Merry Christmas to Me!

I'm starting to feel as though i'm never gonna find a job. First off, it's Chicago and it's December, which means that it is freezing outside. Who in their right mind wants to walk around looking for jobs?? So basically ive been just searching the internet looking for jobs and hoping that someone will love my resume enough that they'll call me up for a job!! I feel as though maybe i'm not doing enough but, i'm not going out there in the snow and 20 degree weather searching for a job that i'd probably hate anyway. So instead, I think that i'll keep searching the good ole' net for employment until i find something. That is the way i found my last two jobs so hopefully something will come along. I guess in the meantime i'll keep being a good housewife and keep the house looking good and clean for my future husband so that when he gets home from a long hard day of work there will be something nice to come home to! haha....sometimes I wish that I could just be a housewife and not have to worry about all the job stuff...do my massage thing from home and be my own boss! Maybe once we move to the burbs I can. We'll have to see what happens. For now though, I must rack some money up quick so I can buy some nice gifts for Christmas! Gotta get some nice things for my fam and the dogs.

Wasting Time

I feel as though i've been having the worst luck lately. It took me a lot of hard work and dedication, BUT I finally made it thru school and was ready for my first massage job. So, I get hired at this place that is being built and the owner KNEW that this was my first job and that I was very new into the profession. She KNEW all of this. She told me that I had "a good touch" and that she would like to do a trade or two with me. So fast forward a month and a half about three weeks after our opening. As a new MT out there, I felt really good and was feeling like I definentely picked the right career this time. I was making people feel good and also enjoyed doing it. So right around this time my boss takes me aside telling me that a few people say that I seem like a novice. Okay, well I am a novice so that's alright I guess that they think that. I might not be the best at clinical because that is not something that I have been trained in and am learning that all on my own. Anyway, to make a long story short, my job was basically in jeopardy at this point. All for something that basically, in my opinion, should have never been a question because the fact that i was new was already out there. So anyway, fast forward another week. My boss calls me on the phone and tells me that she has to give my shifts away. The reasoning being was that I "don't have enough experience". And what really pisses me off about that is that I waited almost two months for this place to open and wasn't looking for a job. So now i've wasted two months of my life basically doing nothing when I could have been looking for something that maybe could have lasted. This is what really upsets me about the whole thing. I wasted months of my life making NO money when I could have made some elsewhere. Now there's only 6 months til the wedding/honeymoon and i'm jobless. How fabulous, right???
So this whole week, i've been searching the internet for jobs and basically come up with nothing. Hopefully something decent will come along so that the last 6 months of me living here are not hell. Anyway, if anyone knows of anything keep me posted!

to my bestest friend!

I'm such a lucky lady....just wanted to let everyone know of fabulous, Amir!

come back...don't you miss your mama??

last nite and today were a little bit depressing for me....

basically this week at work we've been getting tips from our clients and that's gonna pretty much be the majority of our paycheck, which is totally cool with me....however, i had a bit of a mishap that sort of leaves me in the dark....

for the past few days after work i'd put my tips in an envelop and then put it in a certain place that i knew in my own mind...so when i got home yesterday i went to do that same routine only when i got to this special place the envelop was NOT there..so i figured maybe it fell or i possibly put it somewhere else...well, this turned into over an hour of looking for the money and the outcome was not good....

i cannot understand what happened to it....the only thing that i can possibly think of was that by chance it got put in the trash and thrown away...but still i feel as though this is a long shot...i do recall bringing out the trash that nite, however, i don't know why i'd have brought the envelop with me.....this is all a mystery to me...and unfortunately it feels as though something has come and wiped out part of that nite so that i can't retrace my steps and find my hard earned money.....

i'm especially sad because this was my first week of working at my new job and i have no money...nothing to show....i will get a paycheck but that is going to be very minimal compared to what it is supposed to be with all of my lovely tips......

as The Streets would say "just try and stay positive" which is honestly what i've been trying to do, but when it's been over 24 hours and it's still missing staying positive is a long shot....i wish that i could call the police and tell them of my missing fundage and they would put out a search team....not gonna happen i suppose

i guess i learned my lesson with this one....i need to be a dork and make a checklist by my bed before i go to bed every nite to make sure i put my doe in it's proper home

my new life!

