Civil Exam

I think it's normal before any major life decision or well any "big" move forwards in life it's normal to become a little restless the night before. For me it's not just a restless night; it's tossing and turning, an upset stomach, high blood pressure, just full blown anxiety, and overall just a feeling of dread.

Today, January 10, 2017, I take my civil exam for the Fort Worth Police Academy. Now the Civil Exam is just a test with apparently no wrong answers, but just a view on how you would handle certain situations. So for someone who has text anxiety as well (yay for me!) I'm about to sit down in front of a multiple questions test that has four to five answers - and none of them are wrong!

Jesus.

I also learned in an email beforehand that today will also be the physical test as well. Now I've stopped working out for a while (cough cough, maybe a year or two), but I have kept in shape by being physically active most days. Not I've stopped lifting, unless I'm at work, and I occasionally do a 30-day fit challenge - but it's nothing serious (currently in a 30 day squat challenge with Aubrey).

I would be lying right now if I told you I wasn't anxious about the physical exam. I'm like nail-biting, sweating over here in my chair since about 5am. My test isn't until 9am. I've at least eatin' some oatmeal. Yeah, three packets - oh well. The big concern for me about this test isn't the running, climbing, pulling, or shooting - it's the time limit. You have to complete their physical assessment test in 2:34 seconds. That's right.. You have two minutes and thirty-four seconds to complete their test, and the best part is, you have two chances. After that you're done - sorry you tried your best, but you just aren't physically cut out for it.

Now Robert and I practiced cocking a gun and reloading a clip at home on Saturday. He unloaded the gun for me and let me practice a bit. The hardest part for me, besides using a lefty's handgun and it weighing about 20 pounds, was actually cocking the gun the way he wanted me to. Eventually we got on the same page with an easier way of cocking it for me, and one that was actually allowed. Needless to say, I'm still a bit worried about actually firing a gun today. I'm worried about if I'm going to be the one who has to load and reload it, cock it, blah blah blah. All that fun jazz. Robert's best advice to me was to remember that I've at least fired a gun at a firing range, and that some of the people coming today have never held or fired a gun in their life. That gave me some comfort, but I'm literally a ball full of anxiety.  My Garmin is telling me right now that my pulse is 92. It's at 92 and I'm just sitting here writing a blog post.

I'm so not ready for this.

2017 Resolutions

Every year people all around the world make resolutions for the upcoming year. A new trend this year is instead of making “resolutions” you’re supposed to make “monthly goals”. I think that’s just dumb. Resolutions are a firm decision about doing or not doing something. Your resolution doesn’t have a time frame. You can make a resolution this year that might be finished in 2019, but it’s the progress you make during this year that counts towards your resolution.

With that being said here’s a list of my hopeful 2017 resolutions:

1. Getting engaged to Robert
2. Going camping at least once a month
3. Starting a family
4. Paying off my Sears account
5. Run in at least 3 races this year
6. Maintaining a healthy body weight
7. Using my home gym at least 3x a week
8. Sticking to my 52 Week money saving challenge
9. Staying at my timeshare in Florida 
10. Getting a raise at work or a better paying job
11. Stop stressing about life
12. Try new foods/opportunities when they arise
13. Keeping up with changing the month on the house calendar
14. Changing the clocks in the house to the right time
15. Cook more meals at home

Let's hope I can at least accomplish the month and changing of the clocks, ha-ha. 

Dinosaur Valley State Park

We celebrated going into the New Year a bit early, and we did it on our six month anniversary (even though both of us had forgotten, it was in fact, our six month anniversary). We traveled an hour away from Fort Worth to Dinosaur Valley State Park.

Our Weekend Home:

Dino Valley is known for exactly what their name states: Dinosaurs. You can visit the state park and see actually Dinosaur tracks in the riverbed. It’s pretty cool. However this trip was our longest yet, and we celebrated it by not just hiking, but we hit up Fossil Rim as well! 

