Insert Clever Title Here

DISCLAIMER: I'm lacking creativity at the moment, so please forgive my embarassingly dull title. I'm also feeling a little out-of-it so also excuse grammatical errors, or disorganized thoughts.

First: I have a new niece. As if I need another reason to LOVE Texas. Tara and Kyle had their baby, Makenna Jolene Jenkins, last Tuesday. She is absolutely gorgeous and I am so grateful that I was able to be here to meet her. I am excited to be "Aunt Devie" again. I have missed my nieces and nephews so much since leaving Arizona. Little "Jo" (as I call her), is going to have the best aunt ever. That's Jo and me up there in our Sunday best, blurry, I know, but it was taken with a cell phone.

Second: Hey, whoa! I have had pretty much a permanent food baby since I have moved to Tx. Not cool. I'm still a workout-aholic, I just cannot handle edible temptation and my boss keeps her house stocked with goodies. Remember that one post? That one where I was all motivated and living a healthy lifestyle? If not here it is, take some time and read it! http://devinjenkins24.blogspot.com/2009/02/currently.html There it is. I don't know how to make it say "click here" so.... yeah it's just the html. Forgive me. Anyway. I need to get back to that. I workout, I'm just missing the healthy eating part. As I said in the mentioned post, I am publicly declaring that I am now going to be eating less and healthy while excersing more in hopes that I will actually will.

Third: I did the Warrior Dash! So fun! Pictures coming soon! I'm also doing the Boondock Battle 5k mud run next Saturday. I promise to start taking pictures and posting them. My camera, unfortunately, suffered an early death in the rain on my 20th birthday last year, and I have yet to figure out how to transfer pics from my phone to my computer. Ok, so that's about it for now!

Life in the Lonestar State

Where to start? I love Texas. I haven't decided if I love it more than Arizona, but it's pretty dang close. One of my favorite things is how much green there is. It's beautiful. Driving around town in Az, if it's not paved, it's rocks, or just dirt. Here the sidewalks are lined with grass, the freeways with trees and open fields. There's random patches of forrest in the middle of developments. Green is my favorite color to see outside and it's even better when capped off with amazingly clear blue skies. Another thing to love about Texas? The people. The people are so much friendlier here! If you happen to make eye contact with someone at the grocery store or anywhere they smile and politely say "Howdy!" I still haven't gotten used to "howdy" yet, and I still feel awkward saying it, but it is growing on me. "Ya'll" has found it's way into my vocabulary. At first I cringed whenever it slipped out, but I have to admit that it has started to feel natural. There is a big difference in culture when it comes to the young single adults here. Back in AZ Christie and I would recieve random mass texts about birthday parties in Mesa or Gilbert. We would go, not knowing who was celebrating a birthday. We hardly even knew anyone there, we had fun, but it was rare to meet new people. There would be hundreds of people, all in their own cliques (Click or Clique?) All that was served was water, maybe chips and salsa if you're lucky. Here, when the Singles' Ward get's together, there's food. People mingle. It's personal. If someone new shows up, they are immediately introduced to the 30 some odd people there, and made to feel welcome. But the food. Let's talk about that. No just snacks, boys are grilling, or cooking stuff in a fire. Not just cheeseburgers, oh no. Legitimate meals. There's one guy who loves to cook for everybody. He took the time to stuff jalepenos w/ cheese and wrap them up in bacon w/ sausage. Amazing. What else do I love about Texas? Oh, I know! This is special to College Station. I love the school spirit here. It's amazing. I never was one for school spirit in high school, but ASU. Ohh ASU! I love ASU football, and everything ASU! I grew up going to football games and walking into Sun Devil Stadium was like going home. I couldn't help but grin when I walked through the gates. I mean, I love ASU! At least I thought I did. The Aggie spirit here is like nothing I have ever experienced. It's intense! No cheerleaders, there are yell leaders. They lead chants that every student in the student section knows. Every sport is important here. Although football is the main event, there's a crowd at every sporting event football, volleyball, baseball, even women's basketball (they're playing for the championship tonight, so they actually are really good). Everybody know every word to the fight song. On weekends when out at dance a hall at 12:30am, everything stops, music stops playing, and everybody forms a circle. They play the fight song & everybody sings a along. They sway from left to right during the chorus and yell something at the end. I seriously need to learn this song because I am the only one in Aggieland who doesn't. This post is getting long... one last thing for now! The dance halls! So much fun! Tabetha got me to go dancing with her and her friends for the first time in late January. I learned how to two-step, which I'm still working on. But, yeah, it's just a lot of fun to go out and dance with friends. The dance halls are pretty big, and I have never seen so many people dance to country music in my life! I'm used to everybody sitting down in protest when a country song is played at a dance. Okay, so that's it for now. Once I figure out how to transfer pictures from my phone to my computer, I will post them! I love you, Mom & Kathy! Thanks for reading my blog so it's not complete waste!

