12/31: New Years Resolutions and a Quarter Life Crisis

With the end of another year drawing to a close (as I'm writing this it's 2 hours and 16 minutes until the clock hits midnight), it's that time again to make some resolutions for the new year. You know. The promises you make to yourself that you WILL go to the gym. You WILL cut down on sugary drinks and sweet foods. You WILL make an effort to keep in touch with friends and family. You will NOT spend so much money on nail polish and shoes. I think that last one might just be me, but you get the picture. Here's what I'm aiming to do for 2013:

1. Write. Whether it's blogging more, or revisiting an old NaNoWriMo piece, or starting a new short story, I need to make myself write more. I tend to forget what a release of negative energy it can be for me and there are some days I could really benefit from focusing the negativity into something productive.
2. Read. I used to challenge myself to read 50 books in a year. This year I've read 7 books. Which is completely unacceptable. I may not be able to make it to the 50 mark, but I can at least try to aim for 20-25 I think. I have 2 bookshelves that are packed full and I've probably only read about half of the books I own.
3. Take care of myself. Not just physically, but emotionally too. I spend too much time worrying about other people and things that I have no control over. That's not to say that I need to stop caring about other people, but that I need to start putting my own mental health over situations that I can't do anything about.
4. Get back into playing music. I've barley touched my keyboard this year, and my guitar has been sitting in the corner of my room collecting dust for god knows how long. I want to be able to say again that "yes, I do play piano" and "yes, I do play guitar." Not just "yeah I own a keyboard and a guitar, but I don't do much with them."
5. Go to more concerts. That's pretty self explanatory, but I've missed so many shows this year that I wanted to see because I didn't have anyone to go with and that's not a good enough excuse anymore.
6. Move out of my house. This one is more of a goal than a resolution because it's going to take a lot of financial effort to make it happen rather than just say "hey I want to do this" and bam it's done. But I think I'd be in much better situation if I can make that work.

I think that'll do it for me. Of course there's the standard "eat less fast food" and "drink less soda" and of course "work out more" but I'm at a point with those so-called resolutions that I've never held to them and I don't see any point in starting to now.

As for the Quarter Life Crisis? I'm just chugging along trying to work through that as best as I can while still keeping my sanity and liver in check. Some days are better than others and some days I'm thankful I can make it through the day without kicking a small child in the head. So. There's that.

See you in 2013!

11/22 Happy Thanksgiving!!

I know for damn sure this isn't an original post, but I don't care. In the spirit of the holidays, I'm going to tell you guys what I'm thankful for. And you'd be kidding yourself if you didn't think it would be in list form.

1. I'm thankful to be alive. That's something a lot of people (myself included) take advantage of.
2. I'm thankful for my family. As much as I gripe and complain about them some days, I wouldn't be here today without them.
3. I'm thankful for my friends. Especially those that put up with my shit when I'm having a rough time.
4. I'm thankful I have a job. It may not be my dream job, and I may not be entirely happy there, but I have a decent enough paycheck that allows me to live mostly in my comfort zone.
5. I'm thankful for for the roof over my head, food on the table, and drink in my hand.
6. I'm thankful I have the opportunities to see my favorite bands when they come to town.
7. I'm thankful for the music that keeps me sane.
8. I'm thankful for the internet and the friends it's brought me. I don't care how cheesy that sounds, but I wouldn't be here today without some of the friends I've met online.
9. I'm thankful for the Potter fandom and the opportunities it's brought me.
10. I'm thankful I have my writing as a way to express my thoughts and clear my head when necessary.
11. I'm thankful for my dogs and their unconditional love for me no matter how many bad decisions I make or what kind of mood I'm in.
12. I'm thankful to be spending Thanksgiving at home with just my parents. We always spend Thanksgiving at my aunt's house, and because of my dad's surgery we weren't going to make it over there this year. And I'm okay with that.
13. I'm thankful for the medical technology that allowed my dad to have his knee replaced and that the surgery went so well.
14. I'm thankful for all of you. If you've ever read one of my blog posts, tweets, posts on tumblr, or watched one of my videos on YouTube, I'm thankful for you giving my creative outlets a chance.

American friends, I hope you're having a great holiday and eating plenty of good food. International friends, I hope you're having a great Thursday. I love you guys <3

9/13 Project Runway, Pizza Rolls, and Presumptuous Relationships

Okay that last one was a stretch. But still relevant, I promise. Just in case there's anyone else reading this that watches Project Runway I won't spoil anything, BUT I AM BEYOND ANNOYED WITH WHO GOT SENT HOME TONIGHT. UGH. Second topic of the night: pizza rolls. We're at the point in the week where mom refuses to go grocery shopping because they're going camping this weekend and she doesn't want to haul food with them or "let it go to waste while we're gone". Uhm hello? I'll still be here most of the weekend? Apparently I'm going to survive on peanut butter and grilled cheese for the next few days. Which (while definitely not desirable) isn't the worst it could be. Anyway. My dinner tonight consisted of freezer burnt pizza rolls, because that was the closest thing to a 'meal' that I could put together. Every time I make pizza rolls I think of this video Hayley made a few years ago because it's always, always true. We can successfully send a robot to Mars, but we can't figure out how to make pizza rolls stay at a tolerable and consistent temperature for a few minutes. I'm disappointed, science.

