I HAVE MOVED!

I moved my blog spot to: http://kristilynk.wordpress.com/ It took me a while to get used to the change - But I have found, after a few months, I enjoy Word Press much more! The quality of other bloggers seems to be better over there so for all my two followers ;) I hope to see you there! xoxo Kristi

February 20

Stress levels are being to rise. I am not excited about working on getting the taxes from last year done. Do I do them self? Do I pay three hundred dollars and have the tax guy from last year do them again? If I end up having to pay the IRS on top of the tax preparer, I will not be in a happy place. I received a 1099 from one of my jobs last year and I think it's erroneous, so now I have to go to the bank and order all of the copies of the checks I received from this guy from 2011 because I don't trust the putz I used to work with. Who has time for all of this responsibility? On the other hand, what if I am due a nice tax return? A good return would make for a better trip to Spain in April. This trip is going to be different than the last one in that I will not be completely following the band around. My main reasoning for going is that Jason will be turning forty years old on May 2, 2012 and he will be playing a show in Estepona, Spain! My plan is to arrive in Madrid on April 24, enjoy the city for a few days and meet up with the guys in Cadiz on May 1st. I am a little nervous in that this time last year I had already purchased my plane ticket to France, I had reserved the ticket in December. Here we are, two months to departure date, and I have yet to purchase my ticket. Not only have I not purchased my ticket...I have not even renewed my passport which expired in November 2011.
My goal, for this week, is to order copies of check deposits from my business partner and renew my passport. Today is Monday..I have only four more days to accomplish said goal.
Wish me luck!

March 12, 2012

After a long drive home from San Diego to our little suburb, Peoria, AZ. it felt nice to wake up my own house. I'd say it felt nice to wake up in my own bed but I fell asleep on the couch last night, around two a.m so I guess I should say I fell asleep on my couch this morning...watching a movie. I can't remember what was playing I was tired. My daughter, Kiah, and I were planning on staying until Sunday, today, but she needed to get home to finish up some work on her senior project for school.
We rolled into San Diego on Friday night around seven-thirty pulled into the driveway of our friends house , Shane and Kim, said our hellos and started getting ready to head to the club. My husbands band was playing and were set to hit the stage around ten. Kiah, who is not twenty-one yet and unable to attend the show, stayed to babysit our friends ten month old, Kaili. We were a little disappointed the little one was sleeping when we arrived but understood she has a bed time and when they're are that age it is important to stick to a sleeping schedule!
We headed to the club around nine, when we pulled up we were a little nervous. There were squatters hanging around the parking lot, maybe six of them and all of them had dogs. One of the girls had three dogs. The dogs look like they were better taken care of than the squatters so I do give them credit for that much. There was a couple, girl and a guy standing outside the club and the girl was yelling at her (what I assume to be) boyfriend and all the sudden she raised her hand and smacked this guy straight across the face! I was shocked - no one said or did anything (not even me so I'm not any better) Kim and I were probably the most shocked, everyone else around just acted like nothing happened? So we moved on as well...still shocked..but we moved on.
Instead of going through the front of the club we opted to walk around to the back to see if the guys were out there, usually they stay behind the club in the parking lot with their gear talking and getting ready for the show. They weren't there. There was a back entrance with a guy on a stool...skinny, scraggly hair and a full face tattoo with multiple facial piercings. Dont see that everyday. This would be where the phrase "Don't judge a book by its cover" would come into good play. Through that "scary" exterior I could see the guy had a genuineness about him and was very nice when we asked if we could go through this door to get inside.
My first thought once inside was, this place smells bad. The floor was wet in the "hallway" where the bathrooms were and that grossed me out. There were only a few high tables and chairs - of which were of course already taken - plus the bar area and of course there were no stools available either. We ended up finding a little counter looking thing right behind the sound booth and planted ourselves there. We found the guys and said our hellos. Kim and I went back out to the front of the club, we were hungry and we saw a man grilling food so we went to investigate. The time span from girl slapping guy incident to the time Kim and I went on our search for food was maybe twenty minutes. We walk outside and there are five police cars across the street and down the street a little ways as well. t turned out the guy whose face had been slapped had gotten STABBED and taken away in an ambulance five minutes before we got outside. Stabbed?? What?? Where were we, the streets of LA in 1986??? One guy at the club told me there have been quite a few stabbing incidents in the Ocean Beach area..Noted!
The rest of the night was not as eventful. It was good, there were a lot of people packed into that tiny club and they loved the music. The band styles were so different, it was a neat change. In our town, the music scene is pretty cliquey, the rockers play with other rockers, country bands play with country bands, punk rockers play with punk rockers..you get the idea. To have all these variations playing at one club on the same night was cool.
A little after one-thirty my friends and I decided to get out of there. We stopped at the taco shop on our way home and had some delicious Mexican food before heading to bed about three in the morning. Shane stayed up later to talk to the guys - they arrived some time after we got home, I imagine they did not get much sleep.
In the morning Kiah and Craig, our friend from home and the guitar player of the band Jason plays with, picked up Craigs daughter and he took them out for breakfast. Jason and I drove to the Mexican restaurant I went with Kim and Shane on our way home from the club the night before, and bought breakfast burritos. That place is good but I can't remember the name, I guess as long as I know where it is..that's all that matters.
Back at the house we played with Kaili, who is not only a super cute baby but an extremely good one! We visited and then ventured out to the Ballast Point Brewing Company where Shane, Kim, Damon, Jason and Craig did a little brew tasting. We ended up at O'Brien's Pub, dubbed as the "Hoppiest Place on Earth" with over two hundred bottled beer options. Kiah was at home with Kaili babysitting and having a heck of a time with diaper drama. You see little Kaili is a little bit of a squirmy worm and wouldn't let Kiah put her diaper on. I received a text from her and it read "OMG, she won't let me put her diaper on!" I replied, about ten minutes later, asking if she had it handled and she said "Yes, but it's no good" This made me laugh out loud because I had the vision in my head of poor Kaili with her diaper on all cock-eyed and what not squirming around the changing table. Our group at O'Briens left shortly after and went back to the house.
Kiah and I left for home around six thirty and the guys stayed there one more night, well all expect Damon who had plans the next and needed to get back so we let him ride along with us. The ride was long but uneventful which allowed us to arrive home safely at twelve-thirty in the morning.
As short of a trip this was, it was so good to see my friends and finally get to spend a little time with my "niece". I can't wait to get back there, plans are afoot for the first week of April.

