Hiiii-Deee-Hoooooo!

Ok, so I know, I missed another day...yesterday!  Blah..I'm sorry...I got the app for my phone and kept saying "remind me to update my blog, remind me."  And then what happened, we both forgot.  So here we are, the first day of the rest of our lives...welcome.

Have a seat, take off a load, put up your feet.  This is my home, welcome.

Ok so why should you, potential reader, read my blogs of blogs?  Well, I'll tell you, it's not for my fashion advice, let me tell you that!  Exhibit A: khaki boys shorts, gray Guster t-shirt (Hellz yeah if you know who Guster is....if not, gooogle it already!!), Rainbow sandles that are too big (cause that's the way I like 'em).  So ya, no fashion advice to be won over here.

Perhaps this is a travel blog?  A person who lives in a denestination station lives here and shows off how awesome his/her life is...uh no.  While I might live in a destination place, Flow-Rida, I will not take you around my life....it'd be pretty linear, sleep, work, tv, sleep....you get the picture...

I gotta go pick up glasses....will pontificate later...sorry about the typos, will fix those later as well

DP Part Two

Colby made a friend!

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Dog Park Time!

Henry made a new friend!

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Tour of Homes

Well I'm still on the bus with about 7 more houses and businesses in my City to look at and judge. You see, I'm on a committee for the city I live in that gives out awards for innovative designs and landscaping. Our big annual awards banquet is coming up so I had to give up most of my Saturday to drive around with 8 old ladies looking at and commenting on other people's houses. Pretty entertaining, but it was suppose to be over 10 minutes ago and like I said, still 6 more to go. I'll keep you posted!

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Howdy Partners

Do you ever stand in a crowded room, looking around at people talking and laughing and wonder, "What the heck am I doing here?"  Well that was me last night.  I stayed late after work (because I live 45 minutes away) so that I could go to a retirement/farewell for a woman that works at my work.  I don't work with her directly, but we say "hello" to each other in passing.  I could probably take up half a page with information I know about her, but I doubt she could do the same about me.  I was glad to be going, Andy was suppose to come and it's always fun for her to see, meet and interact with people I work with, but because we have Colby and he can't be left at home alone, she stayed home with the dogs.

The party was nice, held on an outside terrace overlooking the canal and golf course.  The night was perfect, with a cool breeze softly blowing through the table umbrellas.  Mostly a mingling party with a cash bar and a small line of hot hors d'œuvres.  I knew mostly everyone there, but that's the thing, there is a big difference between knowing people and actually knowing people.  Of the sixty or so people there, I would say maybe five actually know me and me them.  These aren't best friends by any means, but people that generally know some things going on in my life, know Andy and Henry and Colby, and I know their significant others, or at least about them, their favorite places to hang out, stuff like that.  Unfortunately after the initial small talk with people you only casually know, or don't really know at all, they find someone else they casually know.  Needless to say I talked to a lot of people for a couple minutes and then I would just stand there, sipping my wine, watching other people interact.  I even took the obligatory trip to the bathroom where I stood, wasting time until I had to go back out to the party.

Please don't read into this behavior too much.  You see, as an Army Brat I've had to learn how to make acquaintances very quickly, but I've also gotten use to being alone, not being someone's best friend and generally having to keep myself entertained.  The downside is that I sometimes really question if I even have the capacity to become more than acquaintances with people.  Is the difference between a friend and an acquaintance a mixture of time and shared experiences (which in turn take time)?  If so, will I ever allow myself to reach that point? 

