Tuesday, May 27, 2014

oh, great, she's blogging again?!


So,  it's been a while.......

I've heard before that writing is like a muscle- if you don't use it, it gets out of shape and it forgets how to work the right way. I'm totally feeling like an out of shape muscle with these first few sentences. How long has it been since I've written more than a paragraph at a time?! I can't even remember that far back (maybe my memory muscle is weak too....).

I used to be on a weekly blogging schedule, posting pictures and little blurbs of memories about the adventures I'd had the week before. Looking back, that was one of the best ideas I have ever had, because any time I want to I can go to my old blog and remember that period of my existence that seems like lifetimes ago, back when I was "living the dream" and touring with bands, first with Fifth on the Floor and then with Shooter Jennings. Even as I type that I have to step back and have one of those "Do what?!" kind of moments. I toured with bands?! I lived on a tour bus (ON A TOUR BUS)?! How is it even possible that that was real life? I can remember way way back (mostly because I wrote blogs about it) when all I could think of was how in the world I could find a job as a merch girl and get on the road and leave my boring, normal life behind. And then I actually did it. Do what?!, indeed.

For a year I did that, crossing the country, going to venues in almost every state. It was amazing while it lasted. But it was also hard. It put a huge strain on my relationship with my family and on my financial standing- my parents were far from fans of me being the only girl with a bunch of guys living on a bus (understandable from their point, but in actuality I couldn't have picked better groups of brothers who were always looking out for me) and I made little to no money. I missed my family and I hated not being able to be part of things going on at home, but I was ok with being broke and made the most of the time I was home. Really, I think I could have done it forever had these been the only factors. But I met another factor right as the Shooter tour was winding down, and everything kind of changed. There was a whole other part of my existence that I had pushed to the back of my mind as I was out having fun, and meeting him made me realize that maybe it was time to think about heading in that direction now.

So I unpacked my bag for the last time and settled, slowly, back into "normal" life. It was hard. And there are still days now when it gets hard. Last week, to be quite honest, I pulled up my blog and was looking at old pictures and reading stories and I cried like a baby, right at my desk. I missed (miss?) the fun, the carelessness, the freedom, the adventure. But when the adventure and the freedom came with those same big baby tears every time I had to leave, it just wasn't worth it as much anymore. So in short, I fell head over heels in love with the bf, got a job (just a part time one though, no need to jump in too quickly), settled back in with madre and papa bear, and now I'm here, looking forward to a future and a different kind of adventure that I can't wait to embark on.

I'm not sure that any of this post was necessary information for you, the reader, but for me the writer it was a necessary step. Almost like spring cleaning for my mind-- I had to get all that out before I could turn the page to the next new chapter! What is the new chapter? Well, I'm so glad you asked:
I present to you......

Pampered Paleo

I have to write. It's almost like an illness, I won't have a fulfilled existence without it. I love to cook, and I love sharing recipes just as much. Recently, I've taken my love of cooking and tied it into a new business venture by becoming a Pampered Chef Independent Consultant. Buttttt with all the cooking love and Pampered Chef recipes and the readjustment to living at home with the parents again (whoopee! not.), I had to find a new diet lifestyle to stop my fast track to my own TLC show, "600 Pound 20-Something."  After a lot of  research (i.e. pineresting diet plans) I stumbled across the "paleo" (pronounced pay-lee-o) diet. I'll explain more about what that is in a later post. Basically, it's a way of eating that involves lots of veggies and protein, fruits and nuts, and eliminates processed foods, sugars, grains, legumes and dairy, leaving you to eat in a style similar to how the cavemen would have eaten, hence the name paleo- short for Paleolithic. I really liked the paleo diet, and as I would search for recipes, I kept coming across the term "Whole30 and eventually I looked into that. (More on the Whole30 later, too.)

The Whole30 Challenge is basically a 30-day no cheat paleo diet. You use it to really get to know your body and how it reacts to food. I decided to take the challenge, and loved it. I felt better than I ever had, with more energy, better sleep, and overall better feeling.

After finishing my Whole30 I've gotten a little off track quite a few times. I have a very unhealthy psychological relationship with food- I'm a bored eater, a stress eater, a sad eater--and when I'm feeling feelings, I don't turn to a carrot for comfort. I want cake! And chocolate! And fat fat fat. So, due to this inability to eat like a normal sane human, I started the Whole30 again.

A lot of people have asked me questions about recipes and paleo how-to's, so that's what this blog will be. Recipes and meal ideas that not only follow the paleo/Whole30 rules, but also are made using fabulous Pampered Chef products. I know it's nowhere near as exciting as seeing pictures of cool venues and different cities and semi-famous people. But if you're interested in a new way of cooking and eating and products that can help you do that, then I hope you'll come along on this adventure :) My new blog address is http://pamperedpaleo.blogspot.com/ Come visit!