So i've started down the new road of my life....meaning i've started my new job as a Massage Therapist and am really enjoying it!! Yesterday I gave my first massage as a licensed massage therapist and I am thoroughly enjoying my new life. FINALLY i get to have a real job...a job that not just anyone from off the street could be hired for...a job that you have to actually be trained for and have taken classes and passed many difficult tests..i'm enjoying the fact that i worked my ass off to get to where i'm at now and am working in what i can now call " My Field"...anyway, i just wanted to write because it's been so long...i'll write more later!

Yes Dear

Dear blog,

I think that I may be making a mistake! My future husband is possibly one of best cooks in continent if not the entire world, and frankly this concerns me a little bit. Mainly because I have lost some weight with the hopes of it never coming back and this beautiful man is always making the most exquistely delicious meals that i am not capable of passing up....so do i say no and make him feel hurt and dejected OR do i eat the fabulous food and live with the thought of possibly not fitting into those tight jeans??
I must go....amir is calling me into the kitchen with his nice aroma of perfectly seasoned asparagus...................

life of the locks

i am one month shy of having my dreadlocks for 7 years. When I think about having had shed my old life for my life of now it's crazy. I first started having thoughts about getting dreadlocks put in my hair, but they were mainly just " oh yeah, locks are really cool, i think i may want them oneday" not sure if i really did because they are a major sacrifice...you have to know that if you are going to be getting them, to get rid of them normally most people cut most of their hair off...this is because usually your hair is locked so high up that you have to cut where they start...otherwise they will keep growing as locks since that is what your hair now knows...it's wild!
after a while these thoughts of maybe wanting to get locks turned into an obsession...i was constantly thinking about it..i wondered what they would look like, what I would look like with them, and what would it feel like to have them....so basically i decided that i was going to do it..i am someone who is very disciplined..i was a vegan for 4 years of my life even when everyone was telling me not to be.....and i've lost around 30 pounds in the 4 years, and most importantly...KEPT IT OFF! so yeah, i'd say i know about discipline and sacrifice...so anyway, i did a summer semester in London and there was this awesome hair salon i found called Hair By Fairy...they did tats, piercing and the craziest hairstyles you've probably ever seen....they did locks and i saw pictures of the ones that they did..they looked amazing!
so that was it...i now had a place to go! so when i went to visit my friends in london i went to get them done....i was a little nervous because the majority of my friends were against my doing this and said it wouldn't look good, but i didn't care...too much of my life i'd wasted caring what others thought..i was gonna do this....and i did!
now i'm there in the waiting area preparing myself mentally for what is gonna be a new chapter of my life....people may not know it, but when you get locks you enter a whole new community.....they hold a lot of energy and power in them and it seems that the longer they get the more they hold....when you walk by a fellow dread there is this recognition that is hard to explain unless you have them too....but it's definitely interesting...i don't think that i was ready for everything that they were gonna bring me....but i am very grateful to have them...i love them!!!
anyway, to get them put in was a 3 hour long process...it was a bit painful but well worth it....i cut them once about a year and a half after having them, then didn't cut them again til last year..they were down to my butt....they were starting to hurt my neck and invade my life so i cut them....it was actually SOO nice to have shorter hair that i wanted to cut it even shorter....
for so long i didnt cut my hair mainly because i was so used to it being so long and that was kind of my trademark....everyone always would tell me not to cut them because they were so cool and i basically listened to them...sometimes you've just gotta forget what others say and do what you want so i cut my hair...and i just cut it again yesterday the shortest that it has been in years....probably since i first got my locks...i really like my hair now..it goes with my height...i'm short so now i have shorter hair!


ME BEFORE

Me NOW with SHORTER HAIR!

knowing "the line"

to me there's a little thing called "grocery store etiquette" ....or shall i say "grocery LINE etiquette".....so yesterday i'm at the grocery store struggling to hold my grocery basket....the lady ahead of me had already put all of her things on the conveyor and was just standing there waiting to be rung up....the one thing that she didn't do was put that little bar down so that our things wouldn't be muffled together....you see normally i wouldn't mind putting my groceries up there but this time there wasn't enough space to where both our items would be considered the same order....in my mind putting the bar after your groceries when somebody's behind you is just what you're supposed to do...maybe i'm a little crazy because of all of the years i've worked in grocery stores..who knows?

