At The Car Wash

To say I’m not a confident driver would be an understatement. Now, before I go on I want to preface that I can drive. I can get where I need to go and I’m confident driving to places I know or that are close by. I passed my driver’s test the first time, the only difference was I took it in October when my birthday is in August. I even did my 3 hours with an instructor to get my learners permit 3 months after I turned 16. I was never as excited to start driving as most other high schoolers were.

I’m just making myself sound like a danger on the road. I promise I’m not. I just prefer being the passenger princess with my headphones in and watching out the window. When I first started driving I avoided highways at ALL COSTS. They were a death zone to me. Then once I started college I commuted for my freshman year so I had no choice but to drive on the highway, and now I can do it today with no problem (depending on the amount of traffic). I had only just driven out of New Jersey for the first time in my life this past Thanksgiving weekend. It sounds a little ridiculous that in the past 5 years of me driving I’ve never driven out of the state, but I’ve never had a reason to be out of the state alone where someone else, like my parents or older sister, would have driven me. Not gonna lie, I had a breakdown before my 3 hour drive up to Connecticut to visit Will and his family, but there are car crashes every day. My first thought is always that I’m going to die. But obviously I didn’t and it was a nice easy drive!

Another fear of mine when I first started driving was drive-thrus. This probably sounds just as stupid as trying to avoid the highway and leaving the state but, listen, I’m an anxious little girl okay? The tight space of a drive-thru worried me. What also probably didn’t help was that one of my favorite shows when I was younger was The Middle. There was one episode where the daughter had just gotten her license and they were driving as a family to Disney World. The joke was that the daughter was a terrible driver and she was waiting for her turn to drive as they rotated who was driving every few hours, but the family didn’t want her to. Then when they finally let her, they decided to stop for food in a drive-thru, and she ran into a pole while trying to turn to get to the window. So that probably stuck with me. My first time in a drive-thru was at a Wendy’s at midnight after picking my sister and her friend up from a bar and now I go to drive-thrus all the time.

I feel like car washes are very similar to drive-thrus in the way that they are a tight space with a very specific course. Except car washes have the added stress of the workers telling you to inch forward on the track and making sure your car is in neutral and that you get out before the cars behind you catch up. Maybe it’s just me but car washes always seem a little sketchy. The fact that my car is on a track gives so much potential for things to go wrong or get stuck. But also the look of them itself is sketchy. They are either at a car dealership where I feel unwelcome if I drive up with my Ford at Honda, or they're small and dirty looking on a backroad.

This photo doesn’t nearly portray well enough how dusty my car always is

While I will never have a need for a car wash more than I will for a drive-thru or the highway, I feel like it’s still a good thing to get comfortable with doing. Especially once springtime comes around and my car is covered in a layer of pollen again. So, of course, I found a car wash to make myself go to.

I found a car wash that was about 7 minutes away from school. Another aspect that made this adventure more uncomfortable is that I don’t know this area as well as my hometown. There are some car washes that I haven't driven through myself but I’ve been in the car for them so I generally know how it works. When I got to the one I found, I was immediately confused. It was right outside of a neighborhood and it was a tiny building on the corner of the street. I probably looked like a stalker because I slowly circled it three times to figure out if I was in the right spot or not. I finally decided to pull in and immediately regretted it because I didn’t see any other cars, workers, or a screen to select the wash option and pay like I’m used to. Instead, before I got up to the entrance of the wash I backed out and drove off.

I looked up the second car wash I was planning on going to if I didn’t choose the first one. It wasn’t far from where I was but when I pulled up I was just as confused. Luckily there was a parking lot so I could stop to look at it and figure out what to do instead of creepily circling it. This one didn’t scare me as much as the first one did but I was still just as confused so I spent the time parked looking up a THIRD car wash to go to. I finally found one that looked like a real, big fancy car wash and started heading there. As I pulled out I realized I had a dumb moment and I was parked at the exit of the car wash. It actually looked legit and much less scary when I saw the entrance…except I was already on my way to the other one and it looked cooler so I just pretended I didn’t see anything and kept driving.

Finally, I made it to the last car wash. Unlike the other two, I felt better right when I pulled up about where to go and what to do. I also saw another car so thankfully I wasn’t the only one there. I pulled up behind the other car and saw the signs with the wash option, but no screens, so I just waited behind the car thinking the payment screen would be further up in the line where he was.

The man got out of the car and I realized he was a worker. He asked me which wash I wanted so I told him, he gave me a little slip of paper, and said to get out of the car. Excuse me, what?? I don’t think I’ve ever been to a car wash where I got out so I was scrambling to gather what I needed, like my phone and wallet, and hoped out unprepared for this twist. I almost took my keys out of the car too as an automatic response to getting out.

Turns out this car wash is pretty much full service. They vacuum the car first before sending it through the wash. I was already stressed because I wasn’t expecting people IN my car so I had stuff everywhere. I thought I was just going to have a cute little ride through a car wash and watch the foam and rollers clean my car through the windshield. Instead, I just stood inside waiting for them to send my car through, hoping they weren’t too mad at me for all the random objects and trash.

When they finally sent my car through I got to watch the show I thought I’d be sitting in my car for, from the outside. It was still fun to see as if I was in the car, but again, not what I was expecting. One thing that I thought was really cool was that they had “water” guns on the wall called “suds blasters” that shot soap at your car as it went through. I’m sure they built these in for kids when their parents have to drag them along to a car wash, but I was loving it!

When my car made it all the way through, I stepped outside thinking they would just park the car and hand it off to me. I was wrong again. Since this was a fancy full service, they parked the car and about five workers were around my car with cloths drying the car and cleaning the inside. This was where I was even more stressed because I thought they were done inside my car after vacuuming, but now even more people could see all the random things I had scattered everywhere. They even opened my trunk to dry off every part so it didn’t leak inside.

All the workers started walking away so I figured they were done. Until I walked up to the driver door and there was still one worker inside wiping things down. Not going to lie, he kind of scared me because I thought my car was empty. I felt bad because I didn’t want him to feel rushed, but I wasn’t going to walk away again so I just stood and watched. I felt even worse when he was cleaning the dust off my dash and the duck decoration I have hanging from my mirror and it kept smacking him in the face as he was cleaning. He didn’t seem to mind though he was just doing his thing.

When I finally got back in my car I was extremely impressed! I don’t think I’ve ever seen my car so clean. I mean obviously that’s the purpose of a car wash but I’m not used to the inside being cleaned. When I try to wipe down the dash or the windshield it just ends up streaky and there is always still dust no matter what, but now it was spotless I didn’t even want to touch anything! Even my steering wheel looked almost as good as new which I didn’t even think was possible. And it wasn’t even that expensive for the option I chose.

Even though it took a while to get there and it was the third place I attempted, I highly recommend the Jersey Auto Spa in Long Branch! If I ever need a car wash again I know where I’m going. Especially now that I've done it once so I know how it works. I also won’t look stupid by having a bunch of junk all over my car.

To celebrate my successful car wash, I came full circle and I went through a drive-thru afterwards.

I think by now I’ve done it all! (car wise of course).

Page Turner

I know reading has recently become somewhat of a trend, but I have never been a reader. I specifically remember my mom telling me when I was younger that my sister was already reading chapter books while I was still stuck on picture books. Especially my favorite book: Hey, Pancakes!. That is the book I learned to read with and I would just reread it over and over again to the point where I could recite it from memory. I do that with everything though. Once I find something I like I’ll just repeat whatever it is over and over because I don’t like change or trying new things. I guess you could say that’s another reason I needed this blog.

The most ironic part about me not being a reader is that I have a radio talk show called Books for Breakfast. The show takes place with my two lovely co-hosts, Jess and Jude, every Tuesday morning from 9-10 am on WMCX, 88.9 FM. The show started from our talk radio class we all took last spring. Jess and Jude are both big readers so they came up with the idea of the show to pretty much talk about books (and a little bit of breakfast). I was brought into the group because everyone else had already established groups outside of class and I wasn’t part of any of them. The first thing they asked me was “do you read?” and I just hesitantly said no.

We ended up working perfectly together and the show is now my favorite project I’ve ever been a part of. So if you wanna check it out, follow us on Instagram @booksforbreakfast22. We honestly don’t even talk about books that much anymore because we just have fun talking to each other on the air and go off topic ALL the time. However, we still do try to make the topics book related and have examples of books to relate it to, so in those moments all I can really talk about is movies or tv shows.

Because of my hatred for reading and need for content for Books for Breakfast, I thought this would be the perfect time to pick up a book for the first time in I don’t know how many years and attempt to read (I mean I know how to read obviously, but really attempt to be interested while reading).

While I was shopping at Target one day I found this book called The Comfort Book by Matt Haig. Not going to lie, the first thing that drew me to it was the name and the cover. I know the big saying is “don’t judge a book by its cover” but that’s exactly what I did. I mean come on, it’s called The Comfort Book it’s perfect for Comfortless! It’s also the same color scheme so I had to get it. This book is a self-help, and kinda poem-ish book. It would probably make more sense to read a book with an actual story and plot, but this is a good start for me. The pages are short and easy to follow.

The book started by explaining the structure of the book. Basically, there is none. He says the book could have pages with barely any words, some filled up. Other pages could have lists or even recipes. It was perfect because it made it much easier for me to jump into. Knowing that I could finish a page quickly was much more appealing to me. I’m a really slow reader, so one reason I have a hard time getting motivated to read is because it takes me way too long. I have fallen victim to the world of TikTok and short videos because I have such a short attention span. Even reading this book that had empty pages and quick stories, I still kept getting distracted. I would see a notification on my phone and respond to it instantly, think about something else while staring at the page, or start talking to my parents. That is probably why I need to read in silence. I can’t focus on what I’m reading at all if people are talking or music is playing.

One of my favorite pages was when the author listed songs that comfort him. Music is a big part of my personality so I wanted to do the same, just a shorter list because I don’t want to go on forever.

“Way Less Sad” — AJR

“Runaway Kids” — HARBOUR

“all I ask” — Palmertrees

“Promise Me” — Badflower

“Missing Piece” — Vance Joy

“Feels So Nice” — The Wrecks

“All My Love” — Noah Kahan

These songs to me have good vibes or good memories attached to them so they make me feel comforted. I don’t know if it would do the same thing for anyone else but it does for me. I was reading this after a long day at school so I started getting tired and almost falling asleep while reading, so I decided to put it down and come back later.

