Happy Thanksgiving!

Today I start eating... damn, I've done so good! LoL

Seriously, it's been so incredibly insane in my world lately that time with family and in my hometown is a welcome idea! I can't wait! I leave immediately after work to get my two youngest nephews to spoil with my affection and then I'm headed to spend some time with the grandparents. It's going to be a great Thanksgiving this year. Really wish I could spend more of it with A but we have so much family between the two of us! I think this is the first Thanksgiving that I'll see both sides of my family on the same day.... well since my parents divorced!

I've have a lot to be thankful for this year! I hope you have a great one as well!

This small break, while, only a short time, is so healthy for me! Everything has been go, go, go, go the last several weeks, and now with finals and dead week just next week, this is a great chance to catch my breath! I'm gradually getting a little bit more free time as I go so if you know of anyone looking for a photographer for Christmas cards or anything, send them my way!

Friday is my first EVER Alabama Auburn game... Dear God, please don't let me leave in tears! Roll Tide!

Not enough hours in the day

What the hell is Microsoft Access?? I have no clue!

I'm working on these modules for my CS class and laughing so hard I hurt at the lucky guesses I'm making. The power was out at my apartment complex for... oh all night, and so I'm waayyyy behind on getting things done! I have a research project to do, a CS test on Access (that I haven't got a clue what it's point is for...I mean, Excel's not complicated enough?? Or good enough for that matter??), a coffee date Yay! Coffee!!, and A's parents are coming to town. Not to mention I have to be in bed early so I can get up at 4 am OR find somewhere in this madness to get a nap.

Dear God, please let it stop raining when it's time for me to peddle my happy self home. That's a long ride in the rain...

In other news, I'm running, but I'm gimp. I will not let an injury stop me from running another Mercedes!

Where's my heart rate?

Fall Break.

W00t!

How it's spent? Last night, had a party to shoot. Started off pretty easy, then turned challenging when it moved indoors and it was dark and I couldn't see to manually focus the lens. The camera couldn't see to automatically focus, either. I had a lot of hit and misses. Now I know where I need to work on my skills. Today, I have another shoot, hence the Senior portrait rant earlier. Then it's back to work to record weekend programming and remotes. Then it's me, myself, and movies! Maybe a book. Or maybe I'll be responsible and see what schoolwork I can catch up on.

I'm kind of glad to have a little time to myself. It's been really hectic lately. The marathon of tests I had the last two weeks, work, shoots, birthday parties, games, school, and the list goes on and on and on... pant pant pant It's insane! Fortunately, all the hard work and effort is paying off. Aced my Stats test, 96 on Micro, 89 on CS, and 85 on Anthro. I survived!

And the Sitar was good!

Tomorrow, we're celebrating my nephew's 2nd birthday! He's such a big man! Scratch free time activities, I have to make A's and my Halloween costumes for party...

Fridays my brain is fried

I've found a bit of free time to kind of catch up on the going ons...

Those would be...

Oh yeah... school's back in session so my days go a little something like this: Wake up, brush teeth, bike to school, go to class, bike home, go to work, go to study, and sleep somewhere in there. I did, however, for the first time this semester, turn on my TV last night and actually watch it! I Auburn beat Mississippi State, which, if you're a friend of mine, you already knew that so I didn't really keep you abreast of anything new.

Meanwhile, I baked brownies and shamelessly painted my nails houndstooth, which I'm quite proud of! See, not much going on in my life right now, it's quite boring.

I will say that I have become addicted to podcasts! Thanks, DrSxDP! I have found one in particular that I absolutely love; it's called Edinburgn Man and it's all Indie music, which I've become exceptionally fond of. It's not one of those hour long podcasts and he actually plays you the whole song (unlike other music podcasts I've found) and he's pretty interesting to listen to. Love the accent. It's a great download if you are looking for some fresh music. Meanwhile, the Engadget podcast... not so good. Don't get that one.

Looking forward to tomorrow! I will be at the game! I told my grandmother I will be holding up a sign for that reads, "I'm right here, Meme!" Roll Tide!

Reliving Quiet Me Time....**Sigh**

I've had the most relaxing, quiet afternoon at home. It's been so peaceful!

After what's seemed like days of going and going and going post vacation, I was very excited to take a leisurely afternoon to myself! I've been reading P.S. I Love You by Cecelia Ahern. It's a book I started at the beach and it got so hectic there with family fun that I wasn't able to read more. Once I got home, I had the move, I had work, I've had remotes, not to mention at some point I have to see A for some sanity, I haven't had much time to pick it back up! So this afternoon, following two blistering hot days in the sun watching mother's send off their children to college in U-Hauls and high-heels, I picked up my book again and haven't been able to put it down much!