Here are some stunning photos of our Fossil Rim adventure (view more on instagram @dangerouscutie) that were taken by Robert 

Here is a glimpse of what Fossil Rim looked like for me:

But I did eventually get into the action of taking my own photos of Fossil Rim. I know they aren’t as perfectly captured, but it was still a fun experience. 

^ I’m sorry but that’s just one badass picture and it’s just perfect <3

After Fossil Rim (which was our best trip to Fossil Rim together to date because all the animals were so freakin’ active and out and just happy) we went back to the State Park and had lunch.

I have officially perfected the craftsmanship of making a sandwich. 

After lunch we hung out at the campsite for a while before getting restless and going out adventuring around the park.We came across the dino tracks you could actually see in person, and of course that was in adventure of itself,

If you’ve never been to Dino Valley please don't to get to any sort of hiking trail it seems like you have to go through a river. With that being said there are rocks you can step onto to get across said river. However, rocks are wet, slippery, and don’t really want you stepping on them. I had to take my shoes and socks off to go across to the footprint side so I wouldn’t fall on my ass into the river.

^ Actual dino footprints (be super jealous)

He’s so cute. He also learned the hard way that you have to go out the way you came back in - over the stupid, slippery, wet rocks.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that this State Park is so close to a nuclear power plant that they have these signs posted almost everywhere in the park itself. 

I feel like if I hear the sirens I’m already going to be dead because of how close Glenrose, Texas is to the Nuclear Plant. And the plant is still active. You can take a tour of it (possibly) still if they allow it. 

When we got back off getting cold and wet crossing the river, Robert worked on preparing a nice home cooked meal. He made pasta!

I made the delicious looking garlic bread

This was our first camping trip since Caprock (note that Palo Duro had a fire ban while we were visiting [yeah, that super fucking cold 14 degree bullshit camping trip) that didn’t have a fire ban. So it was nice to have a campfire again!

I super duper enjoyed the heat.

The next morning we got up, ate breakfast (honestly don’t remember what it was), took a shower (I love these state park bathrooms - a lot nicer than I thought they would be) and got dressed for our hike.

Here we are crossing ANOTHER river to get to our hiking trail. Robert wanted to do the trial that would lead us to the waterfall (which is seasonal btw) so he could get a photo of it.  

Here is our seasonal waterfall (looking down and over):

We did get rained on during our hike. The weather said there was about a 10% chance of rain, and of course we are lucky enough to be in that 10% chance. 

We head towards our exit and the rain stops (naturally) and we get a beautiful view of our surroundings. I’m telling you these pictures don’t do justice. Every State Park have just been breathtakingly beautiful!

As we get to the end of our hiking trail we have now ended up where we were yesterday by the dino tracks again. Which means, I’m going to have to take my shoes and socks off again to cross the river in. At least I got some cool photos this time near the track river.

Please note there are actually called fossil tracks not “dino footprints” like I’ve been calling them, ha-ha. Whoops. 

That afternoon Robert took me to a cool antique place in the middle of nowhere called Dutchman's Hidden Valley, and they had some pretty cool things. 

Robert picked up some Bison sausage (or something like that) while we were there, and some sugar free chocolate for his momma. I bought an oreo cookie jar (which was on sale for $7 bucks) and now sits in the kitchen, empty. 

When we got back to our overnight home he decided he was going to make chili for dinner. So while he was preparing chili I was busy making our campfire mystical. I bought a little packet of something from the State Park store that turned your fire into different colors - and it was so freaking cool!

Dinner was finally ready. I made my chili into a chili burrito (which didn’t go so well for me since it broke) and we went to bed. That night we packed up our home so all we’d have to do was the tent the next morning.

Next morning came around and we picked up our remaining items, put the tent up, went pee and left. We got back to the house around 9am that morning, woke up aubrey, scared the crap out of Korra, cooked some bacon, and then went to Ol’ South Pancake House for brunch to celebrate our New Year’s Eve.

This was my most memorable and favorite camping date trip with Robert so far. I give Robert mad props on this trip too because he was literally dying because of his cedar and pine allergies (and we were surrounded by cedar and pine 99.9% of the entire time - and we even slept under them).

December 28 - 31, 2016