I started reading again the next morning. Usually the first thing I do in the morning is scroll on my phone, so this seemed a little more productive. Even if reading is recreational to some people, it still feels like a productive and educational activity when I do it. Another page I came across that I really liked was this page that was just titled “Pasta”. He makes a very good point here.

By the time I got to Part 2 in the book, I was bored of the self-help style. I eased myself into reading and wanted to try a book with a plot. The best way to do this was to venture into my sister, Ashley’s room. She found an interest in recreational reading a year or two ago and now has a big shelf overflowing with books in her room. I know she hasn’t read all of them (I mean just looking at the amount there are on the shelf I think it would be impossible) so she wouldn’t miss one for a little bit. She seems to read a lot of fantasy and action. While looking through the shelf, none of the covers were really interesting to me, so I couldn’t just decide based on looks this time. I would pick up a book, ask her what the plot was, and look for a new one. Another thing I noticed about books is that it’s so hard to find the description. It seems like the back of the book is only covered with reviews and ratings now. Maybe it’s just the few I saw or I just wasn’t looking hard enough.

After scattering books all over the floor, I eventually landed on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling. Not surprisingly, I’ve never read any of the Harry Potter books. What might be a little more surprising is that I’ve never seen any of the movies either so I don’t know anything about Harry Potter. This was the only book I recognized and was somewhat interested in so I took it with me.

This book was instantly harder to focus on than the other because it actually had full pages of words (like books should). It took me much longer to get through the pages. I would get frustrated with how slow I was reading and skip over certain words and lines. I also stopped a lot because I would get distracted again by TV or my own thoughts. The beginning of anything is always hard to catch my attention just because it’s a slow start when they have to build up the characters and the plots. I also don’t watch a lot of movies or enjoy them that much at first because of this too. I don’t doubt that it would be much more interesting in a few chapters when the plot picks up, but for my own sake, I only read the first chapter.

Reading isn’t terrible, but I still can’t see myself spending my free time with a book. The only way to improve my reading speed is to read more, but I just can’t get myself too. It’s too slow and frustrating for me. As Ashley would say, I just haven’t found the right genre and I have to find one I’m interested in, but I don’t know if I ever will. I feel like my personality is too active and hands on to be able to sit still with a book. I like crafting, listening, and doing things and I think about too much at once so it’s hard to focus on other words at the same time. But who knows maybe one day I will have the urge to read and actually find the genre I like.

In the meantime, be sure to check out Books for Breakfast (@booksforbreakfast22) every Tuesday from 9-10 am on WMCX :)

Turkey Dash

As we already know, I’m not a big runner. In fact, I absolutely hate running. And a race of any kind is a mixture of a lot of things I hate: running, waking up early, and being outside in the cold, so perfect for my next Comfortless post!

Last year was actually the first 5k race I had done, I think ever. I did do a race known as the Color Run once or twice but it was untimed and at every color station I would stop for like 5 minutes to play in the color powder. I know when I was younger I ran a lot of mile-long races and 2-mile races during my short time participating in cross country, but I don’t think I had ever done a 5k. I’m a huge New Jersey Devils fan and I heard about their Running With The Devils 5k in the fall. That one I actually wanted to sign up for because I liked that it was a Devils themed event. I signed up knowing it was a run AND walk and my family and I all intended to walk the whole race. The race took place near the end of October so it was somewhat cold outside, especially because registration was at 8 am so we had to get there extra early. The joke was on us because when the race started, no one else was walking at all. Sure, people always end up walking later on, but we figured other people would have registered as walkers and walk the whole race like we were planning to do. So instead we started off with a light jog to fit in…and it turned into us running (almost) the whole race. Obviously, I went into that race unprepared, but I ended up not doing too bad for my first 5k with absolutely no training.

Even though last year’s 5k turned out to not be that bad, I still hate running and will avoid it as best as I can. I always see a ton of turkey themed 5k’s around Thanksgiving, so I figured I may as well do something good for myself, for a good cause, and for the blog and sign up for a Thanksgiving 5k.

I found one in Asbury Park called Thanks4Giving for November 19th that raised funds for Special Olympics. Somehow I convinced my parents and one sister to sign up with me as well. I was fully ready to go on my own, assuming no one else would want to run a 5k because we all dread it and none of us are in running shape, but thankfully they said yes! There were two possible events that we could sign up for: the Turkey Dash, which was the 5k, or the Turkey Splash, where you jump into the ocean. Honestly, I kind of wanted to do the Splash a little bit more because I’ve never done anything like it before and it would be over much faster than a whole 3.1 mile run. Also, it would mean I wouldn’t have to run too. The Splash cost a lot more than the run, so we decided to just do the race because it’s still just as far out of my comfort zone. While the money would be going to a good cause, it was a little too much for all four of us to spend. Plus, I can jump into the cold ocean whenever I want.

We almost forgot to sign up before registration closed. I remembered while I was driving later in the day, so obviously I couldn’t sign up right then. Thankfully I remembered again at 11 pm — an hour before registration closed. I quickly signed myself and Ashley up as runners. I texted my mom about it and she signed her and my dad up as walkers. So the first step was done and now all we had to do was actually remember to go. This was much harder than you would think. The race was a last minute event for my family and they kept forgetting about it as the day approached. I too was preoccupied with school and other outside activities that I forgot how soon it was coming up. Please, I keep forgetting that Thanksgiving is this week! But the day before we made sure everyone knew it was happening and planned out what time to wake up and the stops we would make on the way.

I woke up at 8 am on the day of the race. Luckily, the check-in started at 10 am rather than 8 am like the Devils 5k. Asbury Park is much closer to us than where the Devils 5k was held so the commute didn’t take as long. The website stated that the race didn’t start until 11:30, so we were in no rush to get there super early or even right when registration started. One thing that was the same between this 5k and last year’s was that I didn’t train for it at all. I had good intentions back in October when I first read about it to start training so I wouldn’t die and could maybe get a good time, but the stress of midterms and going out for Halloween took over so I never made time for it. Then I told myself I’ll start November 1st so that way I get at least 2 weeks of training leading up to the race. This time I had no excuse for not working out except pure laziness. Still not motivated, I just gave up and reassured myself that I managed to do it last year with no training so why should this year be any different. Definitely not my smartest or most health conscious idea, but I saw a TikTok recently of a guy who ran a whole marathon with no training in under 5 hours, so if he can do that why can’t I run a simple 5k at my age.

We planned to leave the house at 9:30 because, knowing our family, we wouldn’t leave on time and we’d end up getting there closer to 11. Of course, we also had to work a stop at Dunkin’ in our plan. I’m not the only one in my family with a Dunkin’ addiction. I realized I didn’t really prepare myself by drinking any water the night before, so I tried to chug a glass before leaving but knew the coffee would probably cancel out any hydrating work the water did. I’d rather be dehydrated than go without my coffee though (just straight addiction talking there).

We got there around 10:30 and went to find the registration table. It was freezing outside so it was a huge relief when we saw that the registration was inside the Asbury Convention Hall. I didn’t see many people walking around that looked like they were about to run when we were trying to park so I started getting worried that we weren’t in the right place. I wasn’t the one in charge of directions though. I just made everyone sign up. I expected that my family would figure out the rest. I think the reason I didn’t see anyone walking around was because they were all inside the convention hall trying to stay warm. We found the table right by the front door when we walked in. Once inside, we got our race bibs and our free shirts! I love any event with a free shirt and this one was adorable! The image was designed to look like a beach badge and it has their turkey from the race’s logo with its own race bib and sneakers. I put the shirt on right away as an extra layer of warmth. I also had a thermal shirt underneath it, a sweatshirt on top of it, a beanie to protect my head and ears, and gloves because my hands are extremely sensitive to the cold. Seriously, they used to dry out every winter to the point of bleeding.

After registering there wasn’t really much to do before the race started, so we stayed warm inside like everyone else and looked around the little shops that were all set up. We also had to check out the merchandise table and there my mom got a shirt and Ashley got a turkey hat they were selling. I was very tempted to get one myself, but I already had my turkey socks on that said “I’m plucking hilarious” so I already had some festive apparel on. After shopping, we sacrificed our dad to be the one to go back in the cold and drop stuff off in the car. When he got back, they were telling the runners to start lining up at the start, so now we all had to leave the warmth and head outside.

When we got outside it felt like it was taking forever to start. Maybe it was just the cold hitting me, but I couldn’t hear any announcements and it didn’t feel like anyone was moving so I had no idea what was going on. I was looking around at everyone else and some people were decked out in turkey costumes. Others were wearing shorts and I seriously didn’t know how they were surviving. A little past 11:30 people finally started gathering together more and the race actually started! The horn went off and everyone started running through the starting line. I played my music, turned around and waved to my family, and took off. Even though Ashley was registered as a runner, she didn’t feel like running so she decided to hang back with my parents. They started off with a jog to fit in with everyone else, but they intended to slow down or walk later.

Since I don’t know how to pace myself I always start off at a much faster pace than I intend to run. I don’t even do it on purpose, I actually think I’m going slow and it turns out I’m wasting all my energy in the first 100 meters. Music doesn’t always help either because if I’m listening to a song I really like I’ll get excited and start running faster and wasting more energy. In this case, I was listening to "‘The DJ Is Crying For Help’ by AJR, who is my favorite band of all time and the song had just come out the previous day so I was extra excited about it!

I had no idea how long I had been running because I forgot to wear my watch to track my time and there were no markers along the race course to tell you how far you had run or what your time was. I had good intentions of running the whole race and not stopping to walk, even if I had to run extra slow…except that didn’t happen. I thought I made it through the worst of it when I started getting cramps right around the beginning. Usually I’ll stop when those hurt but I fought it and powered through until they went away because I still remember my elementary school teacher telling us that if you keep running they’ll go away. Then as I approached the halfway point, my stomach started hurting. I have a fear of throwing up at races and I really didn’t feel like breaking my 14-year-long streak of not throwing up, so it was worth it to walk for a little bit. I caught my breath and started up again when I saw runners passing by on the way back. This let me know that the halfway/turnaround point was close.

Once I reached the turn around I stopped to walk again because I wanted to take off my sweatshirt. This became more of a hassle than I intended because when I pulled it over my head, one of my AirPods fell out. Of course it couldn’t just fall right in front of my feet. NOOO, it fell all the way down the steps of the boardwalk and into the sand on the beach. I had to run off course to go retrieve it, now all covered in sand. As this was happening, my mom and Ashley were passing by on the other side, so Ashley cut across to see what was going on, and then took my sweatshirt for me to carry the rest of the way. After this mess I started running again. I eventually passed my dad too and gave him a wave as I ran by.