I can't sleep, so why not update my blog?

It's been a long time, I'm not sure if anyone even reads my blog anymore.... and if someone does, it's probably you, Mom. Love you. I last updated a year ago, and a lot has transpired since then. The biggest thing being that I moved to Texas. Can we just start there? I now live with Kyle and Tara in College Station and have been here since early July. Living with them has been great, but I'm moving out this month and in with my friend, Tabetha. Texas is different and I definitely miss my family and friends back in Az, but it's not all bad here. I was blessed to get an amazing job being a nanny for a four year old boy, and a little girl who is now ten months. Matthew and Kaitlin. Best. Job. EVER. (considering I have no college degree or special job training). The family is amazing. I have health insurance and even a 401K. Throughout the football season I traveled to Nebraska with them for every Husker home game. Did I mention they own a plane? I spend most of my time with Kaitlin, who I absolutely adore. I love seeing her grow and progress every single day. When I first started all she did was lay on the floor, now she crawls, pulls herself up on furniture, goes up the stairs, and attempts to stand on her own (and she isn't far from mastering that). It won't be long before she is walking. Matthew isn't bad either. I love teaching him about football and other sports, he's so eager to learn everything about every sport. When I first met him we were playing the Nebraska Cornhuskers Vs. the Arizona Cardinals in the BCS Championship Super Bowl. Now he knows the difference between College and the NFL. He can also name at least 25 NFL players, their team, their number, and their position. I'll start school next fall, when I'm a resident here and tuition is cheaper. Until then I'll keep working for the McMahons. I'm not too happy about putting off school for a year, but I know I am where I am supposed to be and I have already seen the blessings I have received from moving here. When I do start school I want to major in Kinesiology. I then want to go to PA school. That's the plan for now, but there's a lot of time to change my mind. What else? Oh, new year's resolutions. I have many. A few of my big ones are to do service at least once a month, attend institute weekly, read my scriptures daily, and I really want to visit the retirement home weekly. One of my other big goals is to become a runner. I want get up in the morning and run while the sun rises at least twice a week, and by April complete a half marathon and maybe a couple more through the summer and by January 2012 I want to visit Arizona to run the P.F. Chang's marathon. I tend to suffer injuries when I get too intense, and I recently hurt my neck, so I hope this can all happen accident and pain free. My last goal is to be buying my own car by the time school starts next fall. That's about it. I'm starting to Thanks.get sleepy so I'm gonna go ahead and call it quits. Please excuse any bad grammar or bad spelling.

Halloween.

I can't believe it's already November! Time has flown! I love it! School is going okay, I'm passing Chemistry so I'd say I'm doing pretty well! Stake softball has started again, and guess what! Yes, we are undefeated, yet again. The week of Halloween last year, a lot of people dressed up at softball. Nobody on my team did, though. This year, Christie and I though we would at least do our makeup a little scary and be "dead softball players" which kinda turned out more so to be "dead sparkly pixie fairies." Oh well. Anyway, we got to the fields and we were two of the very very few people dressed up. Whatever, everybody was jealous. Halloween was a blast, though. Andria, Christie, Jaimie, Kiefer, Isaac, and I went to Ben's party at his house. Blast. We danced, socialized, you know, the usual. I was kind of lame, and dressed up as an ASU football player.... I know, but I didn't have to buy anything for it and I'm a broke college student! After, Andria and I went to pick up Kenna and met the others at a dance held in an airplane hanger in Gilbert. Over 1700 people. It was a lot of fun dancing around and whatnot. I even met some incredi-hot Spartans. Afterward, we sat in a McDonalds drive-thru for about 15 minutes with 2 other cars until we realized they were closed. Ha. & that's about it! ... So i messed up the pictures & they're on top. oops. I'm too lazy to fix it, so deal. Thanks.