so i ask her...."would you mind please handing me that bar?" she gives me this look like she couldnt' believe that i would ever ask such a thing.....she did hand it to me BUT the whole time she had this smirk on her face like she was too good to hand me the bar! the thing that pissed me off the most about this smirk was that she didnt' have it before i asked her and she had it almost the whole rest of the time she was in line......i really wanted to tell this lady off....like sometimes, when you see someone staring at you forever and you just want to see "do you have a problem??" but i never do....i said nothing to the lady because i don't like to cause a scene, but i told her off a few good times in my mind while we were both still standing there...

the moral of this story is.....use good grocery store etiquette and put down the damn bar..it's really not that difficult!

summer 2008...please come around!

i'm getting really excited for my wedding! i always was wishing/hoping that the day would come that i'd be getting married and it's gonna be here very soon....the dress has been purchased, save the date cards have gone out and people are starting to think about getting hotel rooms....i am hoping that quite a few of our friends are going to come...for a lot of people the idea of getting married in Vegas is to just do a quick ceremony and have as little people there as possible....for me, i'd love to have as many people we know come and share our day! we picked a fabulous hotel (Caesar's Palace) and I just want it to be fabulous while spending as little money as possible...yay!!! now i just need to find out a cool bar that where all of our guests can hang out with us after the wedding....i guess there's this one called the Seahorse Bar...there's supposed to be a huge, beautiful aquarium full of seahorses, of course, right? so that may be an option...not exactly sure yet....the only thing i'm a little saddened about with my wedding package purchase is that it doesn't include a dress rehearsal which kind of scares me...i know that all you do is walk down the aisle, but still i'd like to have a practice run.....i was a bit suprised upon finding this out....it's kinda dumb to me it's not included....like they don't make enough money, right?? oh well!

another fabulous thing about the wedding is that it is a destination wedding...and from vegas we're renting a car and driving to San Fran which extremely excites me b/c i've never driven through any of the western states...they are so gorgeous and am looking forward to doing this...not to mention that at the end of the drive will be san fran which i've been wanting to see for pretty much my entire life! to be cont'd

there's no denying

i guess that i'm still kind of in denial about the weather here in chicago...for the last 4 months we haven't needed a coat of sweater of any kind...you could just go ouside and be free! just one week ago it was almost 90 degrees out and a guy died while running the marathon partially because of the heat...one day it could be 90 and then get into the 50s at nite...pretty bizarre...
for the past week its been cold....it's been round 50s...sad part is that in a month i'll be praying for 50!! i don't know why i do this to myself....the city itself is beautiful and has so much to offer..we've got museums, restaurants, theatre, shopping, pretty much we've got everything that you could ask for in a major city...and we have one more thing that some cities don't have...we've got times when the temp gets in the single digits and lingers there for days... even worse than the temp can go below zero....this is when i ask myself...why am i here? is this place really worth all the layers of clothes that we have to bundle on ourselves til we look like our own little snowmen..
when i was young the cold didn't bother me as much...i had a little more padding and hadn't lived in Florida yet....i was SO spoiled there...amir's always talking about wanting to move back there and i keep telling him no....in a few months i won't understand my reasoning when you step outside and it feels as though someone's slicing you with a knife....i do like living near my family though....i guess that they are the main reason that i'm still here....AND chicago IS a fun place to live...can't forget about that one...more people need to come here (in the summer) and experience this city...it's one of the us's major cities
unfortunately, the only thing that will persuade me to move away from this land of frozen corn and abe lincoln...is moving out west....let's move to california, amir! just try and not think about the earthquakes! there's so much more to the state than that...it's so beautiful out there..it really feels like a whole different world and that's why i am so obsessed with it..
anyway, my whole point in writing this was to say that i think i can no longer deny the fact that it's getting cold...because as it looks right now, summer is over...fall is here and winter is coming and probably sooner than we all think....which brings me to another point...come let me give you a massage because winter and the cold tightens our muscles and makes us have many more aches and pains...arnica and heat blankets can only do so much...it's much more exciting to have someone that cares rub all of your tension away.....so, come see me and i'll have some hot chocolate and hot tea waiting

the last day....