Creative writing exercise #2

Todays assignment was to grab an old photo album, pick out the 14th picture, look at it for 2-3 minutes and write how this picture made you feel. Critiques welcome :) Enjoy!



The blue eyed, blonde haired girl about two years old is sitting on a braided wool rug in the living room at her Grammies house. One of the straps on her blue plaid sundress has fallen off of her tiny shoulder, her hair is in disarray and one of her little white socks is falling off. This child couldn’t care less, she is all smiles as she empties the contents of her Barbie pink play purse onto the rug with excitement.
Seeing this picture of my daughter at two years old (I was twenty-two) having not a care in the world brings many an emotion. Where did the time go? I hear people say, “It seems like just yesterday...(fill in the blank)” but to me, this picture, my daughter at two years old, seems like an eternity ago.
I also hear many people say, “When I think about my almost grown child, I feel so old!” To me, this picture, my daughter at two years old, does not make me feel old. I still wonder where did the time go? How did it go by so fast? I would not trade our lives for anything but I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss how easy it was to make her as happy as she was the day she was at her Grammies house cluttering the floor with her treasures.

Creative writing exercise #1

I love to write and am finding it difficult to do so because there are so many things rumbling around in my mind. Having my mind cluttered with day to day "stuff" I am looking for some writing discipline. Google led me to creativewritingprompts.com so I am going to give these a shot! The 1st prompt was for me to pick an object the room, close my eyes, think about it, open my eyes and write about the object without looking at it. So, I cheated. I was outside and I chose a planter to write about but I looked at it the whole time. Enjoy! :)


Atop a wrought iron table sits an old bowl made of metal, looking similar to an old military helmet. Through the rust you can see this bowl had been painted long ago in a vibrant sky blue. He found the bowl on an adventure in the arid deserts of Arizona and it is apparent some young fire arm enthusiast used this bowl for target shooting. The bullet holes that riddle the bowl are more rusted than any other part of the bowl creating a wonderful outlaw rustic look. When he found this bowl he knew exactly what he would use it for and now the bowl, atop a wrought iron table houses a wonderful bouquet of rosemary he can use in the creative dishes he makes for his family.