This paragraph is gonna get a little gross so be warned (just about spit and snot nothing that extreme). Now obviously, it was cold so my nose was RUNNING. I had no tissues and so much snot coming out of my nose that I didn’t know what to do. When I was wearing my sweatshirt, I just wiped it on that because it’s an old sweatshirt that can be washed. I didn’t want to wipe it on my new shirt and there was absolutely no way I was just going to snot rocket onto the boardwalk as I was running. So I just had to wipe it in my glove. I hate spit and it’s something that grosses me out more than anything, so seeing little wet spots along the boardwalk where I knew other people were spitting and snotting didn’t help my stomach feel any better. But I do understand why people do it because the snot and spit was building up and it made it hard to breath, but I still couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Finally, I started seeing the landmarks from the beginning of the race and I was almost at the finish. I followed one girl in front of me and used her to pace myself. I made sure I stayed an equal distance behind her because once I started seeing the finish line I knew I would get excited and start speeding up. I didn’t want to risk pushing my stomach any more and I wasn’t concerned about my time so I just stayed slow. Even when a literal child passed me I didn’t care I let her have it. I made it to the big “Finish” arch and raced through while everyone was cheering on the sides. They handed me a medal right away and I went to find a spot out of the way to catch my breath.

Not long after I saw Ashley sprinting past the finish line, and my mom coming across behind her. They also went to catch their breath and told me they ran the whole thing even though they planned to walk! We all sat with our medals talking about the race while we waited for my dad. He stuck to his word and walked the whole thing. We found tissues and water as we were waiting for him which helped a lot. When we finally spotted him my mom went over and convinced him to run through the finish line. We found him after he got his medal and headed back to warmth.

Since there were no displayed timers anywhere we had to go online to find our times. I ended up running 32:51.28. I actually did worse than I did for the Devils 5k (I got a 30 something then) even though I went in knowing I was running this one. But it’s not like I was really invested in beating my time. My parents’ times weren’t tracked since they registered as walkers, but my mom’s would have been similar to Ashley’s and my dad was tracking his on his watch.

As much as I hate running, I do like the atmosphere of 5k’s. Everyones positive and cheering each other on and in some cases, like the people dressed as turkeys, you get to dress up and have fun with it. Also, most of them are fundraising for great causes. I really enjoyed the Devils 5k last year and I wanted to do it again this year, but I didn’t have time. I wouldn’t mind signing up for more 5k’s, especially if they take place in warmer weather. Then I can actually start tracking my times too.

I should probably start training ahead of time so I don’t keep going in….cold turkey.

(Not So) Easy as Pie

As I said in my cooking blog “Wingin’ It'“, I love baking. However, one thing I have never actually attempted to bake myself is pie. It’s a classic dessert eaten every holiday season, yet it always seemed so hard to me. Especially because I’ve only attempted to bake a pie once in my culinary class senior year of high school…it did not turn out well. How much can you really trust a group of high school kids taking a culinary class as a joke to make a good pie though? So I figured with Thanksgiving coming up I’ll truly test my baking skills and give baking a pie another shot.

Here’s our failed pie from high school

I decided to bake an apple pie because I don’t like it. Something about warm soft fruit really grosses me out. So this blog is pretty much a two in one: baking something new and eating something new. I was actually planning on crocheting for this blog and I was going to try a cute Thanksgiving themed pattern, but it turned out being way too hard and I couldn’t even complete a simple square…so I trashed that idea.

The pure confusion in my face

The recipe I followed was from Food Network. There were a million different recipes with different ingredients and processes. I honestly don’t know how I landed on the food network recipe because it’s not even one of the first recipes to come up when you search “apple pie recipes” but whatever, it still works. This recipe was for both the pie crust and the filling. I could’ve taken the easy route and bought a pre-made crust, but that’s not what this blog is all about. Honestly, making the crust was the part I was more worried about anyway so I had to try.

Surprisingly, I already had a bunch of the ingredients I needed to make the pie. The only things I had to buy were nutmeg, more butter, and obviously, a TON of apples. The recipe said I needed 10 pounds of apples but that seemed like way too many so I just got two little bags of them. I also bought a mixing bowl since we still didn’t have one in our apartment, so that was a big help!

I started with the crust because it had had to sit in the fridge for an hour to chill, but also because it was the first step in the recipe and I just followed what it told me to do. My mom told me that dough is made in a food processor a lot, but obviously I didn’t have one so I had to do it by hand. Thankfully the recipe gave instructions for both methods. I first mixed the dry ingredients together. Then I had to cut cold butter into cubes. It was honestly kind of fun cutting the butter, but not as smooth as everyone says butter is because it was cold. Then I had to mix the butter in with my hands until it “…resembled yellow corn meal mixed with bean sized bits of butter”. Very specific explanation, but I think I got there. However, it wasn’t easy. Almost instantly my hands started hurting from crushing and mixing the butter simultaneously. And it took a while to all mix in since it was cold and solid. But once I finally worked the butter in, I really understood the “yellow cornmeal” reference.

Then I had to add the egg to the yellow “cornmeal”. First it told me to add some water to the egg and mix it. The only issue though is that it said to add just 2 tablespoons of water. I didn’t realize I used a 2 tablespoon sized spoon, so I accidentally added 4 tablespoons to the egg. I assumed making pie crust is very particular, so I was afraid I already messed it up, but I mixed the egg into the dry/butter mixture and it seemed okay. I wrapped it up in plastic wrap and left it in the fridge to chill. I started baking a little late at night and I didn’t feel like staying up for hours baking, so I left the dough in the fridge all night rather than just an hour and decided to finish the pie the next day.

When I restarted the pie the next day, I pulled the dough out of the fridge and it was a solid brick. Seriously, that could've hurt someone. It wasn’t hard in a stale kind of way, just because it was cold, but I was still worried I did something wrong. I just left it out on the counter to thaw out a little bit while I got started on the filling. Of course, the first step was to peel and cut all the apples. My god was this tedious. Peeling the apples was the worst part and my hands were getting cold from holding them all. I ended up peeling 11 apples but only used 8 of them in the pie. It was good for me though because I cut up the other 3 and had them as a snack. I wasn’t sure how to cut the apples because I’ve seen both slices and cubes, but my parents seemed appalled when I mentioned the idea of cutting them into cubes to I went with slices.

After what seemed like hours of peeling and cutting (it was only like 30 minutes I’m just dramatic) I put all the apple slices in a bowl with lemon juice. The amount of lemon juice didn’t seem like enough for the amount of apples, but I mixed it in as best as I could. I then added the sugar and mixed again. Then I had to melt some better on the stove before adding the apples in. Thank god one of my roommates brought a big pan otherwise all of the apples would’ve never fit on it. Honestly, they barely even fit on the big pan. Only problem was that after the initial simmer, I had to let it sit covered for about 10 minutes and there was no lid for the pan. We had another big pan so I just placed that one on top and it actually worked perfectly! That 4.0 gpa of mine is being put to good use.

After 10 minutes, I removed the lid and it looked…okay. At first it looked great but then I mixed it around a bit and realized that the apples on top were still a little too firm, the ones in the middle of the pile were perfect, and the ones on the bottom turned to complete mush. I tried to ignore it and went along with the process still. I drained the apples from the juice that formed from letting it simmer and then put the juice back into the pan and the apples in the bowl. As the juice cooked into a thick syrup, I tried to fish out some of the super mushy pieces. I still had a ton of apples so I wasn’t too worried about losing a lot of filling.

Once the juice/syrup was done I poured it back into the apples with the cinnamon and nutmeg. Since the apples were still hot and the syrup was right off the stove, I actually mixed with a spoon this time instead of mixing with my hands like I did for everything else. Didn’t really feel like burning my fingers off.

I started to get excited here because it was all coming together and looking like the apple pies I’ve seen in pictures! Except now it was time for the part I was dreading. I pulled out my giant hockey puck of dough and had to start rolling it out. I only had a mini rolling pin that I got in a set with mini cake pans last year. It’s convenient for saving space, but not so convenient for rolling things out evenly. I could only work on one section at a time and it kept leaving streaks in the dough from the edges of the rolling pin. Not to mention it was so hard to even get it started rolling out since it was cold, misshapen, and kept crumbling apart. I finally got it to flatten out, but it would still crumble apart and didn't have smooth edges. I tried to use some dough from the second piece to fill in the holes and it seemed to work pretty well. I measured it to see if it was big enough to fit in the pan and thankfully it was so I could stop…until I had to roll out the top. I wasn’t as concerned about the size of this one since it was just laying on top and it didn’t need to go up the edges of the pan like the bottom. I let those pieces chill for a few minutes and then started putting it all together!

I made sure the bottom piece completely covered the pan and the edges. Some edges overflowed and others weren’t long enough so I cut it up and pieced it together until it was completely covered. Then I poured the apples in and the recipe said to keep it piled up in the middle so I didn’t spread it out. I laid the top crust over it and secured the edges with a fork. I had to brush an egg wash on top but, of course, I didn’t have a brush so, once again, I just used my hand. It wasn’t as effective as a brush but hey it got the job done. Then I added sugar on top for extra pizzazz (but also because the recipe told me to) so into the oven it went for 50 minutes.

When the timer went off it was time for the big reveal. I wasn’t sure how it would look. Maybe it would be burnt, maybe it would be undercooked, maybe it would be too liquidy. But I couldn’t believe my eyes when I opened the oven. It was beautiful! It looked like a real professional pie (I mean the edges could’ve been prettier but no ones looking at that). I let it sit for a little so I didn’t burn my face off. Then my roommates and I gathered around for the first cut. This part also scared me because I remember my pie from high school culinary class was completely liquid on the inside, so I was just hoping this one stayed together. And guess what? It did!! Everything was perfect, it was beautiful. And my roommates really liked it too!

It was my turn to test it out. Remember I don’t like apple pies so this was a true test. Now I can’t say I loved it immediately on the first bite because I was trying to get used to the warm fruit and texture, but I was impressed that it tasted like a professional apple pie and I liked the cinnamon flavor and the crust. As I kept eating my slice I was warming up to the taste and it was really good! I wanted to try it with vanilla ice cream too but I didn’t have any :(

Overall, this was a huge success! Apple pie still isn’t my favorite, but I loved how it came out and everyone else who actually likes apple pie that tried it seemed to really like it! I’ll have to make another one for Thanksgiving Day!

Maybe I’ll try making a pecan pie though.

