going to be upset if you promise a list of ten things but only deliver nine actual things. 

So yes, though you may be sans productive job at the moment, there are still all kinds of things for which you can be thankful. Enjoy it!! 

What do you think are the best things about not having a job??

Who Wants To Go To Europe With Me?

Hey guys! I don't know about you, but I absolutely love to travel. I have all these big dreams of travelling, and going everywhere. "I'm gonna shake the dust of this crummy little town off my feet, and I'm gonna see the world!" (Ten points to you if you know what AWESOME movie I just quoted.) But, as well all know, travel is expensive, and can get complicated, so I often get overwhelmed just at the thought of trying to plan something. Thankfully, the blogging community has lots of travelers, so I can get a lot of great ideas from them about where to go and how to do it!

To that end, I am really excited to introduce you all to Patricia. She is a super-sweet little blogger who packed up and moved to France for true love right after college. Apart from being sweet, hilarious, and totally down to earth despite her extreme popularity in the blogging world, and a fantastic storyteller (this girl has the best bad-date stories ever), this pretty little lady is also chock full of fabulous and helpful advice.

Today, she is taking over my blog and sharing some awesome advice about how to travel through Europe! Take note of her little tips and tricks, and I'm sure you'll be confidently traveling abroad in no time. And hey, maybe you'll even find someone to date while you're in a foreign country, too! I hear it's good for you.

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Hi there All the Small Things friends.



I'm Patricia and I blog over at Kisses & Croissants. Jordan is one of my very kindest new blogging friends, and she was nice enough to give me the opportunity to guest post. I'm an American girl who studied abroad in college, fell madly in love with a man who barely spoke English my first week there, and moved to France after graduation to marry that hunk. I sound kind of corny already, don't I?

Before I settled down with Monsieur Right, I was just a happy, stupid adventurous 19 year old, who dreamed of seeing the world beyond Po-dunk, Nevada. Naturally, while studying abroad, I decided that I would blaze a new trail by doing exactly what every other college aged student does while studying abroad - Backpacking through Europe. I know. I should win a prize for my originality.



Nowadays, Monsieur Right (he gets the honor of this corny nickname for privacy reasons), is totally freaked out by the idea of me traveling like this. Which I guess is a legitimate fear, since I did almost get kidnapped once.

That's Us!

I was so excited about running around Europe and sleeping in crappy hotels! The only problem is that you need quite a bit of money to just "take off" around Europe.  I was living off scholarships at the time. FYI: If you're leaving one country to visit another, you can expect the train ticket to be at least $150. Then when you get there you need to pay for hostels and food. It's not nearly as cheap as they make it seem in the movies. There is no way that some kid with 20 bucks, no credit card, and a passport is just going to be able to hop around 10 different countries with nothing but his backpack.



However, if there's a will, there's a way. Let me tell you how I traveled around Europe as a student for cheap! Feel free to take these tips with a grain of salt and travel at your risk.



1. I faithfully scanned those European discount flight websites almost everyday... 



... and just happened to stumble across plane tickets from my city to London for 5€ from Ryan Air! It was fate, so I signed my awesome Polish roommate and I up right away. I also got a flight from Paris to Rome for about $40 from Easy Jet. It helps if you check often and are willing to go anywhere.



2. I accepted the first offer that came via Couchsurfing. 



I was too poor to stay in a hostel every night. So somehow both my roommate and I decided that it would be okay to sleep in some random 50 year old man's flat in downtown London. We'd never met him, but he had great reviews and we were cheap. Turns out he was awesome and bought us real American-style blueberry pancakes in the morning.

3. I always book my hostels ahead of time.

I've heard of people paying $30 a night or more for a hostel, and that's just ridiculous. If you book ahead of time you can usually find hostels right down town, or right next to a major train station for about 5€ a night. I should warn you though that hostels can get pretty crammed and/or crummy. I once slept in a hostel, in a room with 20 other girls. No kidding. The beds were stacked three high. See photo. It was fun. But you really have to have the patience and the personality to travel like this. You also can't be a light sleeper.

Tip: I always made sure that all my important belongs fit inside a pillow case. That way I could wrap them up in clothing, stick them in my pillow case, and sleep on them. Unfortunately, not every hostel comes with lockers, even if they say they do on their website.

Looks safe, doesn't it?

3. I searched online for "Free Stuff to Do in [Insert City's Name Here]"



You'll find tons of things to do! Heck, I almost always ended up doing the free stuff. I preferred splurging on one or two activities, than wasting my money on a lot of random little things. I promise, there is so much fun stuff to do and see for free in Europe. You just have to know where to look.

Like checking out The Beatles' recording studio.

Or getting your picture taken at King's Cross Station - Platform 9 & 3/4, if you're a Harry Potter nerd like me.

In France there are certain days of the month where all monuments and museums are free. Plus, there are some cities like London where public museums are always free!



See? You can still travel cheap and have a lot of fun!



A big thanks to Jordan for letting me guest post today! She's awesome!