this morning i'm riding on the L knowing that this is the last day of work forever at Equinox and it makes me smile a bit...on the L ride here I had a strange thought. CTA has been doing a ton of construction on the tracks basically everywhere so much of the time we are moving painfully slow. today were had just gotten underground...we basically stopped moving and then moved about an inch, then stop, then move another inch, then stop....this happened for maybe 30 seconds..however, in those 30 seconds i had a thought ...what if we are not moving so slowly because of the construction..what if the L had gotten stuck on the track and couldn't move and we were trapped underground?? i thought about this for a second and then made myself think of something else....i mean, we are pretty far underground and you just never know what could happen which is quite a horrible feeling....but such is life...i guess that basically anything could happen anywhere...just try and be somewhat prepared when shit happens but try not to dwell on it too much in everyday life...
the good thing about my ride to work today was that i knew that it would be my last....this job wasn't horrible...but it wasn't my favorite..i'm used to fast paced jobs where you are constantly being harrassed by the customer..however, at my job now all i do is sit at a computer for what seems like years sometimes with NOTHING happening for hours...it can be extremely boring and i have to use all of my energy to stay awake most of the time....i do like the internet but ths is killing it for me...i lasted about a month here which was the longest i'd hoped to be here til i found my future massage job which i have..yay!!
my massage license is in the mail as we speak..hopefully will be getting it by Friday...took A LOT less time than me and everyone else had anticipated which is wonderful....NOW i can start saving some honeymoon money...amir will be so thrilled

is it really gone?????

lately i've been feeling so uninspired...i feel like im not as artistic as i was back in the day....don't get me wrong...i'm still young but i guess back in college i was in theatre school and emmersed with every kind of art you could possibly think of....i still am emmersed with art..my man is a dj and producer who makes all of his own beats and writes rhythmes to go with all of his beats...and as we speak he's probably writing something immaculate right now....
yesterday i went out to do some photography...it felt nice b/c this past year i've been in school and there was no extra time for taking photos....so my plan was that i wanted to take photos of the fall..leaves were falling, trees were changing color and so on....but once i got out there i felt as though i've done this before....i took some photos but i wasn't really in love with any of them...i just wasn' t feeling inspired at all....maybe it's my hood...cuz i've already taken so many pictures in my hood that i feel there's nothing new and exciting for me to photograph...although i kinda feel that a true artist can perform their art no matter what...so could it be that maybe the hiatus i took crippled me?? could i possibly have lost what eye i had?? i felt like before we moved to chicago and even the first month we were here i was capable of taking some awesome photos....i'm still such a youthful lady! and don't think it's my time to be washed away with the tide...i've never been a britney fan and definently don't want to join the club that she's in............

mouth wars!

i think that i've proven to myself that i'm stronger than i may have thought.....a few months ago i was having a small amount of pain in my far back top tooth.....figured that i'd just need a filling..nothing more...however, i hadn't been to the dentist in a while b/c of the fact that i have no insurance....i probably should have been going back at least once a year for a routine cleaning....but i guess there's a lot of things that should be done....
so i get to the dentist, this is a new dentist b/c my family dentist basically flat out lied to my dad (telling him one time that he would give him a free filling b/c he didn't like the way that one of them looked....then when dad went to get it the dentist acted like he said nothing of the sort)..so i'm at a new dentist all alone which is a pretty scary thing in itself b/c the dentist can be a really frightening place with all of the dentist tools that make horrible screeching and drilling sounds....i told him what my problem was and he's like " you don't need a filling, you need a root canal". i was kind of in shock b/c of the simple fact that i just started feeling pain...when you need to have a root canal it's b/c something not so good has been happening to your tooth for a while...i'm really confused why i never felt really anything at all until like a week before i went to the dentist.....
when he told me i needed a root canal i didnt even know how much they cost or anything...i was just planning on maybe spending $150.....well, he told me it would cost $800 and that's not even with a freaking crown!!! it didn't seem like i had much of a choice so i unfortunately had to break into my secret stash of cash....
so not only do i have to go through a root canal which i had no idea what to freaking expect but i also had to pay a shitload of money and still not be able to afford a crown.......i was pretty strong during the whole process....the worst part of the whole root canal was the shot of anesthesia that they give at the beginning...i didn't really care for it...it may me feel really weird and kinda like i was gonna die b/c, he gave me the shot and then leaves...so i'm sitting there waiting for this stuff to kick in and not sure what to expect.....at times i felt as though i was gonna die b/c i could hardly swallow...that was a little scary to me.....so after it kicks in he comes back and starts the actual root canal....i kept my eyes closed cuz i didn't want to see anything that was being used in my mouth....it reminded me of when i was younger riding on rollercoasters..basically i could get through anything as long as my eyes were closed....the sounds of all the different drills, and machines he was using made me cringe for a lot of it and thank god for the armrests on those chairs b/c i was holding onto it for dear life....
all in all i made it through.....however, today i had to go back yet again....b/c there was a part of my tooth that chipped off of that same tooth...i guess cuz the tooth is dead it basically needs to be crowned immediately but because i'm poor we'll see if there's even a tooth to crown by the time i can afford it.....
the lesson of this story is : DON'T spend ALL of your money on clothes and eating out...put some of it toward your annual teeth cleaning...it will save you a lot of agony!!