Table for 1

When you think about someone who asks for a table for one, you usually think about a lonely old man or someone who just got broken up with. Since I’m not an old man nor going through a breakup, I never really considered going out to eat alone and having to request a table for one. But maybe I’ll want to try a new restaurant one day and there’s no one around to go with me so I’ll have to go alone. So I channeled my inner old man and went out for breakfast all by myself.

Like the horror maze, this was another activity that I was trying to talk myself out of. When an old man goes out to eat by himself, people don’t really question that at all. However, when a 21 year old girl who looks like she’s 16 sits down by herself, it draws a little more attention. I started feeling a little better about it when I decided where I was going to go. I picked a breakfast place I’ve been to a few times before called Amy’s Omelette House. I knew I wanted to go out for breakfast or lunch because that is more of a casual meal than going out for dinner. Also, breakfast is my favorite meal and I love going to a diner or cute breakfast place. The past few times I went to Amy’s it wasn’t very crowded and it was mostly older customers so I knew I wouldn’t feel as judged by them for being alone.

Before leaving I packed up a tote bag with a few things to keep me busy while there. My biggest concern was what I was going to do in between ordering and waiting for my food. I could only picture myself staring at a wall or going on my phone. I knew I didn’t want to spend the whole time on my phone because that adds a whole other sad factor to sitting alone at a restaurant. I also felt like it pretty much defeated the whole purpose of going out to eat because I would just be doing the same thing I do when I sit at home. I ended up packing my actual purse, my school notebook, a pencil, and a book (which will be used for a later blog post so stay tuned).

When I got there, I was looking around to see if there were a lot of people around. I didn’t want to be standing by myself if there was a wait but I also wanted to make sure I wasn't going to be the only person in the place. That didn’t last too long though before I said “Whatever” and just walked in anyway because I was already there. I gotta follow through no matter what.

I didn’t want to say the cliche “table for one” line because that’s just cringe and sad so instead I tried to soften the blow and said “just one”. The woman sat me right away. It wasn't super crowded but there were little groups. There are booths against the walls and a bunch of tables in the middle. THANKFULLY, she gave me a booth that was right in the corner so a perfect spot for me to hide in and watch over people. If I was at a table by myself right in the middle of the place I probably would’ve walked right out. It was also the booth right next to the door to the kitchen so I heard the hostess back there say “one at table [insert whatever table number I was here]”. I don’t know what it was but for some reason her saying that made me think “damn”. Maybe it’s just the fact that someone else announced it made me feel a little embarrassed, even though the people in the kitchen and I are the only ones who heard it.

The waitress came right over and gave me a menu and some water. I ordered coffee too because I figured if I’m by myself I may as well spice it up a little. When she left I just spent time looking over the menu. There was nothing to stress about yet because this is the normal part of going out to eat. I’m not expected to be talking to anyone or doing anything yet because I have the menu to shield me and give me something to do. When she came back with the coffee, I placed my order right away…now I wasn’t sure what to do.

This would usually be the part where you’re talking to whoever you came with. You already decided what you want and you’re not preoccupied by eating so you have free time. Again, I didn’t want to be on my phone because it seems very disconnected. I immediately pulled out my notebook and tried to think of something to write about. I guess you could say that looking down at my notebook and writing the whole time might also defeat the purpose of going out to eat because I’m not looking around, but at least it’s more productive than mindlessly scrolling. I started making bullets of my experiences for exactly what I’m typing right now. Then, I switched to drafting ideas for an upcoming project I have in one of my classes. The entire time I was writing I was scared that the staff might have thought I was a critic or something. I saw a video once of a guy who went to a restaurant with a notebook and pretended he was a critic and got special treatment from the staff because of it. I was also scared to take pictures and videos because of this, which is why some of the pictures might be framed weird or really close to the table (I was trying to take them quickly when no one was looking). I think I was too young and scared looking to have to worry about that though.

The food actually came out pretty quick. I honestly expected it to because of how empty it was and how quickly they took my order and brought out the coffee. I put my notebook aside and finally had something normal to do again. I got a breakfast combo that came with 4 pancakes, bacon, a sausage, and eggs. It’s basic but meals like that are my favorite kind because I get a little bit of everything that I love. Once I started eating I honestly wished that I had gotten it with a waffle instead of pancakes (because there was the choice of pancakes, waffle, or French toast) because I’m more of a waffle person, but I still like pancakes too.

I tried to take my time eating, but I was pretty hungry so it felt like I was eating really fast. There was also no conversation to engage in to slow me down so I just kept eating. Obviously, this made me full pretty fast but I was trying hard to eat as much as I could. I was also trying to drink the coffee too because I had the full pot to myself but it was a lot all at once. After realizing I was getting full too fast and slowing down a bit, I finally gave up and asked for a box. I knew right when she put the plate down that there was no way I was finishing all 4 pancakes, even after eating one I was already getting full. The waitress brought me back a box and the check, so after packing up my 3 pancakes I was good to go.

Another fear of mine when going out in general, even with other people, is whether the waiter will come back to take the check or whether you go up to the cashier. There are some places where it’s obvious that they’ll come back for it but other places could go either way. Thankfully since I’ve been there before I knew that you pay at the cashier on the way out. Of course, however, I always second guess myself so I took my time finishing my coffee, packing up my pancakes, and putting away the rest of my stuff just to see if the waitress ever came back for the check. Since she didn’t I knew I was originally right so I walked to the cashier. I did my quick transition and my lonely breakfast was done!

It honestly wasn’t that bad eating alone. Of course I was self conscious the whole time and was hoping someone would ask why I was alone just so I could explain and justify myself. But them not asking just proves even more that no one cares. Sure, maybe they are thinking that it’s sad that I’m alone but I’ll never know, so it shouldn’t matter. I tell myself that knowing full well that I still care and feel uncomfortable, but hey that’s the point of this blog and I just have to keep working at it before I truly don’t care about it anymore. Anyway that was a deep twist. Regardless, I enjoyed my breakfast and I didn’t need other people there to eat a good meal. It absolutely helped that I already knew the place, it wasn’t very crowded or closed in, and that there wasn’t anyone my age there to judge me, but I still did it.

Now I’m prepared for when I actually am an old woman eating by myself.

Lightweight

I wouldn’t necessarily consider myself an athletic person. I started soccer when I was in kindergarten and played all the way until my junior year in high school. That seems like a really long time (and it is) but it was never a huge passion of mine. I played on recreational teams for a while and when I finally switched over to travel, my teams weren’t anything special. Once I started high school I even quit travel altogether and didn’t bother to try out for varsity. I ended up quitting before my senior season because my school team was so horribly bad that it wasn’t worth my time anyway. I loved soccer and it was part of my personality for a while, but I still hated going to practice. The only other sports I played were softball and cross country/track…let me tell you about my time as a runner oh boy.

My mom was a runner in college so she had really high hopes that both my sisters and I would follow in her footsteps and be runners too. I think her dreams were very quickly shattered once it was my turn to join cross country. I HATED it. I legitimately cried to her every meet about how I didn’t want to run, yet I still joined track in the spring like she wanted anyway. Same story there, except this time my sister was on the track team too, so I would run faster just to catch up with her so I could complain about how I hated it.

Anyway, this is all a very long way to say: I don’t go to the gym. I go in and out of phases of working out because I know exercise is necessary to stay healthy, I’m just lazy most of the time. To try to fix that laziness cycle, I took a weight training class this semester so I could learn all the weight machines in the gym and so I would have something to force me to go to the gym twice a week. Unfortunately, the class only lasts half the semester because it’s only worth 1 credit, so that plan of being forced to go to the gym has come to an end. I figured I should try to put my new knowledge to use and actually go to the gym for once outside of class.

Every week my professor sent us an email with workout plans for the week. I took one of the plans to follow for this week, except I made some modifications. I took out the leg curl, reverse crunch, and overhead tricep extension because we didn’t use those too much in class and I didn’t want to risk doing it wrong or looking stupid. There is one smaller gym that I went to a bit at the beginning of the semester because there were barely ever any people in it, and I get really self-conscious working out around other people. Which is a main reason why I’ve avoided the main gym for so long. But that gym had way more resources and easier to use equipment so it makes more sense to go there.

I went to the gym around 5 pm because I was running around doing other stuff all day. I was planning on stretching in my room so it would be one less thing I had to do in public, but I never had the time. There was barely anyone on campus during my walk so I was hoping there would barely be anyone in the gym too because most people usually go in the morning. It wasn’t too packed, but surprisingly there were still a good amount of people there. I put my sweatshirt and keys in a cubby and head into the gym area.

I started with a 10 minute walk on the treadmill because that’s what we used to do in the beginning of class. I usually like stretching better than dynamic warm-ups, but the stretching corner was packed so I did a big loop past it to the treadmills. While on the treadmill, I was listening to music and looking around. I was trying to plan out where I was gonna go first and what would be open to use so I don’t have to wander around like a lost child.

I ended up at the lateral pulldown first. I actually like this machine because I feel like I know what I’m doing. Also, it’s not a weird feeling movement or too hard to adjust like some of the other machines/exercises are. I have never weight trained before in my life so I have very shrimpy arms, so I was using (and struggling) with low weights. I started at 25 pounds for this one but eventually moved up to 40. For all the exercises I did 3 sets of 10 reps. In between each set, I wasn’t sure how long to wait and I didn’t want people to think I was hogging the machine and not using it, so I probably didn’t rest for as long as I should for most of the sets. The lat pulldown was a good start though and I went through it pretty fast. Right next to it was the leg press machine so I hopped right over to that. I like the leg press too. Leg exercises always feel better than arms because my legs are obviously stronger. When it comes to leg exercises I’m never sure exactly what weight to use, so I just test different ones as I go. The leg press is also fun because it’s like a little ride when the chair goes up every time. This one went by pretty fast too and the next open machine was the chest press. This one is pretty simple to use and adjust too so I like it. Afterwards all the machines I wanted to use were pretty much taken. The stretching/abs area, however, was pretty empty so I went and hid over there.

I took a pair of dumbbells with me to the corner and laid down on a mat. The only dumbbells left were 5 pounds, which were pretty light but I thought they might work. They did not. I felt like my arms were flying around with them so I gave up on those until 10 pound weights were available. Instead, I did the crunches (it says sit ups in the email but I can’t do those) that were on the plan. I felt really weird taking pictures and videos in the gym, so the empty corner was a good opportunity to get some. It’s not uncommon to see TikToks and other videos of people at the gym, but it’s usually not at a school gym. Also, in my past 3 years here, I’ve noticed that Monmouth students are really judgmental, so I didn’t want another thing to call attention to myself, along with the scrawny arms and confusion of not knowing what I’m doing.