This book is definitely climbing to one of my favorites of all times. I've never read a book that can make me laugh my arse off and then make me cry like a baby in one paragraph. I've never seen the movie; I've already put it on the top of my Netflix queue so when I finally mail that wretched movie I rented last time (The Goods, not good, very bad, so bad, I've considered it my civic duty to NOT mail it back!) I will get the movie in and laugh and cry like a baby all over again.

The rest of the roommates move in next Wednesday. I'm kind of nervous and I'm really not looking forward to it. Being in college again and wanting to be successful is exceptionally difficult when you have ten years on everyone. I'm praying that I get some A++, pencil-pushing, "partying is of the Devil" girls in here!!

The likelihood of that actually happening for me....not high

One Pooped Puppy!!

I am feeling a little too drained to write. But I want to write.

I thought I wanted a night to myself and now I'm bored. In my defense, it's been super hectic the last two days! Yesterday at work, I got stranded at a gas station for hours while Habeeb, the manager, kept telling me, "You are too small to drive that big van! Too small! Why do they have such small girl drive such big van!?"

Before Habeeb chided me for driving a huge Econoline, I was fighting with FAFSA about the loss of my grant... at this moment, I just realized that I did NOT get to call back today to find the form I need to fix that... GDMFPOSGD!

Then I got home much later than expected and had a pizza, beer, and packing party with future roommate and a co-worker. We got so much done! Thank God! Now all I need is the key to my new room and to move my clothes. It was very helpful having three sets of hands putting things I know I'm not going to need immediately in a box and moving them to the new apartment as I could. We had fun, too, or at least I did.

Now my "to-do" remaining pretty plastic. I knock a few items off, pack room up, go to Birmingham, wash clothes, and I'm only making room for more things to be added. Go to library, pack for beach, finish the weekend warrior list at work, sleep.

I've got so much going on in such a short period of time that burn out syndrome is really kicking in! I'm so ready for this vacation! More mentally than physically... especially after I had to step on that scale today... I'm so ready to have books, sun, and sand!! A whole week of zero responsibility: home, school, or work! -- OK, ONE responsibility that I didn't get to do today that must be done ASAP!

So after packing, working, moving, driving, waiting, pushing, organizing, recording, digging, fixing, bleeding, arguing, and I can't remember everything else because it's all blurring together, I'm sitting down and enjoying a beer.

I just may sleep tonight...

I like to ride my bicycle

The thing that I love about the summer time is how out of nowhere, a rainstorm can hit.

Like today for example.

Perfect day for a lazy bike ride. I had no intentions of really pushing myself. Just a good hot, sunny summer day to jump on my bike and ride. It's my newest addiction. I've been going to spin classes pretty regularly lately and have loved them! I didn't get to go this past week so to make up for it, I thought I'd go for a ride around town and just have some good healthy me time on my bike! Until I got downtown...

I noticed the big, dark cloud way in the distance when I left. In the five minutes it took me to peddle down the ominous hill that got me started going to spin classes in the first place, the ominous cloud was gaining speed. I kept peddling thinking that I could at least make it into town.

By the time I got to the strip, it became a race: who was going to make it back to my place faster? Me or this storm?

Then I heard thunder!

I peddled my ass off and made it back up the hill in record time. Didn't get a drop of rain on me. By the time I made it to my stairs, the rain began to pour.

That's when I decided to play on Blogger a bit and found the new templates. I was ready for a face lift anyway. What do ya think??

Just warming up...

It's not even noon yet, as I write this, and I have so many tactless opinions to vomit currently it's not funny. Maybe I'm talking to you, maybe I'm not. Bottom line: I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, I've collectively had about 12 hours of sleep the last three days; I'm in a bad mood.

• Don't tell me that I'm under review, that I have to turn in an unknown document by Saturday or get an automatic one on my review, and then not reply to my question of WTF the document is and what I need to do SINCE I'M OFF THE REST OF THE WEEK!

• Roommates: Clean up after yourselves. Some of you live like filthy pigs. It's disgusting! I get dust bunnies, I get scraps of paper left on the floor. I'm not cleaning up your dishes anymore, I'm not paying for you to use my toilet paper, I don't want your chicken juice on my food when it's thawing, I don't want the bacteria you let fester in the kitchen near me! If the dishwasher is clean and you have a dirty dish, empty the fucking dishwasher. Simple. Takes three minutes. Then put your dirty dish in. If the dish washer's full, start it! If you wash your clothes, please be considerate of others who need to wash their clothes; don't leave a load in the washer the night before you leave on a week long trip to somewhere. You're clothes are going to mildew cause they're just going to sit on top of the dryer, wet, until you come home. We cohabitate! Be considerate! And when you take the garbage out, put another bag in the damn can! Takes two seconds! I bought the damn bags, use them!