I had fun at the party, it's good to be visible at these types of functions.  I am the youngest person by about 5 years.  I also am the only lesbian that I know of.  Most of my co-workers know; hell, knowing the gossip mill, all of them maybe know.  People are accepting, or at least not outwardly hostile, which I appreciate.  Sometimes it just sucks knowing that it doesn't matter.  In a month and a half, I'll be on my way to Colorado to start the next year of my life.  Start over, make new acquaintances, new memories.  I guess having this blog is something I can keep as my constant.

revelations: If friendships take time and shared experiences, what do you think is the shortest amount of time one would need before they consider someone a friend and that person considers them a friend?  What are the basic foundations of a friendship versus an acquaintance?  Do you distinguish between these different levels of relationships in your own life?  By keeping people in the acquaintance file in my head am I the one limiting my own experiences, limiting my own capacity at friendships?

Happy Thursday!!

Colby the Fluff

Ok so maybe I should re-name it BEODA (Blog Every Other Day in April)...think it'll catch on??  So there has been major dramas in my life...mainly the landlord vs. adorable fluff muffin Colby.  Apparently, and I'm telling you this so you don't make the same mistake, apparently you can't get a dog without telling your landlord...even if you already have a dog that he verbally okay-ed.  $400 later and we're signing pet policies and paying pet fees.  Blah...seems crazy to me that we would be required to pay the same amount for a dog we just got vs a dog we've had for 10 months....especially when we're moving out in less than two months and have already given notice!?!

Oh well, without drama I suppose life would be rather dull.  Just glad we got through it, it's behind us, and now our landy lord lord can't be a jerk because we did everything he asked.  I sense smooth sailing from here until the finish line, but I'll keep you posted ;)  How could you not love and wanna squeeze this guy??



Zen Habits "Brief Guide to Life"



In other news, my sister sent me to this website about a month ago and it's become my new favorite place...

Zen Habits  I don't know about you, but the aforementioned story is like the story of my life.  Make a stressful decision only to have to deal with the stressful consequences.  Being told to take time to breathe is just what I need!  I recommend starting with the "Start Here" section.  The guy that runs the site has been posting for years, I don't know that I'll ever be able to catch up!

I printed out the "Brief Guide to Life" section and put it on our fridge.  I've decided that every week I'm going to focus on one or more of the lines.  Today I'm going to start at the top by watching less tv, and reading more.  I'm going to lump the computer in with TV.  "Less" is so much easier to deal with than "no."  So I can reserve my TV time for tonight when we get disc 2 of season 2 of Six Feet Under :)  Until then I'm going to try and focus on doing lots of reading today to counter act the balance.

I think I'm going to bring back a daily tidbit where I muse about some recent idea I've thought about...we'll call it revelations.  I agree, that is a word fraught with connotation, but take my "revelations" for what they're worth...it's just for fun after all :)

revelation: Ok so everyone experiences life different, we'll never see and think and feel the same way about something or a situation as another person, we're only us and others are only them.  So what if the way I saw colors was completely different from the way you saw colors.  For instance what if what I knew to be blue, if you were to look through my eyes would be what you knew to be red.  We both identify the color with the same word, but we didn't see the same color at all.  Just imagine other people seeing the word in a different palate which seems perfectly normal to them because the sky is blue, but their blue if you were to see it would be your green.  If this makes sense to you, please leave a comment.  If it doesn't, please also leave a comment.  I am a very visual person, so I might even try to draw (or find a picture) to illustrate what I'm trying to say....

Sorry Sorry Sorry...Please Forgive Me

Ok Ok Ok....I know I know I know...BEDA means I have to actually blog EVERY day and I've already missed TWO DAYS!!! I'm soooo sorry....life is crazy and twisty and crazy, oh did I mention crazy?? Especially my life, which I can understand you might not infer from my first BEDA post. Yes I can be uptight and control freaky, but I have this thing in my life, this crazy, unpredictably, spontaneous life force that rips me off my feet and takes me away on insane adventures, yes yes, Andy, she's the one…it’s all her fault, she makes me more interesting and less stick-in-the-mud-esque!

So let me recap all that has happened since my last post...