After I was done, there still weren’t many dumbbells available, so I went to the opposite corner with some leg machines. The only one I ended up doing was the leg extensions since I decided against doing the leg curl. I never realized how hard the leg extensions are too. I started with a weight that was a little too high but my legs were SHAKING. That’s not a movement I practice on the daily so adding weight to it was tough. Thankfully I was in the corner otherwise I would’ve felt very uncomfortable struggling so obviously.

Finally, after the leg extensions, there were 10 pound dumbbells and a weight bench available so I quickly took it over. There, I did overhead press and bicep curls. I actually hate using dumbbells because I feel like I have less control. Especially for the overhead press. My arms sway too much and I can’t do one smooth moment. Yet, I did it anyway and hoped that I wasn’t doing it wrong. The bicep curls were pretty difficult too, especially by the third set, but I powered through and did them all, even being out in the open and obviously struggling.

Finally, I went to the row machine. I’m glad they have a machine because I hate doing row with dumbbells. Even during my class, I would always ask the professor if I was doing it right and my form was correct. I think it usually was but it still felt wrong. After that, I went to the bathroom to wash my hands (because they feel so dirty after using those machines) and quickly left. I was so eager to get out that I forgot to stretch, but I was able to do it in my room when I got back like I originally wanted to.

Honestly, this has to have been the most uncomfortable thing I have done so far. Usually I leave the things I do feeling better about it and having a new appreciation for it, but I pretty much left here feeling the same as I did going in. The gym is a natural part of most peoples’ lives, but the combination of confusion, inexperience, and self-consciousness makes it quite an uncomfortable experience. I think consistency and experience is the only way to make this more comfortable for myself. I definitely want to try to go more for multiple reasons. (1) it’s free while I’m in school so I’m trying my best to take advantage of all my student benefits while I’m still here this last year, (2) I really need to start a consistent workout schedule just to have a healthy lifestyle, and (3) I didn’t take weight training for nothing. So eventually I will force myself to go back again.

But boy I’m gonna be sore tomorrow…

Fright Night

Every year I try to do as many Halloween themed activities as I can, such as spooky baking, watching movies, dressing up and decorating.  However, even though Halloween is my favorite holiday, ironically, I hate being scared.  I like creepy things, but I’m a big coward when it comes to jump scares and absolutely hate gore. So why not torture myself in the spirit of Halloween and scare the crap out of myself at a horror maze!

Horror mazes seemed like they were a big deal back in middle and high school.  I remember seeing one set up every year on a farm by my old house called Corner of Chaos.  Sadly, it’s long gone now, the farm is now a corporate building, and I don’t even live there anymore, but it was still an iconic spot growing up.  I remember driving by seeing the flashing lights and fog and we would turn down the music in the car to hear the chainsaws and screams from inside.  That was about the extent of my horror maze experience back then.  One year when we were older, my sister actually went with a group of her friends and I couldn't believe one of us was actually going in.  Pulling up in the parking lot to drop her off was the closest I had ever been to being inside, and the closest I wanted to be.

By the time I was in 8th grade, I remember my soccer team got together to have a bonfire night and then go to a horror maze after.  I really wasn’t excited but I figured it’s team bonding and I love Halloween so it should be fine.  Once we got there and I started waiting in line for the maze I really started second guessing.  I was telling people I didn’t think I wanted to go and, of course, everyone was trying to convince me to go and that it would be fun—so I just started crying.  Can’t force the crying girl to go through the maze.  So I left before ever going in.  And that was the very last time I got anywhere near a horror maze. 

I figured this would be the perfect way to celebrate the Halloween special here on Comfortless.  I was trying so hard to think of anything else to do so that I wouldn’t have to do this, which made me realize even more that I have to.  If it makes me that uncomfortable, it’s perfect!  I spent so long looking up places and trying to find reviews so I could really know what I was getting myself into.  Honestly, I was looking for places with bad reviews because that would mean it's not as scary.  If someone left a review saying “there were barely any actors and their outfits were cheesy” I knew that’s where I wanted to go.  One website even gave ratings on  a ton of horror attractions that ranked them like “moderately scary”, “scary”, “very scary”, ect.  The place I originally had in mind was ranked as “terrifying” so I immediately scratched that off the list.  Then I started second guessing if I should even do a walk-through maze or a hayride because on a hayride at least we have the safety of sitting on the truck and other people with us.  I seriously did so much research before. 

While sitting on the couch looking up a million places, I remembering turning to Will and saying “I don’t think I want to go” so I put down my phone and gave up.  About 5 minutes later I picked it back up and started looking up family-friendly halloween activities, and then I went right back to looking up horror places.  This cycle went on about 3 more times until I decided I wanted a break and we went to get dinner.  At dinner, I was still debating what to do.  I even texted my mom for support, telling her I didn’t want to go but I don’t know what else to do. She wasn’t much help because she told me not to go, but I finally found one place called Scary Rotten Farms that wasn’t too far away, had decent reviews (for scaredy cats like me), and wasn’t too expensive.  So after dinner we headed there. 

Of course I had to play my Halloween playlist on the way there.  I was listening to “Calling All the Monsters” by China Anne McClain as if I was about to go to a cute little Halloween party and not a haunted maze.  Honestly, the scariest part might have been the parking lot.  When we got there there were a ton of people walking around, cars parked randomly in a field, and men with glowing sticks to guide people.  When I first pulled in I literally just went in one big circle that led me back to the entrance.  The men kept guiding me with the lights so I thought they were going to tell me where to park. They did not. They led me in one big circle.  The second time around I was praying I found a spot so I didn’t have to face the men again watching me do laps all night.  Finally, when I was coming up on the entrance again, I found one and pulled right in. 

Right when we got out of the car you could hear the screams and chainsaws.  Already we saw one scare actor with a chainsaw chasing people out of a maze.  I was nervous but trying to hype myself up.  There were a few entrances to different mazes around the parking lot so it took a minute to find the main area to buy tickets.  We finally found it because we noticed the looooong line in front of the ticket booth.  Like most people there, we didn’t buy tickets online ahead of time so we all had to wait in line.  While on line, there were some clowns going up and down the line talking to people.  There was also a woman going around handing waivers to everyone to sign.  This made me feel even more uncomfortable because we have to actually sign something for a little spooky maze.  Luckily, someone behind us asked what it meant and the woman said that none of the actors can touch you or anything like that so I felt better knowing it wasn’t one of those crazy haunted attractions that literally torture people and cut off their hair (like the 17th Door attraction in California going around on TikTok right now).  

The line, thankfully, didn’t take too long so once we got our tickets we went right for the closest maze, which happened to be “Sinister Sneed’s Chaotic Carnival of Chaos”.  I didn’t see much of the other ones but honestly, the entrance to this one looked the coolest so I was fine with this one. The line here took a little longer because groups go through one by one, but it still wasn’t too bad of a wait. Again, the clowns were back to joking with people in line and we just planned out our method of going through without trying to get too scared.  Once we got to the front of the line we were waiting for the man to come back to lead us in.  Even though he was dressed up in his spooky outfit, he was actually really friendly and we were talking to him for a little before it was our turn.  This made me feel a little better going in even though his job wasn’t to be scary so who knows how the scary people act.  

It was finally our turn to go through. We weren’t allowed to have our phones out while going through the maze, so I didn’t get any pictures or videos inside, but it was so dark you probably wouldn't be able to see anything anyway.  I didn’t want to go first so I had Ashley in front of me and Will behind me to be my personal bodyguards through the maze.  In one of the very first hallways it was pitch black and there was someone sitting on the floor who I didn’t see until they honked some loud flashing horn at us.  Right before going through I told Will and Ashley that I’m not really a screamer when I get scared (because I’m usually not), but right away I screamed at that.  In the next room there was another girl with another one of those boxes just staring at us. She was in the open so I knew she was going to honk it, I was just staring back at her waiting for it.  It wasn’t until just as we were about to leave the room that she finally did.  

A lot of the rooms were like that where there would be creepy decorations and then one actor either staring at us, following us, or making a loud noise.  There was SO much fog in one of the rooms that Ashley and I couldn’t even see where we were going, and I’m pretty sure we left Will behind.  We finally all gathered back together because Ashley and I were trapped in a corner with three walls and didn’t know where to go. We turned around and the actor in the room who was following us had to point us in the right direction.  Turns out they weren’t all walls, one of them was a tarp we were supposed to walk through.  That dumb moment from us lighted the mood for a second, until we kept going.  There was one man in a hallway with some creepy little demon goblin or something on his shoulders going right up to our faces and having the goblin thing breathe right on us.  I just kept telling myself “well they can’t touch us we signed a waiver” so once he backed up I walked right around him.  Ashley was pinned up against the wall with the goblin thing breathing in her face and not going anywhere.  I was not going on in the maze first in line so I pulled her out and made her take her place as line leader again.

There were some funny actors that we joked around with.  The man with the goblin was following Will and roasting him a little bit.  One narrow hallway had punching bags hanging from the ceiling and two clowns (who were the same ones walking around in the line earlier) said to us “easy on the balls ladies”, so there was a little adult humor mixed in too to lighten the mood.  Some rooms didn’t have any actors at all, which people leaving bad reviews online were upset about, but I didn’t mind because (1) it was one less scare and (2) it gave me some time to actually look around at the set up rather than trying to run right through.  

It was all pretty spooky and fun, up until the very end.  We got into this one room that had the most actors in one spot than any other room.  Simultaneously, they all turned and stared at us, so I knew it was about to go down.  They all started slowly walking towards us with their clown faces and his hammers.  They had more of those little horn boxes that were all going off at once.  At one point, about 3 of them were surrounding me and Ashley and Will got left behind once again to just watch us be bombarded.  I was holding on to Ashley's jacket with a super grip and pretty much using her as my human shield.  I tried ducking behind her while they were all in our face so I could maybe look around for the exit.  That's when we noticed the iconic man with a chainsaw who was chasing people out of the maze when we first got there.  I never actually saw the exit, but somehow we finally ended up on the other side.  We never actually ran (because that’s what they want so they can chase you) so I just kind of speed walked out and we were free!

