Yet again, it's been quite a while since I've written.  So things are going on here and there, lots of goodness really.  Unlike my title, I don't really mean growing old, just older.  It really makes you think though. 

Just last month I turned 27 and it's made me think about the future and where I'm going to be, what I'm going to do, etc.  I really see a bright future with a lot of possibilities.  I'm pretty excited about it really.  There's so many great things possible.  BTW, my bday was a blast.

 The other week I was hanging out with Marc and we were talking about how different we are now compared to when we first hung out way back during freshman year of high school.  Marc is engaged to be married summer of 2010.  We both know a bunch of people now that are married, have kids, have bought houses, settled down and so on.  Wesley just had his baby girl this weekend...Congrats Wes.  So anyways, Marc and I were chatting about how different things are now and how we've changed with the times.  We're no longer those kids from back when and we have quite the different concerns now.  Back then all that mattered was hanging out with friends, having fun, getting through school and not a whole lot more.  Now life is about finding the right person to be with, getting married, having kids, having a good job (and lord knows that's getting harder by the day with this terrible economy of ours), buying a house, saving for retirement, increasing our credit rating, being sensible and so much more. 

Don't get me wrong, having fun in life will always be important.  Without fun, life becomes dull.  As we get older though, our idea of fun changes.  Just earlier tonight I was hanging out with some friends at Moonbeans and Mike Ortega was there.  Mike and I go way back to elementary school and we were laughing about the old stupid things we and others we knew would do.  LOL, last time he brought up this old shirt I used to wear all the time that everyone at Jackson Elem. knew me by.  For those of you that might've been there you might recall an "It's Not the Heat, It's the Humidity" t-shirt. 

So as I was saying about the convo with Marc, things are different now.  As I'm growing old(er) I'm thinking more about getting myself a nice sensible girl with morals, a good sense of family, a plan for her future, that wants marriage and kids, that wants a nice sensible guy like me.  I'm not saying I want to run off and jump into all that right now cause that's simply not true but more now than before, I want to find the girl that I'll eventually (be it a year, 2yrs or 5yrs) do all those things with.  I'm through with immature girls that don't know what they want or that just want to party all the time and don't care where their future will be. 

Heck, by my age age, my dad was getting ready to have his 3rd kid.  It's kinda crazy when I think about it.  Lord knows I'm glad I don't have any kids yet because I'd want to buy a nice house for them and be prepared before the first one is even born.  I have a real traditional view when it comes to that.  I want to be able to settle down and find the house that my kids will one day grow up in from birth all the way until they move out into a place of their own.  When I was a kid we moved around a bit and I went to 4 elementary schools so I lost a lot of childhood friends in the process.  I wouldn't want my kids to go through that but rather grow up with the same people around them and have those life-long friends. 

Although I'm still back in the Valley, I definitely want to move back to Austin...hopefully within the next couple months.  I'm just about to start a new job at the Juvenile Detention Center in Edinburg but I definitely don't want to stay there.  I might stay in the same field but wherever I work, I know I want to be back in ATX.  This time though it wouldn't be quite as much partying as I did when I first moved there.  There's still a ton of fun to be had, just not quite so crazy.  In fact, when I see myself 10yrs from now I see me living somewhere in north Austin or one of the suburb areas: Cedar Park; Pflugerville; Round Rock; Leander; West Lake; Steiner Ranch...something.  I can imagine spending the rest of my life living around there.  All of the Greater Austin area really is quite a fantastic place to live and raise a family. 

In the morning I'm going to take my grandparents to Harlingen because they're flying back to California after staying at our house for a month and it also has me thinking.  My little cousin has been coming over with her son (my grandparents' great-grand child) and then I see myself and I think, I'd at least like my grandparents to see me get married...heaven forbid they pass on anytime in the near future.  I really love my grandparents because they've always been there for me.  I was their first grandchild so I always got treated a little differently from the rest.  It had been almost 2yrs since the last time I saw them and I hope it doesn't take that long for me to see them again.  I'm sure going to miss them.  When I was a kid I used to see them almost every week when they lived in Hidalgo but after they moved to Cali since the drier climate was much more suitable for my grandpa's health condition, I rarely get to see them anymore.  I guess I already had plenty of time in the past.  Either way it sucks not having them around all the time but if it means my grandpa isn't always having trouble breathing, then so be it.  I want for him whatever makes him feel better.

Well I've had enough of all this for now.  It's time for bed.