7 Reasons Why My Massage School Sucked

It's really sad that my massage school was only in it for the money. They could care less if you are a practicing MT or if you even finish your clinicals. I think that the worst part of it all is that only two of us graduated out of a class of seven, and unforunately, I would never recommend this school to anyone. So many things have happened during my time in this program that I even question their accredibility. So here are the 7 main reasons why my massage school sucked.

1. "Our school" was hired to do attend a chair massage event. There was one girl from my class who attended and during one of her massages the guy asked her the name of the place she worked. She responded to him by saying that she was a student. Our teacher quickly pulled her aside and said " don't tell anyone that you're a student. they think that you are a professional".

2. Our school was hired to do a chair massage event in the suburbs so that meant that we had to all drive there. Days after we all signed up for this our teacher tells us, "oh yeah, by the way, you each have to pay for parking and that is gonna cost you $15". We only found out that we had to pay for our own parking about 3 days before the event. This is a lot of money for students to pay.

3. We were going to be attending yet another chair massage event. This time our teacher told us the day before, "make sure to bring your own paper towels". He tells us this as he's walking away from us down the hallway. We asked why don't they provide them for us b/c it's something we need for our education? He responds by telling us that he wants to teach us to be sole proprietors of our own businesses. So this was a step in that direction.

4. In our curriculum it said that we were going to be studying accupressure which made me extremely excited. Unfortunately, when we actually started in the class I was not impressed. Our teacher was a really cute little asian women who didn't have the best english speaking skills. In my opinion, when you're a teacher i could care less if you're cute...what i care about is if you can speak the language. It was frustrating b/c you could tell she knew her shit but wasn't always able to express it the way she liked, which in turn made it frustrating for her students.

5. It was the day of my last clinical and i was given my transcripts by my teacher. On the way home i am looking at it and notice that the date was typed incorrectly. I immediately call her and tell her this b/c she's already sent in a copy to the NCBTMB for my test application. I had to tell her to correct this and immediately send another one or this would delay the whole test application process. She tells me, okay i'll fix it and send it out. In the meantime I leave for Cali for two weeks. I come back and call her to make sure that she's done this. By this time almost a month has gone by. She tells me "oh my gosh, Mel, i completely forgot". A month had gone by and nothing had been done. Why am i not suprised?

6. My friend and i go to take the national cert test the exact same day. We had been studying for this test forever and shouldn't have had any problems. I get in there and am sitting there freaking out in my mind b/c the test we were taking i had not been prepared for. We were not taught this stuff at all. So i pass, my friend doesn't. I end up coming to find out that there are two tests and our school prepared us for "the other one"!!!! Never did they tell us what one we were supposed to sign up for. All of the study guides for the test that they gave us said massage AND BODYWORK. All in all my friend has to pay another $200 to take this again when she shouldn't have to. And she has to wait another few months. Such a waste

7. And the biggest problem that everyone in my class had with our school was the way that they approached clinicals. We had to bring in 35 of our own people. Plus they each had to pay $45/hour. For those of us who aren't from Chicago, that is hard to do. Plus alot of my friends don't have that kind of money. The school's only help was when someone would call in every now and then and ask for a student massage. The only advertising was on the school's website. Unfortuately, only me and one other person out of 6 students actually finished their clinicals. The rest of the students are still struggling to find people to come in. It's a very sad situation

looking up to the stars

my last two posts were a bit sad...SO i must switch the mode a little bit..