While I hate being scared and the building suspense of jump scares, afterwards always makes it seem more fun.  My adrenaline was rushing and I could finally laugh about it because I wasn’t anticipating another scare. The end was definitely the scariest part and pretty much what I expect all other horror mazes that have five stars or a “terrifying” ranking to be like.  If the whole maze was like that I think it would be less enjoyable because then it’s not so much goofy jump scares, it’s just miserable fear. I think it was still a fun event to do around Halloween to get in the spooky spirit.  Ashley even said “lets go do another one!”.  Even though I ended up having a good time, I still responded, “absolutely not let’s leave”.

Maybe next year I’ll rebuild my bravery again. 

BOO-I-N-G-O

The first time I ever went to a real bingo was not long after I turned 18.  I loved playing bingo in elementary school and my grandparents would host a bingo game for the kids during our family summer vacations.  So my grandma was really excited to take us to a real bingo (with actual money and prizes involved) when I was 18 and could legally gamble.  I was really excited myself because bingo is fun and now I could get real prizes out of it.

When I went though, it was a little more intimidating than I expected.  These old people take their bingo very seriously.  It was at a local church and the place was packed.  Everyone was looking at me because I was definitely the youngest person there. My mom and grandma even prepped me by saying if I were to win people would be heckling the callers to check my ID to make sure I could actually be playing.  My grandma came prepared with the daubers and tape to tape down the boards so they don’t move.  I didn’t win anything that day, but it was a strange experience because I don’t think they get too many 18 year olds excited for bingo.  

I still love bingo, but I think it makes more sense to find a crowd more in my age range, except college kids don’t seem to be a huge target audience for bingo.  While I was searching for Halloween events going on around my area, I found a Halloween themed “Boozy Brunch Bingo” at the Nip n’ Tuck bar in Long Branch.  I put it in my calendar and knew I had to go.  Not only was it bingo, but it was HALLOWEEN bingo!! Two of my favorite things!  However, I couldn’t help but get flashbacks to my first bingo event.  Especially because it’s at a bar and I only just turned 21 this past summer, and people can’t believe it because I still look like I’m 16.   So either way I still look like the youngest person in the crowd.

I spent the few weeks after finding the event mentally preparing for it. I was fully convinced it was going to be a crowd full of old people again like the first bingo I went to. The fact that it was a bingo game and early in the day (brunch time) made me believe it even more. I also wasn’t sure if I needed to prep with daubers and tape like my grandma did when she went. There was very little information given about the event online and I couldn't find anything on social media about it, only the one website I found that was selling the tickets had any information on it. The only thing it said was the place, time, and to dress up. Also, anyone dressed as a firefighter got an extra board because it’s fire safety month. I was stressing out about buying a ticket at all because I wanted to make sure it was a legit event. The fact that it wasn’t on the website or social media of the bar made me worried.  It wasn’t until the day before the event was supposed to happen that they finally posted about it on Instagram, so I actually bought my ticket and calmed down a bit. 

The stress came right back a few hours later because I told my roommates about it and they were going to buy their tickets too.  Well the post on Instagram with the link to buy tickets was already taken down and the website where you buy them from said “sales ended”.  My only reaction was “oh no”. What was I going to do now?  I already had my ticket and I didn’t want to go alone.  I also wasn’t sure if tickets would be sold at the door and I (still) couldn't find any information that said if they were selling them or not. After texting my mom who would know more about this than me, she said that usually they stop selling tickets online before to get an idea for how many people were going, but you can still buy them at the door.  So I still wasn’t totally confident, but we were gonna wing it and hope they let them get in. 

The next day we got up a little early so we could get coffee and get ready before we had to be there.  I didn’t really have anything that could work as a costume, but I do have a ton of Halloween accessories so I put together a Halloween-y outfit and went with that.  I was worried that I would be the only one not in costume, but also didn’t want to be overdressed in a costume at 11 in the morning so I just hoped for the best.  My roommate, Rachel, had some cow accessories that she wore and my other roommates, Jess and Mia, didn’t wear a costume either.  

The website said to get there at least 10 minutes before bingo started so we made sure to get there a little early so we could figure out the ticket situation.  When we got there, a woman dressed up as what looked like a zombie was checking people in and giving them a table.  We asked her if we could buy tickets here and she said that reservations/buying in advance are preferred, but they could still buy them now!  I think it helped that I already had a ticket so they were expecting at least one of us and had a table we could use.  Once we sat down we ordered some water (because even though it was a “boozy” bingo, I was too worn out from homecoming the day before to drink anything else) and we pretty much just waited for the games to start.  Eventually more people started to show up and they told everyone to grab a board from the bucket at the front.  They were reusable boards so there was no need for daubers or tape.  I also noticed the crowd was much younger than I expected.  We were still probably the youngest ones there, with another pair of Monmouth students who were there, but not as many senior citizens as I was expecting.  I guess there still is a younger market for bingo!

Being a small local bar, I also noticed that everyone seemed to know each other.  The workers were pointing out regulars and everyone was greeting each other.  The announcer even asked us if this was our first time there, if it wasn’t obvious enough.  The announcer started by telling us there were 3 rules. 1. If you have bingo you need to scream it because it was loud in there and if she didn’t hear you she would keep going.  As a relatively quiet person, this worried me a bit.  2. Don’t clear your board until she says so in case the winner doesn’t actually have bingo.  And 3. We’re all here to have a good time.  The first game was regular bingo. The prize was some scratch off lottery tickets.  I love doing scratch offs so I wouldn’t mind this prize, but I also figured there were better prizes to come. I mean it really wouldn’t matter because you can win multiple bingos anyway, but I didn’t want to press my luck too early. I didn’t need to worry about that because the game ended pretty quickly and I was nowhere close to a bingo. The second game was 4 corners and the prize was a choice of signed football jerseys from either the Panthers, Bengals, or one other team that I forgot.  I actually hate football with a passion so I was mentally checked out for this game.  I didn’t end up winning, but clearly I wasn’t too upset about it. 

The games kept changing between regular bingo variations: diagonal, full X, T, middle row, a cross, and even some new modes I had never played before.  For example, we played a round of normal bingo, except the only difference was that the free space didn’t apply.  I thought this was a fun way to play and I especially liked it because I ended up being one space away from bingo!  The prize for that one was some bottles of alcohol in a cute little Halloween basket.  It was one of the better prizes so I was upset that I came so close but didn’t win.  Other prizes included a camping chair, a cantina, a Nip n’ Tuck shirt, a pitcher of beer for your next visit, a beer can holder, a beach umbrella, and some other repeat prizes.  The ones I wanted the most were the Nip n’ Tuck shirt and the beach umbrella.  I wasn’t close to winning either of those but I was close to winning the beer can holder and a pitcher of beer because I was one away on each of those games too, which were just regular bingo.  

Somewhere in the middle of the games we ordered some food.  It was brunch bingo so I had to get something!  But also it went for a long time and I didn’t eat before going so that helped too.  I got a classic pork roll, egg, and cheese because you can’t go wrong with that!  It even came with tater tots on the side.  Rachel got a BLT.  The food took a while because there were a lot of people and, from what I saw, only one cook, but it was fine because we were preoccupied with bingo anyway.  When it did come out, it was really good, but I was having a hard time trying to eat and play bingo at the same time. 

Since it was Halloween themed, they would have breaks to give away prizes for the costume contest. Some of the categories were most creative, best homemade costume, and best couple. They would have the people participating walk around the bar to show off their costumes.  Then, some of the votes would be determined by applause.  There were more people not dressed up than I was expecting.  I wasn’t in a costume, but if I had one ready I totally would be. How many opportunities as adults do you get to dress up?!

The games continued for a couple hours and eventually the breaks in between and costume contests started getting longer and longer.  It was taking longer than the 4 of us expected, so we decided to head out before the last couple of games.  Unfortunately, none of us ended up winning anything, but I was just happy to be able to go to another bingo!  Especially since this one is local, Halloween themed, and for relatively younger people.  The bar was even advertising their kids Halloween event for October 30th, which I thought was really cute that they have events for kids as well.  They also have Thanksgiving and Christmas bingos coming up later in the year so I’ll have to go back and check those out too.

I’ll have to call my grandma to see if she wants to come. 

Unplugged

This blog was born out of one of my classes this semester all about social media.  Another assignment for this class (besides the blog) was to spend a day without our phones.  I mean, there’s nothing more uncomfortable than that so I decided to turn it into a blog post!

Now, obviously it’s kind of hard to collect content for a blog, like pictures and videos, without a phone, so I gave my phone to Will for the day and left him in charge of pictures, and making sure I don’t go on it obviously.  It actually worked perfectly that this was assigned when he was visiting because since we’re long distance a majority of our communication is done online.  I wouldn’t want to go a whole day without talking to him.  The worst part is that Will isn’t a big social media guy so he was not very good at remembering to keep up with the TikTok and pictures, or how take either of them in the first place (go check out the TikTok @comfortlessblog if you wanna see his final product). 

The weirdest part was right when I woke up.  Checking my phone is always the first thing I do in the morning and it was hard to resist when my alarm went off and I already saw text notifications from my family.  Not gonna lie, I did check the texts to make sure it wasn’t anything important from my parents, and then I fell back asleep for a little bit to restart. 

After getting up I immediately started getting ready, because what else was I going to do laying in bed if not scroll on my phone for an extra 30 minutes?  We went downstairs and the first thing I did was decorate the Halloween cookie pizza that we started the night before.  Very random start to the morning but hey it was something to do!  Then right after I started making breakfast, which was mini pumpkin shaped waffles.  I kept thinking of things to look up on my phone, like recipes, the weather, and any other random thoughts that popped into my head that I could almost always immediately find an answer to. 

Once we ate breakfast and kind of sat around for a bit, it was time to get ready and head out for our daily Dunkin’ run (because I have an obsession).  I had a nostalgic moment when trying to pick out my outfit based on the weather.  Instead of going on my phone to check the weather, I took a step outside to feel how it actually felt like I used to do when I was younger to check the weather.  I completely forgot I used to do this until I had to do it again now.  Another “to be honest” moment, I did ask Will to check the weather for us even after stepping outside because that method isn’t necessarily completely accurate…I mean neither is the weather honestly but whatever. 

On the ride to Dunkin’, we listened to the radio since I couldn’t connect my phone up to the car.  Being a radio student who wants to work in a radio station after college, I’ve always wanted to be a person who listens to radio in the car to support my passion, but it's just so hard.  Half the stations don’t come in where I live and the ones that do either play Top 40 pop or suuuuper oldies.  Also, I was constantly trying to change the station to find a song I like which honestly seemed more distracting and dangerous than when my phone is right there.  Anyway, despite the distraction of the radio, we lived and made it to Dunkin’.  My family shares an account on the Dunkin’ app so thankfully my sister, Ashley, was with us too so she could use her phone to pay.  It made me realize that when I go out for Dunkin’, Starbucks, Rook, Wawa, or other quick chains, I don’t bring anything but my phone because I can order and pay for it right from there. 