Friday night, Andy, Henry and I were hanging out. I had a lot of flex time at work because last week I had three night meetings all lasting two hours each. So I flexed my time all week, but then on Friday I still had a lot of time so I ended up being able to leave work early (not as early as I could've left, but Annual Reports demanded to be bound, so I was there, in the copy room, melting the spines to the pages, which really takes forever, especially if you have to do 25 of them!). Anywho, so I made it home around 4:30 or so and we were hanging out, drinking Woodchuck (I love cider), talking to our landlord and watching Henry swim in the pool.

Then, Andy found the cutest puppy on PetFinder, she called the shelter and in less than thirty minutes, we were packed and in the car. Why the packing you may ask, well that’s because the cutest puppy just so happened to be in a shelter outside of Atlanta. And how far away is that? Oh, you know, just around the corner, eleven hours around the corner. So yeah we had a loooooong drive ahead of us. And needless to say, my uptightyness made much of the drive unpleasant. In retrospect I’m not sure why I was being such a biotch, but at the time, I felt like I wasn’t in control. I was upset that the weekend I had envisioned was not coming into being and I was not all together sure I was ready to take on the responsibility of another dog. Despite my less than amicable attitude (more like red-faced, screaming like a lunatic), we drove and drove and drove.

We did not make it to Atlanta on Friday night. This was in large part because we didn’t even leave until 8pm. Around 1:30am, we decided we should stop and find a hotel. We were somewhere in Florida between Orlando and the Georgia border when we first started looking. Apparently there was a HUGE softball tournament and every hotel had a hand written NO VACACNCY sign posted in the window. There would be no rest for the weary and onward we went. We drove into Georgia, continuing to stop and see about checking in, with no luck we continued to drive. There was no room for us and we were getting really tired. Although we weren’t sure if it was legal, we ended up joining about 25 other cars at a rest stop where we reclined our seats and slept for roughly 3 hours in the car.

The next morning we awoke, brushed our teeth in the rest stop bathroom and tried to figure out why anyone would think metal mirrors would be a good idea. I mean, hello, we’re in the humid south. Metal mirrors = rust covered pieces of metal hanging on the wall with little reflection. Back into the car and back on the road, we drove into Hot-lanta. Andy’s Aunt lives in a suburb, so we headed to her house to take showers and eat lunch before heading to the shelter. Ws my mood improved on the second day? Eh, in the morning I was grumpy from lack of sleep and the car seat-induced crick in my neck, but I was trying.

Andy’s Aunt Jill and Uncle Danny are THE BEST! They are so welcoming and friendly and funny and sweet and caring and loving and fun. We couldn’t have stayed with a better family. Jill came with us to the shelter as she has experience rescuing dogs (she’s saved nine dogs this year!). We instantly fell in love with the puppy (they were calling him Quick Silver or Silver). Even Henry started playing with him immediately. Before I knew it, Andy was filling out the paperwork, the lady was handing us his rabies tag and we were jumping back in the car with our family of four! Just look at him, he’s everything we were looking for!

Colby!!!

Hen-Hen

So to totally veer away quickly from the heaviness that was yesterday’s post, I present to you Day 2 of BEDA.

The number two (2) has always been and will always be my lucky number. I love it as two (2), twelve (12) and especially twenty-two (22). So this will be a great day!! Anyone get caught up in any crazy April Fool’s Day tricks yesterday? I always want to come up with a good joke, but never do. This year I contemplated bringing Henry’s cage home from my office, setting it and a second set of dog bowls up in the house and accuse Andy of losing our second dog that she can’t remember we even have. But in retrospect, one that would be really really mean, and two, then she would be pushing even harder for a second dog. Don’t get me wrong, I love dogs and I do want a second one, but I just feel like our lives are so up in the air right now that I don’t think it’s the best time.