School Has Started

School has started. It isn't too bad thus far. Monday I have Chem & Lab, basically four hours of Chemisty... Yuck. Tuesday and Thursday I have math at 8am w/ the most boring teacher ever and then World Religions later on w/ a pretty fun teacher. Then after school I'll be working 2-8. Wednesday mornings I open at the gym at 4:45am-10, the Chem at noon. I also work Friday nights and Saturday mornings. The past few weekends have been really fun! Kenna and I have gone out and had good times: dancing, goofing around, and meeting new people.

Summer.

Since I have time, I figured I'd update this a little bit. School let out back on May 15th, and I've been pretty busy since then. I went to California w/ my family & friend, Kenna, at the end of May. It was pretty fun. Since then I've just been working. A lot. I work six days a week, sometimes working doubles. This month I even had two weeks of working seven days a week, with a couple doubles in there too. I'm also now training for front desk. I also workout every single day, except Sunday. I basically live at the gym, good thing I like it there. I signed up for my classes this fall which start August 24th. I'll be taking Chemistry (again), College Algebra, & World Religions. My friends Christie & Lachelle just recently moved into the condo too, it's been a lot of fun living together. I've been driving my dad's old silverado since Whitney left for North Carolina, it's a beast and gas is expensive, but it starts and get's me from point A to point B, which I am grateful for because that's all I need. Well, that's about it. Later.

A little catch up, a little venting.

School is almost over. I have two finals on Tuesday, then I'm done. I'm sad to say that Chemistry kicked my butt. I wasn't used to studying because I never had to in high school, so I will admit that it is mostly my fault I am retaking it next fall, but it is still a hard class. It was really hard for me to sit at home and really just focus on one subject. I'm working on finding a study routine that works best for me. My life is really repetetive right now: school, work, sleep, workout, school, work, sleep, workout... I can't say I dislike it, but I'll enjoy a whole lot more when school isn't a part of it. So I'm a pretty competetive person, even with myself. I've really gotten into working out and doing the stuff I hate doing. I stay on the StairMaster a few minutes longer every day & and try to use a heavier medicine ball when I do abs. I recently tried yoga, too. I had this preconceived notion that it was all religious like and cheesy. It was kind of, but to the extent at which I thought it was. I might actually do it again. I love basketball. I played one-on-one w/ Brooke last week then we hit the weights upstairs, probably my favorite way to get in weight training & cardio. So now for the venting portion of the blog. My truck hates me, really, it does. The past 6 months it has given me and my dad heck. First the batter. Then something electrical which took about 4 or 5 tries to fix... It was at the point where it took about 400 tries to start it. I actually have a callus on my right pointer finger from constantly turning the dang key. Finally, we got it fixed, for real. It started every time. Then on Tuesday, it just shuts off on me as I'm driving. I'm stuck on the side of the road, no idea what to do, and my dad is in Mexico, unreachable. I start calling people, they either don't pick up their dang phones, or have no interest in helping me, or they can't. I finally called Troy, a guy from work, while he was working because I had called everybody. He knew the whole saga of my truck. Once he answered the phone, I lost it. I cried, he laughed, I was mad. He came to help me, though, and so did a very nice police officer. We got my truck safely into a parking lot. We had no idea what it could be.... I couldn't have ran out of gas, I had a fourth of a tank! Nope, I ran out of gas. The sensor thingamajigger was wrong. I found this out when, after talking with some mechanics knowledgable friends, to put some more gas in the tank, thinking it was a faulty fuel pump. Well, my truck started!! Tonight my buddy, Anthony, was going to help me transfer my truck from SCC to my place. When I got in my truck it started!! Soooo HAPPY! Not, for long though. The brakes were all locked up! They didn't really work! I had to press the pedal with both feet to come to a stop from 5 miles per hour! I mean, really? Then Anthony decided to drive it around the lot, after about 30 seconds it started smoking. Called Chris, might be brake fluid. Now I have to go check the brake fluid in the morning before work instead of studying for my math final. My truck is still stuck at SCC. Really, it hates me! Nobody is probably reading this by now, but I'm glad I got it out. NOBODY would answer their phone tonight when I needed to vent & just cry it out.. NOBODY. Hmph. I'm out.