Don’t mind all the dust on my dashboard…

Luckily, there was a fair going on in our town that day so it was another way to get out and do something productive and fun rather than sitting inside.  There was really no need for my phone here and I didn’t get many urges to want to go on it because I was preoccupied from the stands set up everywhere (and also trying to dodge the crowds of people everywhere).  One time I wanted to use my phone was to send a picture of me and Ashley to our parents with the new shirts we bought.  

Another moment I noticed I would usually go on my phone was when I was waiting in a long line by myself while Ashley and Will were at another stand.  Usually when I’m in this situation anywhere else, I don’t know what I would do without my phone because I’m an awkward person and don’t know how to act when I’m just standing and waiting.  Where am I supposed to look? What do I do with my hands? Should I start a conversation with someone?  Honestly, this time wasn’t that bad.  I didn’t really think about this stuff too much and I mostly just people (and dog) watched everyone at the festival.  Although, if it wasn’t as crowded as a place I certainly would be thinking about those things.  

We wandered around the festival a little more and then headed out.  When we got back, we just relaxed a little bit but it wasn’t long before Will and I had to head out again to get dinner with his parents.  I was glad to not have my phone for this because I haven’t seen them in a while and I didn't want to even have the possibility of checking my phone at all and seeming impolite.  Even with good intentions, if I have my phone right in my pocket, chances are I’ll glance at it every now and then.  Especially because the New Jersey Devils were playing at the same time we were having dinner, which I get notifications when someone scores for every game.  

Dinner lasted quite a while since the restaurant was busy and we were all catching up on the past three months since Will and I both headed back to college for the fall.  We all took a quick walk to the beach and then headed back to Will’s house for a little to hang with his parents and his dog.  When it was time to leave, Will and I both went back to my house so we could pack up all his stuff he brought down for the week before he had to head back to school.  I folded some of our laundry that I did earlier in the day, which is still better than putting laundry away, but I usually put it off as long as possible, but what else was I going to do?  

I even did a little bit of homework on paper???  It's a rarity today to do anything on paper in college these days.  The only reason this was on paper was because I wrote out the questions from the online document the night before knowing I wouldn’t be able to use my phone or laptop all day, but still wanted to get a little head start on my homework.  I’m a paper note taker, but besides taking my own notes, I can’t remember the last time I was given an assignment to handwrite answers on. 

After finishing the laundry and homework, I got ready for bed and laid down to catch up on everything I missed on my phone today.  Technically we were only required to not use our phones and laptops for 8 hours out of the day, but I wanted to see how long I could really go.  I will admit, the distractions throughout the day made it MUCH easier to do than it would be if I were alone with nothing going on.  Maybe one day I’ll try it again when I’m alone, but no promises.  Honestly, as much as I would like to be able to, because we all know how addictive and damaging phones are, I really don’t think I’d ever be able to go a whole day without checking my phone at all.  First of all, my family and boyfriend all live miles away from me so I need my phone to keep in touch with them.  Second, being in college, especially as a media studies and production major, everything I do is online.  Also, any organizations/clubs I’m a part of all communicate through group chats and emails that I need to be checking to get important information about meetings and events.  Lastly, I'm simply just addicted.  I know the whole point is to break the addiction, but I’ll just automatically reach for my phone or computer to get out of awkward or boring situations.  

So while I never think I’ll be able to get rid of my phone addiction completely, hopefully things like this blog will help me find new hobbies to keep me apart from it more. 

Wingin’ It

This week I went out of my comfort zone by staying in and attempting a home cooked meal.  I have always loved baking and can bake pretty much anything I want, but I absolutely hate cooking.  One of the things I hate about it is that it takes so much effort that it's not even satisfying to eat.  I guess you could say the same thing about baking, but I usually bake for fun not for actual meals. A lot of foods I don’t fully trust myself to cook anyway and I don’t think anything I try to cook will turn out like the recipe.  I usually stick to cooking pasta, frozen foods, or anything else instant and self-explanatory for a college student.  I figured I should (1) stop spending so much money on eating out and one-use food products (like instant meals) and (2) actually learn how to cook for my future self and family, so no better time to learn than now.

I decided that I was going to attempt to make chicken wings.  The main reason for this is because I almost always avoid cooking meat out of fear of not cooking it long enough and eating raw meat.  Also because my boyfriend Will, who you might remember from my first blog '“Flying Solo”, was visiting me this time and I wanted to find something we would both eat, so I'm not making an entire meal for myself that I’ll never be able to finish. 

First step was to gather all the ingredients.  Surprisingly enough, it didn’t require too many and I actually already had most of the ingredients I needed in my dorm room.  This is especially shocking because I am always low on food here and never know what to buy…a true college student who’s too lazy to cook and doesn’t know how to shop for herself. The only ingredients I needed to buy were the chicken and hot sauce.  The instructions also said you need a wire rack to cook the chicken on and a large bowl to mix the chicken with the sauce in.  We don’t have either of those in our room (which is expected for the wire rack but you’d think we would at least have a mixing bowl) so I figured I would buy that too if I found one at the store. 

We first stopped at one of my favorite stores, Lidl!  I can’t tell you exactly why I love Lidl so much but I do, however, the bread/pastry section right at the front certainly helps.  Here we found both the chicken wings and hot sauce so we pretty much had everything we needed in one trip.  I also had to browse the Halloween section a bit and found some spooky French fries and granola bars just for fun!

Next, we stopped at Dollar Tree to see if they would have a mixing bowl and possibly a wire rack, because they have random stuff like that sometimes, just not this time.  After a quick lap around the store, I didn’t see any wire racks or anything close to it.  I did see various bowls but none of them seemed like what I envisioned and felt like I wouldn’t use it much after this one recipe, so there was no point in buying it.

Afterwards, we stopped at ShopRite for one last effort at finding the random cooking tools.  Again, a strange place to look for what we needed, but they have random stuff and it was nearby so I figured why not try.  Well unfortunately that failed us too and we didn’t find exactly what we needed.  I found some things that were kind of similar, but not enough that it was worth buying so I figured they weren’t that important anyway and I could make it work with what I had at the apartment. 

Now it was time to really start.  The recipe I followed came from the website, Tastes Better From Scratch for their Crispy Baked Chicken Wings.  I almost always need a recipe to follow no matter what I’m doing because I truly will never understand how people eyeball measurements and adjust things based on taste.  This recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of baking powder, 3/4 teaspoons of salt, 1/2 teaspoon of pepper, and 1 teaspoon each of paprika and garlic powder for the chicken seasoning and 1/3 cup of hot sauce, 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar, and 1 tablespoon of water for the sauce.  The first thing I did was open the package of chicken and, much to my surprise, turns out I bought whole chicken wings.  I guess I really didn’t look at the package at all and I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was really thrown off.  So I gave myself a bonus step in this recipe and now had to cut my own chicken wings. 

Not only was I not expecting to have to cut my own chicken wings, I was also not expecting how disgusted I would be from it.  After looking up a tutorial on how and where to make the cuts, I got the biggest knife we have to be able to cut through the bones at two different points on all six wings.  Seriously, both Will and I were cringing and gagging at every cut we did.  The crunch of the bones was probably the worst part, but the blood wasn’t very appetizing either. 

After suffering through cutting all the wings, we now had six wings and six drumsticks.  The first step was to pat them all dry.  Again, pretty disturbing, but still better than cutting them.  Everything after this was pretty easy.  We just had to mix the spices together and coat each chicken wing with it.  We preheated the oven to 425 degrees F and started to arrange the wings on the tray.  This is where the wire rack was supposed to come in, but I decided to just wing it (no pun intended) and hope for the best without one.  

Once preheated, we put the wings in the oven and really just had to wait from there.  The recipe said to flip them every 20 minutes until they’re brown and that total cooking times could vary.  I HATE when you just have to watch and use your best judgment for things like that because like I said before, I’m not good at eyeballing so I have no idea when they’re actually done.  Regardless, I set my timer for 20 minutes until the first flip and started on the sauce. 

The measurements weren't totally making sense to me for the sauce.  It was almost all brown sugar with a little bit of hot sauce.  I still followed the recipe anyway, but I didn’t have high hopes for it. All I had to do was put the ingredients in a pot and mix them together over heat until the sugar dissolved. 

After flipping the chicken wings and cooking for 20 more minutes, I figured they were done.  What I would usually do in the past is overcook any chicken so I know for sure that it's not raw, but then it’s horribly dry and disgusting. I assumed that 20 minutes on each side was enough to evenly cook the wings because they weren’t that big so I took them out and let them cool before coating them.  The recipe made WAY too much sauce so I just coated a few in a little bowl (because we still don’t own a big mixing bowl) using just a little bit.  I plated them with ranch for me and no dipping sauce for Will because he eats everything plain.  I also left two extras which we coated in just the hot sauce (since I wasn’t feeling too confident in the recipe’s sauce) and sat down to eat. 

The wings actually tasted really good!  I mean I hated the sauce because, as I suspected, it was super sweet and not really spicy at all, but the first few were delicious before the sweetness became overpowering.  They came out much better than I ever expected.  I especially liked the one wing with just the plain hot sauce.  In my opinion it tasted so much better than the rest of them.  Unlike most things I tend to cook, they tasted just how I would expect them to at a restaurant: not overcooked and more importantly, not raw!

When I first started cooking, I really had no idea what I was getting myself into.  Once I realized I had to cut the wings myself, I was almost ready to give up, determine this adventure a failure, and conclude that I still hate cooking and always will. While I still like baking better, cooking was actually much easier than I expected.  Hopefully future recipes I try turn out just as simple as this one.  I at least have one recipe now that I’m confident in!  I mean, I do have a whole bottle of hot sauce that I have to use now.

I’m just gonna buy the precut wings next time…

Smooth Sailing

This journey began all the way back when I first transferred to Monmouth as a sophomore.  My dad has always loved sailing and has owned a good amount of different types of boats throughout his life and mine.  While shopping for merchandise in the university bookstore, as all new students do, my dad bought a Monmouth sailing hat for himself, despite me never sailing in my life and having no intentions to join the team.  In the 3 years since, he has always asked me to keep an eye out for people on the sailing team and ask them if they are ever selling merchandise so he can support the team. 