Monday, February 17, 2014

My Last Foray

Wednesday, October 9
Rev Room
Little Rock, Arkansas


I'm so blessed to have so much at home that makes leaving (for the last time) this hard. So so blessed.

Cupcakes and coffee for breakfast make for a very good day.



Pretty Little Rock



Insatfood.


Leopold and His Fiction -- Such a great band. Seriously check them out. Really cool guys, too.

There's one in every crowd.



Plastic pants guarantee multiple new suitors each time i suction my big butt into them.  Also, can you tell how hard I work?





 Everyone here has the same accent as me and I hate it.


 "Have you ever gave a horse a pill?!"-- Seriously, I could write a book of all the things I overhear.
Love this pic.



"Omg, he's playing Nirvana!" Yes, yes he is.
Thursday, October 10
WorkPlay
Birmingham, Alabama


I took lots of pictures this day because we spent most of it stuck in the parking lot of the Rev Room cause our bus broke. If you're keeping up, then yes, broken buses are a trend. A terrible, bad trend. 

 


Friday, October 11
Day Off

Birmingham/Savannah, Georgia

We spent this lovely day off outside of Birmingham doing guess what?! Getting the bus fixed! So after a wonderful whirlwind taxi ride across the outskirts of the city in search of a post office, after a lovely wake up of Shirtless Rick yelling words I've never even heard before as he tried to turn the bus sans power steering, we ended up at this lovely establishment. 


In the amount of time I've spent at tire/repair shops while on tour, I could have actually done something productive with my life





Oh the irony of choosing this seat in the bar under which I ate my cheeseburger.

Thank goodness for snap chats and the sweetest boy in the world :)

 I'm in Savannah-- Where's Paula Deen?

The GFY's. Pretty cool kids, even if they are yankees.









So I went to Savannah, a city I've always wanted to go to, and all I did was eat at Waffle House. This is basically a definition of the negative side of being on tour. 

I think this is what you call a mutiny.
Waffle House tastes even better after you sit in the middle of an Almost Famous style meltdown. Actually I would have eaten anything just to get off that bus. Just so happens waffles and hashbrowns with gravy are my favvvvvvv.


Saturday, October 12
Tybee Island Pirate Festival
Tybee Island, Georgia

 
Waking up to this does not suck. Not one bit.
 I love the beach. I would never leave the sun and the sand if I didn't have to. So you better believe my big butt bought and over-priced bikini and towel and planted myself by the ocean for as many hours as I could.




Heaven.

Ok, if I wouldn't have been alone it would have been much more Heaven-like.

Oh, ya know, just some pirates washing up on the beach.

Pirates and pirate festivals. I don't know what to even think of this. I think I love it though.




Pirates. Arrgh.

Fireworks on the beach!



Apparently I took one picture of the last show of the tour and it was this terribly blurry one. Fitting, I guess. 








"The beach...It's just like a human size litter box."




So after the show was over, one of the guys and I decided to go adventuring. We met up with this lovely couple who I had met at the merch table. They bought Waylon's old tour bus, and we made friends. Here we begin the photo shoot. I'd like to point out that Matt took at least 25 of each picture every single time, so this is just a selection of the best ones.  



This woman was wild and hilarious and I loved her.



Sweet little lady also took multiples of EVERYTHING.


Seriously, this is only a fourth of the pictures we took




The mother f'in Tybee Island Pirate Fest. This is picture number one.

This is picture 10. That is not an exaggeration.

There was a point to this. I forgot it. But there was a point.

I couldn't go to a pirate festival and not get a picture with a pirate. Or 30 pictures with the same pirate. Nbd.

There are literally 30 copies of this same picture still on my phone.

He looked like a real pirate! He was super nice. I pretended he was Johnny Depp. He was not.



One of these pirates is not like the other.
Sunday, October 13
Georgia Guidestones

If youve never heard of the Georgia Guidestones, you should look them up. Super interesting.





This road wasn't really tour-bus friendly.



Pizza Hut. Taco Bell. Combination Pizza Hut Taco Bell.


Thank you, Shooter for bringing this little gem into my life. 

I'm a child, I will deny this none.

If this song was a video, the soundtrack would be Shirtless Rick singing Elton John songs. All of them. LOUDLY.
 One of the first shows we did, one of the boys made a tiki sign "magically" appear on the bus. Same boy made an orange cone appear after one of the last shows. Ahh, full circle.

Uses for "borrowed" orange cones: 

1. hat

2. Foot prop

3. Computer charger cord warning

And then, in the typical style of the last few months of touring, the bus broke so we spent hours and hours in the parking lot of this gas station, somewhere near Manchester, Tennessee. Then we took a super fun 15 passenger van ride back to Nashville, followed by a super fun 2 hour drive for me in my car to home. It was not a fun day. We made the best of it, but it was not fun.