i'm really excited b/c last night i went online to the bodyworkmall.com site and they have some awesome stuff on their for massage! i am gonna be outta work for an undetermined amount of time (waiting for my MT license) so i need to be saving the money, but i thought i'd invest in my business....Massages by Mel ! sounds cool, right??? i love it !
i ended up buying a nice set of flannel sheets and a fleece headpiece cover.......so now i can start having clients come to the house!
i think that the next thing i'll be buying is the fleece underblanket so my table will be extra soft and comfy for my future clients...and so that they won't want to leave when i'm done...or at least just so that they will come back! oh yeah, and i need to buy partitions so that i can make a "separate room" for my massages
it'll be nice when our lease runs out and we're able to move into a new place where a room will be dedicated to my massage...hopefully that'll happen with the next place we have..keep your fingers crossed!
i was a little depressed to be out of work for who knows how long, but i'm actually looking forward to it b/c now i can get more things together for the wedding, our registry,invites,and whatnot.
i've really been slacking on my photos so i need to get that going again.and i want to start putting my photos online in the etsy shop...i'll hopefully get to see all of the friends that i've unfortunately been neglecting since i was studying for the national cert test...
honestly, i LOVE not having a job except for the simple fact that i don't have a lot of money...i need to make some fliers to promote my own massage business..it's my dream to work from home....maybe dreams can come true!

just when you think you're on track: part 2

i was starting to believe things were finally starting to come together for me...i'm getting married soon, i've recently graduated from massage school, taken the national certification test AND passed it, and i even recently had gotten, what seemed to be the best massage job i could find besides working for myself....things just really seemed to be falling into place...i started feeling really excited for the fact that soon i'd be able to start saving money for my honeymoon also to start putting money aside for me and amir's next future place...i was feeling very much like an adult and it felt great! who knew that feeling like an adult could feel so fabulous? sure it's nice to not have to ask your parents to go on the town or sleepover at your man's house, however, being an adult it kinda stressful too...
getting mail is NO longer fun it 's simply just " yay, another bill in the mail" i didn't sign up for all this..i miss the carefree days of high school and college where i didnt' have any real responsibilities...
so anyway, my life was seeming to be taking the right path...i was mainly REALLY excited to start working this new massage job...my boss is awesome, i've got great hours, i'm just extremely pumped to be working my first massage job! then the reality hits..i don't have my physical license yet..i've passed the test and sent away for the license but i still haven't recieved it yet....the worst part of it is..all you can do it wait ...the state is responsible for issuing this to us and they take the longest possible time to get send it out...they say it can take anywhere from 6 to 8 weeks before you see this sheet of paper...so anyway, i can't actually start this new fabulous job until i get this paper....my boss unfortunately thought i had recieved this for some reason, so now she said that she's gonna have to hire someone for my shifts...this really makes me feel horrible...it's really sad b/c i've had recieved what seems to me as the perfect job and i just have to watch it slip through my fingers and there's nothing i can physically do but wait and hope to see it in the mail...i blame all of this and much more on my school....they were a horrible school for many reasons which i will explain another time...but if they had told me i had to apply for my license this probably wouldn't be happening right now....anyway...i'm gonna go watch la ink and tori spelling's show now

just when you think you're on track: Part 1

So this is my first post ever. I've had a rough few days so i thought i'd put it all in writing to provide some kind of therapy for myself...
yesterday i'm walking out of my apartment and see this bright fluorescent orange paper on the door...i was figuring it was just some useless adverstisement that i couldn't care less about as usual..however the closer i got to it i saw that it was, in fact, something of importance...it happened to a lovely letter from the City of Chicago telling us how they were apparently going to shut off our water b/c our landlord had neglected to pay the bill in several months and was in debt to them hundreds of dollars....i was in no way suprised by this b/c our landlord was worthless at helping us in any way...it took him 3 weeks just to come check out our leaking roof! and that was AFTER THE FAC T.. so anyway, i was all ready to take legal action if i had to, but luckily they said that they would pay it asap..i was kinda in shock that the resolution to this happened so easily, but i guess that they know having the water turned off would probably make us call the city oh his ass...all is well i guess with our place...at least for now..there's always something that happens to come up...if we're lucky nothing will come up til the end of april after we've already moved out!