Fast forward to the beginning of my senior year, I was at the involvement fair to let people know about Monmouth’s radio station WMCX, the one and only club I have been a part of here.  It was hard to miss the giant boat in the middle of the lawn that the sailing team brought to show off their club.  As the fair died down and there weren’t as many students to talk to anymore, I decided to head over to the sailing team’s table for my dad, just to ask them about merchandise. Somehow they convinced me to sign up for the team (which I should have expected since that is the whole intention for an involvement fair) but I immediately had to tell my dad. 

I don’t think he fully believed me at first so he didn’t get too excited

So just like that, I was on the email list for the sailing team!  Since no experience is necessary, they're not just going to throw you on a boat and expect you to know what to do.  The first email I got as a member was about their Learn to Sail event for new members to try it out and see if they really like it and want to officially join.  Still unconvinced that I should go through with this, I waited a few days to respond.  However, since this is my last year of college, I decided that this year I may as well do as much as I can while I’m here. That’s when my mindset totally shifted and I became excited to join the sailing team (and the excitement from my dad helped too). So I took the next step and signed up for the Learn to Sail event!

The event ended up getting postponed for a week due to strong winds. They shouldn’t really throw inexperienced sailors into heavy winds…The night before the postponed date I convinced my friend, Aiden, to join me since he also said he was interested in going so he sent out an email at 11:30 PM to the coach, which she shockingly responded to almost immediately.  Now two weeks after first signing up, it was officially time to sail. 

When Aiden and I got to the yacht club where all the practices take place, we saw a bunch of boats (duh) and other students who were either already in the club or learning just like us. We introduced ourselves to the coach, and then kinda waited around for something to happen.  The current members were setting up the boats to get ready to take out on the water so there was nothing really for us to help with yet.  After more people showed up, the coach took us all aside to talk about the club, what they do, and what we would be doing. 

They only had five boats prepared with current members to take the new members out on the water, so we had to trade off who was sailing when.  Somehow, I was one of the people to go out, so I got to help launch the boat in the water.  My dad only sails in the summer, when you expect to be around water and the beach.  However this was nothing like sailing in the summer.  The water was freezing right when my feet hit it and obviously I’m not going to wear shorts in cold weather so my socks, shoes, and pants all got submerged.  Surprisingly, my body got used to it really quick and I wasn’t as freezing as I thought I was going to be.

Once we took off, the member I was sailing with was explaining all my jobs as crew for the day.  I was in charge of the two lines connected to the jib (the front sail) and had to keep it pretty much centered.  I also had to lower the center board, keep the boat balanced by switching the side I was sitting on if we started leaning too much, and scoop water out of the boat if it got too filled up.  Luckily I never had to do that last job for my short time on the boat because the rest of the jobs were enough to remember already.  I wish I could say my dad prepared me well for this and I already knew everything I had to do, but I didn’t. I’ve heard him talk about sailing many times in my life but still have no idea what any of it means or how to do it.  The same goes for the member I was on the boat with.  He was demonstrating how to tack and jibe so I asked him what the difference between them was.  I pretended like I understood, but I really had no idea. I know that tacking is when you turn but jibing is…a harsher turn???  I don’t know, I’ll just look it up.

After sailing around for half an hour and even practicing hiking, where you lean off the side of the boat to balance it, it was time to switch groups.  We got up to the dock and I hoped out and traded off my life jacket to another new member.  Now THIS is when I started to get really cold.  In the water and on the boat I was fine, it barely even affected me.  But once I got out covered in water and just sitting in the wind, that was when it was really bad.  We were told to bring a towel and change of clothes just in case we wanted to change after, except my bag of dry clothes was in Aiden’s locked car, who was now off on a boat with his keys in his pocket.  So I just waited with the other sailors talking and watching everyone else on the water.  

By the time the second group got back, the coach rode over on the powerboat and told us there were dolphins out in the river!  So about seven or eight of us pack onto the powerboat to go hunt for a dolphin sighting. It wasn’t long before we saw a group of dolphins following the boats and popping in and out of the water.  They were swimming fast so we kept losing them and would sail around until we found them again.

With all the distraction of the dolphins, one of the members was trying to get the attention of their coach when all of a sudden the wind died and we turned around to see the boat flip into the water. Luckily both the people on the boat were current members so they knew how to recover from this, but I certainly would not want to fall into that cold water. 

It was finally time to bring all the boats in and watch how they pack them up.  At this point, my feet were unbearably cold, so I was trying my best to pay attention and learn, but man it was hard to not focus on my freezing feet.  They showed us how to fold the sails and when there seemed to be downtime between packing up the sails, I got my dry change of clothes and went to go try to warm up.  I took my time with this to hope that I would warm up enough before going back out in the cold.  I guess I took a little too long because I missed the explanation of how they cover the boats, but I tried my best to help based on context clues and we were pretty much done after that!

Despite my freezing feet, I actually had a really fun time!  I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect going in and didn’t know if I’d be completely miserable having to be near water in the cold (I do not do well in cold weather) but I really enjoyed it and glad I went!  I’ve been considering learning to sail over the summer because it would be cool to know how to do, but I never seemed to have  the downtime to really master it.  While I still don’t think I’ll master it by the end of this year, I am excited to go out again and hopefully start to make some sense of those terms they were explaining to me.  All I know is that I have to learn enough to be able to beat my dad in a race next summer.

You hear that dad?  It’s on!!

Flying Solo

When I was younger, my biggest fear was flying on an airplane. Today, I still get nervous when flying and consider this my biggest fear, except I’ve had more exposure in recent years. However, one thing I have never done is travel to an unknown place alone…until last weekend when I went to visit my boyfriend, Will, who goes to school in North Carolina. Since I live and go to school in New Jersey, it was obviously a bigger trip than just a short drive to see each other. 

The first struggle was trying to find the flights. While this blog is about me going out of my comfort zone, I’m only taking baby steps so I wanted to fly out of an airport I already know. Newark International Airport scares me a bit because it’s so big and confusing, so I wanted a flight out of Trenton-Mercer airport. Finding a flight to Raleigh was easy! Finding one back was a different story. Initially, the only flights I could find were at 7 AM or earlier. I know myself and Will well enough to know that neither of us were going to be able to get up and ready to get me to the airport in time for any of those flights, so I had to keep searching. I looked up every airport and airline in the area to try to find a cheap and reasonable flight until I finally found one for 5 PM on Sunday out of Raleigh. Now it was time to start preparing.

One thing about me is that I’m an over-packer. Another thing about me is that I’m a procrastinator. Not a good combination when going on a weekend long trip with just a backpack. So, in last-minute fashion, Wednesday night I started putting together outfits that were comfy for night-time, cool enough if it’s hot out, not too revealing like I’m going to the beach, cute to make a good impression on new people, fancy enough for a dinner reservation and that would satisfy any other over-thinking I was doing (now you see why I over-pack). I only had a limited amount of clothes that I brought to my dorm with me to choose from, so this made the process a little more difficult than usual. Luckily, my mom was picking me up to bring me to the airport, so she was able to take any clothes and other items from home that I might need. So with an overstuffed bag I was off to the airport!

Every time I have flown out of Trenton-Mercer there wasn’t anyone in line for security. Of course, the one time I’m running a little late, there is the longest line I have ever seen there. Once I got in line, that’s when my nerves started to kick in. Although, it was probably a combination of cutting it close to boarding time, worrying about my overstuffed backpack and the excess amount of snacks in it, and having to go to the bathroom from chugging a coffee on the ride there. However, once I got in line for the x-ray and watched my bag go through without being searched, I was feeling a little better and made it through security with no problem! By then, I only had to wait about 10 minutes until it was time to board the flight!

After a short hour and a half long flight I had made it to Raleigh! I was texting Will and his sister, Jillian, to make sure they were at the airport ready to pick me up. The next step was looking up where I had to go to get out of the airport. My motto this trip was “follow other people” since I trusted that they knew where they were going better than me. I followed the big crowds from my flight until I saw doors that led outside and by then I was confident that I knew exactly where I was and where I was going…boy was I wrong. Will was texting me in a panic that there were traffic cops yelling at them to keep moving so they had to make a couple laps around the airport to avoid them. I told them I was waiting outside by a sign that had a big number 6 on it and when they circled back around they said they were right next to number 6 too, but I couldn’t find them anywhere. After a few more laps and a FaceTime call, turns out there were two levels for drop off and pick up at the terminal and we were both at opposite floors (totally my fault because I was on the drop off level). Not my brightest moment but again, I usually just follow other people. 

We finally made it to the campus after catching up from our time apart and getting dinner on the ride back. I got a room tour of Jillian’s dorm and met Will’s roommates. That’s about all we did for the first night since we got back so late. The next day while Will was in class, Jillian and I spent some time by the pool on campus. After his class, Will met up with us and gave me a little tour of the campus. The tour ended with us getting lunch with Jillian at the cutest cafe I’ve ever seen at a college. I would seriously eat there everyday if I was a student! The rest of the day we continued to explore campus, play in the arcade in his dorm, and watched a soccer game that went on later that night.

The next day we spent some time doing homework and playing with a foster dog that Jillian watches for a shelter where she volunteers. We spent some more time in the arcade until it was time for our dinner reservations. There are two very fancy restaurants on campus that are used to teach students etiquette when fine dining. I was mostly impressed that they get to use a meal swipe for a whole 4 course meal. 

The next morning, after we woke up, we got breakfast and of course hit the arcade one last time (we played a lot of pool this weekend). I unfortunately had to repack my bag, which was just as stuffed as when I left, and we headed back to the airport.  

We made it there with much more time to spare than on my way out so we said our goodbyes and took off in different directions. Since I had been to the drop-off floor before when I wasn’t supposed to be there, I already had an idea of where I should go, but I wasn’t certain. So once again, I followed the crowd into the only line I saw for security so I knew it had to be the right spot. The security process was actually really pleasant! Everyone was friendly, no security guards were barking orders at you, and I didn’t even need to take electronics out of my bag because they had a more advanced x-ray. The airport itself was basically one long line so the terminal was easy to find as well. This was the part I was most concerned about before leaving because I had never been here before, and it ended up being the easiest! When I landed back in New Jersey I followed the crowd one last time to find my mom and sister waiting to pick me up and bring me back to school for class the next morning.

Overall, I had an amazing weekend! I’ve always known that one day I would need to travel on my own, especially with Will and I being long-distance, but I never knew if I would be able to. I was so happy I was able to accomplish this solo trip and it gave me so much confidence for any trips in the future. Maybe next time I’ll try to take on Newark…but let’s not get too crazy.