• Political activists on the Right and Left: SHUT UP! All of you! Right side: I didn't vote for him either but remember how the last 8 years all you said was, "We should support our President even if we didn't vote for him"? Yeah, waffle if you like, I was in political talk radio then, I've got it on tape. You said it, now act on it. He's you're President, support him. You don't have to like him, you don't have to agree with him, but he is your President now. Left side: I haven't said anything negative, I haven't said he needed to be impeached, I'm quite the moderate now as I get older so, quite frankly, you're not going to sway me either way. Please don't be like the Right for the last 8 years and rubbing in that their man's in a leadership position. Both sides: GROW UP! How many years have we been protesting, starting activist groups, leading campaigns against this and lobbying for that? Put active thought into that question, consider all of the rallies, protests, and petitions you can think of. --- I'll wait.----------Now that you've put some real thought (hopefully) into old and new political war cries, how many have actually worked without voting in the person to put into action? So instead of complaining how bad our economy is and whining about who put us in that situation, how about going back to work, be productive, make money, PUT THE MONEY BACK IN THE ECONOMY and make an active effort to fix our financial problems. Stop sitting on your funds because you're afraid. It takes spending it to get the economy moving again. It's how the system is designed to work. Tea Party People: You're just crazy to think anything is going to reform there. Yeah, just get over you're ideas. Stop saying they governments after your pelf when you know that majority of you (not 100%, but majority) are of the upper-middle class and say you're now live in poverty because of the economy. Taxes aren't going any where, they aren't going to be reformed in the near future unless we get a President elected who has the support to move the Fair Tax system.

• Coworkers: I can't work on Thursdays. I never ask for Saturdays off. Stop asking me to swap my A-day with you. It's not happening. I can't work Thursdays. It requires me to be in two places at once. I can't physically do that. Write it on a post it note, put it in your phone, tattoo it on your hand, put it somewhere you can remember to look. I've been there a year now, you've each asked on more than one occasion; the answer will always be no! Not on Thursdays, not right now. I will let you know when and if that should change!

Side note: I'm listening to Beethoven's Symphony 9: IV and it's getting me more charged for my vent. I haven't sipped my coffee while I've been writing this.

• The average Tweeter: Read the links before you post the story with your opinion in 140 characters or less. I'm annoyed with the number of people reading titles, assuming they know what the article is about, putting a little opinion about it next to the bity link, and submitting. Do you have any idea how stupid you look when people actually go read the link and find out that you're opinion has zero relation to the article you posted? I should unfollow you.

• Parents: Teach your damn children how to drive better! I'm a biker, I follow the same traffic laws as automobiles. That means you treat me the same way as a automobile. I am on a vehicle. I yield for you at yield signs, you yield for me. I stop for you, you stop for me. I will stay on the sidewalks as much as possible but three different teenagers almost committed manslaughter yesterday while I was heading to and from home. What makes me nervous is that teens follow their parents behaviors; you probably don't pay attention to pedestrians and bikers either. I just hope you have good insurance and don't kill me. DrSxDP will be pissed.

That being said,

• Pedestrians: USE THE SIDEWALK AND CROSSWALKS! If you jump out in front of my bike or car in a parking lot when I'm going 5 mph and flip me off for not stopping before you do so, you are jaywalking. I'm not psychic, I don't have x-ray vision. That's why I'm going 5mph! If I'm on my bike, or if you are around any biker for that matter, don't stand still in the bike path and look at us funny when we have to slam on our brakes from hitting you. Stupid twats, you almost deserve to be hit by a car. My insurance isn't that good, though, so you're lucky around me. Though, the mood I'm in today, jump out in front me and I may speed up!

• Some friends in particular that you already know who you are and I don't have to point you out because I've already given you my two cents on your predicament(s): If you aren't going to take my advice, please stop venting to me about how you don't know how to handle something or your life is in the shitter. I am your friend and will always be there for you, however, I will not tolerate pity parties when I've already told you how to handle a problem and you refuse to do it or listen. Honestly, for some of my friends more than others, I'm honestly concerned about how adamant you are about continuing your self-deprecation. You do not live in Shittown unless you want to. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, get back on again. But remember the definition of insanity it doing the same thing over and over again. You want to stay out of Shittown? Stop focusing on the things you can't control and focus on the things you can. When you control what should be organic, you create side effects like what you're experiencing now. Stop trying and let life happen naturally. Because I love you, I'm not listening to it anymore. It may be tough love, and it may hurt, but I don't like seeing you in the place you're in right now. It's time to start accepting the changes in life and going with things instead of manipulating them

• Internet Service Provider: Get off you're lazy ass and fix my connection problems already! Geez, it's old having to swap between all of your routers every five minutes!