Please oooooo and ahhhhh over my adorable Henry here:

And here:

And check out his amazing agility feats here:

Isn’t he the cutest!! That was rhetorical because he is, duh! So tomorrow, we’re going out on our friends’ Robin and Harvey’s boat. I’m super stoked because although we live in Florida, mere minutes from the beach, I see the ocean far too infrequently for my taste. Additionally, I love boats!! So I’ll be lathering on the sunscreen and hopefully taking lots of fun pictures to share with all of you on Monday!

Happy Saturday, everybody!

BEDA

Well here goes my big attempt at Blog EveryDay in April! So I’ve decided to try my hand at Blog Every Day in April (BEDA). So to kick off this month of blogging, I thought I’d introduce myself:

My name is Sarah and I’m a 26 year-old who lives in Florida. I just celebrated one year at my place of employment. I am an Army Brat and by the time I turned 17 had moved 13 times. I attended Virginia Tech for my BA and Master’s, class of 2006 and 2008. I live with my beautiful girlfriend Andy and our hound dog mix puppy, Henry, in a small one bedroom house (with a pool…be jealous). I love to read, watch TV, debate current events and political views with Andy, walk, explore, eat good food and overall just enjoy life. My dream job would be to become an author and sustain my lifestyle writing. Unfortunately, despite my mediocre efforts, I have not made a major attempt to obtain my goal.

I could go into a whole explanation about how my parents’ values, personalities and child rearing have shaped and molded me to believe I have to follow a set path, one whose value is measured by sick days accrued, retirement money saved and the timeliness of my bill payments, however I strive for different standards. I will instead give credit of my perceived failure, to myself, the only rightful guilty party. For, as you will find out over the course of this month, I am lazy and I make excuses. Already, in writing this blog, I have excused away even my least scathing critiques. I am lazy because I’m a Libra, it is inherent. That is bullshit. I’m sorry, but it is. Over the course of BEDA I hope that by writing down my thoughts, ideas and experiences, that I will somehow obtain a new perspective. Since it is merely day one, my perspective is unchanged, unchallenged, controlled.

So what is my perspective? That is a difficult question to answer. To a certain degree, I can convince myself of anything, but perhaps we all can and that’s what makes life so difficult. I strive for efficiency in my life, which is something that has gotten me ahead in work, but I fear has shaved priceless adventures out of my own life. I wish to be more adventurous. Andy will tell you time and time again that my first instinct has always been to say “no.”

Andy- “Let’s go to the beach.” Me- “No, it’s too hot, it might be crowded, I might get sunburned.”

Andy-“I think we should get another dog.” Me–“No, it’s too expensive, it takes too much work, one day in five years we may not be able to find a place to live that will take two dogs.”

I’m a worst case scenario-er to the extreme. Give me a situation, a decision needing to be made, and I will take hours, possibly days, to come up with every scenario, how to approach it, avoid it, mitigate it, and overcome it. I want to make a plan, predict the unpredictable; take control of the potential chaos. I am, in short, a control freak, not scared of change as much as completely opposed to it in theory, taking much time and thought and cajoling to convince that it will be a good thing. It is this extreme that contradicts my yearning for adventure and for exploration. My fear of the unknown (e.g. what will happen if I fail) completely negates my exhilaration and curiosity of the unknown and I feel the polar sides competing often and the fear taking over much more often than not.

So, how do I break this cycle? How do I take a deep breath and make the big leap? How do I quiet my “what-if’s?” Honestly, I do not know. But I think I’ll start small, I think I’ll try to make a decision every day and not consider the consequences. I’m not talking about risk taking, I’m talking about every day decisions in which I usually weigh the pros, the cons and even imagine how that decision will affect the outcome of my day, my week, my month, my life.

Ok so this post was pretty heavy…I’m not going to be posting shiz like this too often, I just wanted to give context to what I do post. I may be an Army Brat, but I’m far from conservative. I may be a control freak, but I’m far from high maintenance and actually, most people would say I’m pretty laid back. I may be lazy, but I think most people would also say I’m proactive and have great initiative. As you can see, I’m a life of contradictions. In some ways that works to my benefit, I am truly a jack of all trades, even down to my work ethic and political views. I strive for continued learning and higher level thinking. So, welcome to my blog and welcome to BEDA.