Adventures to, in, around Europe and back! DAY 3

Since we were staying Sunday and Monday at Hotel Nord in Besancon, France we did not have to wake up and rush to get out by check out time. We woke up at noon, showered and walked the town for a bit but not too long because it was Sunday and the shops were all closed. We headed up to Max's flat, he was out with his girlfriend (Julie) for the day at some friends house but was nice enough to allow us to hang out at his place and wait for him. Craig, Nicole and Wyatt spent the downtime napping, Jason did some book keeping and journal writing and I sat in a chair in the kitchen with the window open enjoying the French afternoon breeze eating cheese and bread. max's flat is roughly five stories from the bottom and it over looks a cobblestone courtyard covered with patches of moss here and there. The sky was so blue that day with the whitest puffiest clouds you can imagine and off to the right sits a church top with beautiful mosaic turquoise tiles and some terracotta looking to contrast. When we first arrived in France I noticed that every second home or apartment (aka flat) had a window of which a person was peering out of. At that moment I realized why, I was so relaxed in absorbing the outside beauty from the comfort of "my" space, I could have sat there all day.
Max and Julie came home around five and Julie cooked up an amazing dinner consisting of escargot, yep..snails, frog legs, cheese, wine and brochette with pesto and garlic on top. Absolutely amazing. Escargot is certainly not for everyone but I, for one, love me some snail!! I had only had escargot one other time before at a restaurant back home and it was served in a mushroom cap covered in garlic butter and I loved it. I was a little put off, yet still pretty confident I would like them, because the escargot was served...still in the shell and we had to take a toothpick and dig the snail out. It was delicious. On to the frog legs, I had never had had frog legs before and had been told by many, "They taste just like chicken". Not the case, to me they tasted more like fish. It wasn't bad, the texture was a little slimy but that did not stop me from eating six of them!! I don't think I need to elaborate on the cheese, wine and bread. It's France, enough said.
After dinner, Max and Julie took us on a tour of the city, we walked maybe five miles looking at all of the history. The highlight of the tour was a stop we made atop a hill that overlooked the entire city which is surrounded by a canal (somewhat like a mote) on the outside of the canal are a range of mountains, which if a circle had sides, each side had a fortress which over looked the city and protected it during ancient times of war. I am fascinated with history and to have that access to the history of that city was such a great experience, you can feel it in the air and see it on the moss covered cobble stone roads and walls. This is nothing you can learn in a classroom.
The walk back to the hotel was easy and the weather was perfect, we called it an "early" night and said au revoir to our friends Max and Julie until tomorrow.

Adventures to, in, around Europe and back! DAY 2

We woke up eleven A.M, showered and met everyone downstairs and headed to the tour managers (Max) home town of Besancon, France. The drive was about two hours and Max took us on a scenic route to avoid tolls and to give us a view of the countries rolling green hills filled with cows and horses grazing lazily and some amazing architecture.
We stopped by Max's friends house, Zombie (he told us his real name but I can't remember it). He lives with his parents in an quiet neighborhood with huge green yards (front and back). Zombies mom was tending to her garden and stopped for a moment for introductions, no english but she had a great smile and seemed genuinely happy to meet us.
After meeting Zombies mom, we toured the backyard enjoyed the peace and then headed to the front and hung out in the drive way. As we were all sitting around, talking and having some lager Zombies mom came and presented me with a bunch of Lily of the Valley Flowers (they look like tiny little white bells and smell so fresh!). I was told that May 1st is a holiday as a springtime celebration and women around the country a presented with bunches of Lily of the Valley flowers. Shortly after she brought a bunch out for Nicole as well and told us she made sure she gave us the roots so we could plant them in our yards and have them forever. She was so sweet to think of us and I wish customs would have let us take our plants home.
After our visit we got back on the road to get to the hotel for check in. The hotel was smack dab in the middle of town, surrounded by shops, cafe's, pubs and the architecture, wow. This town has some serious history, it's first recordings were reported by Julius Caeser and I believe was established as Besancon in the 11th century.
Parking the car to check in was an ordeal, I was driving and since the streets are so narrow the locals drive up on the curb and park on the sidewalk. I was not comfortable doing this so I woke Nicole up and made her do the parking job, I was not going to be responsible for popping a tire! After we were all checked in we met back downstairs to head up to Max's place but had to park the car somewhere because we couldn't leave it on the sidewalk. The drive up this hill to park was not bad but the walking down the hill to Max's flat brought us to the realization that we were going to have to walk back up that hill to get the car on 3 days later. At Max's flat, which was another five flights of tiny wooden spiral stairs, we relaxed, drank wine, had some cinnamon vodka and jager shots along with cheese, wine, smoked salmon and quiche. A couple of Max's friends came over and then we went out to a pub for a few hours. Thankfully, non of us had to drive because everything is in walking distance! We headed back to the hotel around two-thirty A.M. It was a long good night hanging out with the locals.