I feel a good bit better now. God, I love writing...

This is what a rut looks like

I'm burned out.

I've had so much going on lately that I'm just burnt on nearly everything. A sabbatical would be nice. If only... Work...ugh...work #2...hate corporate America...Where's my free time?

I must have Spring fever. That's what I'll diagnose myself with. I'm seeing these beautiful days of the season casting this happy sunshine over everything and I'm envious of the ones who get to frolic in it. I hate admitting it because I don't mean to complain but I'm finding it more difficult to push through this rut until I can really enjoy some me time.

I'm having to be my own personal cheerleader presently. I can do this. I can make it. My efforts aren't in vain. Miracles happen everyday, you've been blessed in every situation of need so far, Steph, God won't forget you this time, either. The truth is, I know I can do this, I know I can make it. I just hate the disheartening part when things can't or don't go as planned so that I can also frolic in the sun and play with my friends.

So if you see me about going chugga-chugga-choo-choo, I'm just building up my spirit for my next big hurdle.

How's the view?

I would just like to add before this is read that I am in no way directing this piece to one person in particular. It is merely a reflection I observed throughout my day. Should you read this and feel that I am directing this toward you, know that I'm not and merely considered more the reason as to why you think maybe I am. I am just as guilty of letting my bad day tell me what to do. Considering the number of letters and postings I have put up here that do sometimes antagonize people, I thought I should let you know, these are just my rambling thoughts while sipping a hot cup of chocolate...

People are too busy worried about getting their next fix. We're all in some way addicted to drama. We may be addicted to our own or reality TV drama, we may be addicted to our friends or celebrity drama unfolding. We all say we don't care. The reality is that we really do. It feels good to know that we get to be in the know or our drama makes us important. The painful truth of that matter is that other people may not care about our own personal drama but about someone else's.

We're a society so fixed on staying angry, on who wronged us. We're all guilty of it. God knows I am! We wanted the wrongs righted. We want to be able to breathe a sigh that says we championed the villain and slayed the beast the hurt us and kicked us down. The degree of the wrongs or the level rather isn't up to us to interpret, despite the fact that it's our own wrong. We may feel it's completely worth venting and spitting over while others, be it friends, acquaintances, co-workers, or even family, tell us whether or not to worry. Have you ever noticed that we never listen to what others tell us? Repeat it over and over again if you like, the degree to which you worry about it is still up to you while someone else tells you different.

The thing about drama is that we let it control our attitudes to an extent that is unhealthy. Tiger had how many hoes?? He said that to her?? I'm so angry for him!! There's this redundant saying that attitudes are contagious. The fact is that they are. And anyone who's seen Pretty Woman agrees with Julia Roberts: the bad stuff is always easier to believe. Why is that?

Because it hurts us to tell someone the truth about a matter; therefore, it should hurt someone else just as much to tell us the truth about us. In my nearly thirty years of life, this is just something I've noticed to be true in not only my own world but in the world's of my other friend's as well. We all think we're right, and maybe we are. Who's to say that in every argument, both sides are right? There can be two wrongs and there can be two rights. Just because someone calls you fat or a drama addict doesn't necessarily mean that it's wrong or right. It just means someone else sees something different than you.

When something good happens to us, we rejoice. Have you ever timed how long you were happy about something? When something positive enters our existence, the people in our environment are joyful with us. Have you ever timed how long it took someone else to tell you to calm down your own excitement? How often do we take the time to pass along our positive attitude to others? Better yet, how often have you tried and been shunned for the very idea of trying to make someone smile, even if it was just for a second? I'm guilty of not doing that enough. Sometimes it feels like when I do, I get scolded. Other times, I feel more use for myself when I know I've put a grin on some one's face and their laughter in the air.

Now think about how many times we've had a negative attitude. It's been our own personal, terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Nothing can go right. Everything can go wrong. I have been the walking Murphy's law. How often are we guilty of allowing our everyday frustrations control our emotional well being? How often do we discourage those who attempt to make us feel better when they care enough to light up our eyes? I'm sorry to everyone I've ever put down for trying to put me up.