The Perfect Shot...Just a Blink Away

Alright Alright, epic fail...I called it! Thank goodness I didn't even attempt BEDA (Blog EveryDay in April) cause then I just would've gotten my hopes up...much like the 2010 50 Book Challenge I started on January 1, 2010...which at 7 books, I'm pretty far behind in. I'm hoping my new *Incredible* with handy dandy eReader will help me at least get to 25 by year's end. Granted it'll be a lot of the "Classics" due to the fact that all books are free, public domain, but I've been meaning to read those books anyway ;)

In other amazing news! My wifey and I officially started moving into our new place! We have a 3 month over lap, which aside from putting us in debt means that we can slowly move and paint and paint and move oh yeah and paint. We are doing a full performance of Furniture: The Redux and painting almost everything we are keeping so it'll look shiny and new. Sure it'll have the same shape as our old stuff, but hello?! A gray bedframe is soooooo much different from a wraught iron one...duh! So in the words of Fergie....Check it out:

View from entrance into living room

View of pool (private)

More pictures to come! Sorry about the quality they were taken by my new *Incredible* Oh and sorry about all this *Incredible* nonsense...I just got my first smartphone, the *Incredible* maybe you've heard of it...anyway it's pretty awesome and I'm super excited about it!

In other, other news, I have decided to start another section of my blog called: Crazy Stuff Thought Up in the Shower that Might Happen in the Future (CSTUSMHF...ugh no! That won't work)...so we'll just called it Future Talk. Eh, we'll see how it goes!

Also I think I might come up with some sort of Giveaway...my first "Official" (Apparently there are a few "unofficial" lurkers out there ::Waves:: hi lurkey lurkers...I love you!) Blog Reader Susie (Not Susan) is doing a Disney one now that I'm super excited about. So yeah, stay tuned for that!

Future Talk (if you can come up with a better name for this section, leave it in the comments): In the future, you're going to be able to take a picture with your eye, in otherwords in your eye will be a camera. I'm so tired of seeing the perfect shot and then it turning out like crap on my camera. So one day (and I'm sure the government can already do this) you'll be able to take snapshots and focus with your Eye Cam (I think there was an episode of Dollhouse like this except they were video cameras and it made her blind). Also in your brain will be a version of Photoshop where you can take your digital Eye Pic and manipulate it by just imagining it. Just don't ask me where you print the pictures out ;)

DOFP: Unfortunetly aside from the usual personal phone calls and creeper comments this front has been pretty uneventful..today a guest post from Daily Craigslist Creep will have to do. Yesterday in the "Wanted" section of "For Sale" on C-List some creep wanted to wine and dine (oh and "shower you with gifts") a girl for her 18th birthday...His proposal was to take said 17 year-old out the night before she turned 18 so that when she was legal he could "and more" her... First of all, who would respond to this?!? Second of all...an 17 year-old can't be "wine"-ed...hello!? And third of all, your name is Barry...Creep-ER ALERT!

Peter the Orchid is Beeee-ute! iful...

So despite the flashback inducing blog of one, Hayley G Hoover, I am determined to not make this an emo blog posting.

I gathered another following ::waves at Nina!:: Hello!!

And I'm happy to report it's raining buckets. Good ol' rainy season (usually Florida summers) has decided to visit early this year, just one of the many freaky weird weather patterns our planet has developed on these, it's final years of human life. Ah and here we are at another emo topic; the end of the world.

"I wish I could bake a cake filled with rainbows and smiles and everyone would eat and be happy..."