We don't realize what our own attitudes can do to others until it's been done to us. It hurts when someone doesn't realize that you care. It's so much easier for us to pay forward our bad days instead of our good and so much harder for us to appreciate those who want to cast some ray of sunshine on our cloudy, cold day. It doesn't matter if it's a right or wrong, it's a matter of dramatizing our own emotions. We blind ourselves with our own present emotional well-being to the point we can't see what we do to the attitudes of others. When we try, we learn our lesson, and make sure others learn it, too- even if they don't have to. The sad part is that because of that, we kill the potential for a happier society.

In Utopia, the criminals are the people who are raised to steal, cheat, and destroy. They are then punished for the very things that they are taught to do. They never learn to perform any differently. In today's society, the people who pay forward their good deeds are the one's punished for trying to make the unhappy happy. No good deed goes unpunished. I learned that lesson today.

There is no good timing for happiness when anger, hurt, or frustration is involved.

Just as you learned your lesson, I learned mine.

The difference in a positive attitude and a negative one is that the negative gives up while the positive keeps going. Just because someone else doesn't want to smile doesn't mean that I don't. The content inherently want to share their felicity.

Yes, we're addicted to drama. We're addicted to ourselves. Something to remember about the people who want you to smile when you are stressed, hurt, venting, getting over, or stewing over your own drama: those are the people who love you and your drama...no matter how important it really is.

I have my own faults and I have my own drama that I'm guilty of obsessing over too much. The next time someone tries to make me smile, I hope I'm not so blinded I can't remember what it's like from their view. I hope I smile back.

Trevor

Ever had one of those connections with people that you just can't explain in any way, shape, or form?

Ever looked at someone and for a few brief seconds be able to carry an entire conversation without words?

Have you ever taken to the time to marvel at the youth of today and wonder what goes through their little minds as they make new discoveries?

Has one word ever put so many butterflies in your stomach, you lost your breath?

Ever had one project frustrate you beyond the point of determination and perseverance that success is the ONLY option?

Ever really listened to Dirty Diana?

Ever taken the time to realize that you already have the best of friends in your life, the kind of friends that watch you and support you as you grow into the person you are meant to be?

Ever miss some one's kiss so much, the electricity of it lingers on your lips until you remember to exhale...

Just random questions and ponderings lingering through my mind at this present moment while I sip on my Starbucks this morning. Seems like a lifetime has happened in the last month and I can't slow down enough to catch up on it myself!

I feel so incredibly happy right now! In the last year, I reached so many milestones through my many growing pains. I learned solitary contentment, freedom, the idiocy of decision making on smaller details when so many major problems in the world need a wiser mind than mine. I learned that I'm happy with me, that there is nothing wrong with me (other than my waistband) and that I can do whatever I want to do and not one single person in the world has a say so over that. I learned that with the freedom of my new life comes much responsibility as in that I don't want to start over again like last year. I learned that I can love if I put my mind to it and I can trust, but I have lots of room to improve in those two areas and God has put the right people in my life to help me do that. I know now that it's OK to be...different...quirky...I know someone loves all of that in me and gives me balance.

I think of my life and think of how much better I am now and realize there is so much room for me to learn so many more things in my life...I can't wait...

One night in a Gypsy caravan

I'm smiling so big right now!

After all the dissappointments and challenges that came in 2009, I can honestly say I don't feel like 2010 will be near as tough and I'm looking forward to it! It's not a resolution, it's a fact! Every year we all make resolutions to some degree; even those of us who don't believe in making a list of the things that we will add to our daily lives or change in our daily routines. We set a goal and say, "This will be the year for xyz," and wait for the year to bring it to us instead of making it happen int he 365 days that lie ahead of us.

This year, I'm making it happen. It's hard as hell. But I'm going to make this year be awesome. So far, I must say it's already happening. I had the absolute best New Year's Eve/New Year's E.V.E.R. in the history of Steph! You didn't know it was possible to elope 3 times in one night, now did you?!? I will take my coconuts and ride with Patsy into tomorrow and enjoy every moment of the ride!

It feels so exciting to see a goal is obtainable, and to see yourself making that happen. It's motivating. I say that because it's hard as hell to finish my current goal and I'm encouraging myself. Trevor.

And to you, whom I must protect from the chaos of 2009 with all my might, you make me feel like I'm floating. You have taught me much in such a short time and you have so much more to show me. I can't wait to see.

As random as this post is for the rest of everyone else, I promise that I will have many, many more stories to share. Back to the original idea of this blog; back to writing. Everything will make sense and slowly my life won't have to stay under lock and key anymore.