On that note, I did see a humorous Tina Fey movie over the weekend. Wifey and I caught Date Night and had a date night of our own. Promptly after purchasing paint for our Furniture: The Redux, and an orchid which we named Peter (hopefully he'll live longer than our last one...), we went to an awesome local burger joint that will make any of their 50 burgers with a veggie patty! Ah delicious buffalo sauce and blue cheese burger :) YUM! the GF had the portobello burger which was also tastey! Basalmic vinegarette FTW. We proceeded to a mini shopping spree and Publix followed by the movie. I laughed a lot harder than I thought I was going to. Pretty much went in expecting all the funny parts to have been on the previews, but I was pleasently surprised! So go see it already!?!

Upcoming movie I wanna see: Oceans.

Oh, and I'm bringing back the DOFP...

Daily Office Faux Pas: Old man I work with coming up behind me..."Did you miss me this weekend? Did you think about me?" Ewwwwwww you sicko! Hellz no I didn't...ok well I did...cause I was going through my things because we're downsizing and I was thinking I should give you the 2000 piece puzzle I have...so yes, are you happy?!?! ::Creeped out::

I know I said I wasn't going to get emo on you, but ::sadness: I sold my Xbox and my NES over the weekend...way underpriced...::sadness::

And to take you on this roller coaster a little further...What did the snowman say to the other snowman?



Does it smell like carrots out here?

Sister Twins Flashback!

Sooooo I kind of sort of totally missed the boat on BEDA (Blog EveryDay in April) since yesterday was Aprrrrril (you have to trilllll the prrrrr) first and as you can see, I did not blog. :ashamed: But as with most failures in my life, I have well thought out reasons or what some people (my girlfriend) consdier excuses. First of all, I missed yesterday...can't go back in time, auto-fail from the beginning. Secondly, I rarely if ever get on the computer on the weekends and that would be epic failure on two out of every seven days. Thirdly, I have come to the realization that I am not creative or funny enough to write an entertaining blog. 2D just doesn't do me justice...and 3D (aka VEDA) isn't going to happen. Fourthly (and I'll try to wrap this up) I have but one mere follower ::waves to Susie:: You're awesome!! Sorry you have to read this...

So in speaking with my seester (aka Poopsilon...that story will have to wait for another day), I was reminded of how close we are now and use to be growing up. This morning on my way to work I changed gears from the usual mellow boy-wine piano rock of MAE and the Counting Crows to the awesome-ness that is Aly & AJ. Heard of them? You better, they are awesome! A sister duo that plays the guitar and sings all these fun pop songs. I have all of their CDs...cause I'm a dork. They've had a few made for TV movies and Aly was a star of Phil of the Future on the Disney Channel. Anyway, I love them.

Now back to my sister. Growing up in the military means growing up very closely with your family. Luckily my sister and I were less than 3 years apart in age which is close enough to be friends and have common interests, yet far enough apart to not be up each other's butt. Growing up in Europe lended itself well to extremely long car rides and travel. To entertain ourselves, we often played with our trolls, LEGOS and stuffed animals. Our characters would sing, fight, love and sometimes their legs would fall off. Good times were had by all, especially when we got a hold of our dad's voice recorder. Needless to say, many jokes and stories were recorded over the years, including our debut hit "Down Down Baby*," which at the age of 10 didn't have the same conotations.

With that being said, my sister and I dreamed of a day when we could take our hit platinum and be The Sister Twins! (that was the brilliant name we came up with) And that leaves me where I was this morning...sitting in my car, jamming out to who my sister and I consider to be "sister twins realized," Aly & AJ. Could've been us....could've been us...

Daily Office Faux Pas: Whoever was passing gas by my desk!! I'm sure people thought it was me...thanks! Also nosey people that later admitted to reading the card that came with the flowers from the 'rents. My flowers, my card biotches!! Mind your own!

*our version of the lyrics-

Down, down baby,
Down by the rollarcoaster.
Sweet, sweet baby,
I'll never let you go.

Gimmie gimmie
Coco puffs
Gimmie gimmie
Some

Gimmie gimmie
Coco puffs
Gimmie gimmie
Yeah!