And finally, the last order of business tonight. I'm blatantly stealing this from Hayley's latest post, but in my defense she did say for people to leave a comment on her post regarding the topic, so I feel like it's allowed. One of my favorite pastimes is tweeting passive aggressive song lyrics, so this game of "things I've always wanted to tell my ex" is right up my alley. It's called 'Songs for Boyfriends Past', and it goes a lot like this:

1. If He Cheats With You, He'll Cheat On You
2. I'd Rather Date Your Sister
3. An Introduction (Of My Fist to Your Face)
4. You Make Dashboard Confessional Sound Punk
5. I Am Not Sober Enough For This
6. The Sex Was Great, But I Still Hate You
7. Wait, You're HOW Old?
8. I Hate Your Stupid Face
9. You're Harder to Understand Than Fall Out Boy Lyrics
10. Do You Ever Stop Talking?
11. You're One Step Away From A Restraining Order
12. I'm Over It (That's A Lie)

That was slightly satisfying. I highly encourage you to do the same, and have fun with it. Leave a comment here or on Hayley's post with your own song titles, or make your own blog post on the topic. Either way, let me know because I'd love to read what some of you have to say!

9/3 A Fresh Start

First off, I refuse to believe it's September already. I will be the first to admit I'm ready for leaves changing colors, sweaters and boots, and seasonal flavored coffee drinks, but there's no way it's already that time of year.

On that note, September to me signals time for change. I think it's because it's still drilled into my head that Labor day means time for school to start, which means new everything. New classes, new people to meet, new school supplies (yes, I'm the kid that gets excited over school supply shopping), new clothes. Even after I wasn't in school myself I was coaching and working in retail, both of which operate around a school schedule so it's kept the feeling alive. It's always been a season of things changing, which is why I feel it's fitting that I started my new job this weekend. On a side note, leave it to me to always manage to start a new job on a holiday weekend. Go big or go home, right?

I know I've mentioned it before, and I'm sure it's shown in my posts during my (failed) attempt at BEDA, but I've been stuck in a rut for a while with no signs of a way out. I'm hoping I can at least start moving forward and off of this plateau I've been on for so long. If you don't already follow her, I'd like to direct you to Hayley's blog where she talked about the same kind of feelings in her post today. Another side note, if you're not following Hayley on various social media websites: WHY. Go fix that right now. Here and here, as well as her blog mentioned above.

Can we also talk for a second about how bad I am at getting things done in a timely manner if I don't absolutely have to? Like, give me a deadline for a project at work and I'll have it done before it's due. I've become a master at speed cleaning the house Sunday mornings when my parents are coming home from camping. I can write lengthy essays under ridiculous time crunches. But whenever it's something I'm doing for myself, I just take ages to get it done for no real reason. Example: I've been trying to write this post for about an hour, but I keep finding other things to do. Like painting my nails, or refreshing twitter. I'm also trying to get a video ready to upload tomorrow morning. I have it edited, but because my laptop pretty much ends up being a really expensive brick while I export things I'm getting everything else I can done before I start that process. Makes sense, right? But do I really need to continuously refresh twitter, or lurk a few specific blogs on tumblr, or watch another Mythbusters behind the scenes video on youtube? Probably not. Did I absolutely have to paint my nails even though I did them 2 days ago? No. I definitely could have made it at least 2 more days. Do I REALLY need to keep making this list longer? Nope. But I will, because it means putting off doing something else.

On that note, I think I'm done here for today. I hope you all had a fantastic Labor day! I spent mine working, as I have done every Labor day for the last 6 years. Huzzah.

8/23 How I got tricked into giving blood.

I had a really cool (at least in my eyes) post planned for today, but it's been thwarted by 2 things: I got conned into giving blood today, and we have no running water in our house.

Yes, I got conned into giving blood. Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely nothing against donating blood or those that do so on a regular basis. But it wasn't in my plan for today, mainly because I've been feeling really shitty lately with all of the headaches and I know I haven't been eating right, but also because I'm that person that always nearly passes out after getting blood drawn and it takes me so long to recover. I didn't even know we had a local blood drive going on today until my mom told me she was leaving to go up there, and asked me to keep an eye on my niece. About 20 minutes after my mom leaves, I get a call from my neighbor Terri (who always helps coordinate the blood drives) telling me that our other neighbor's son Tyler needs me up at the blood drive for some reason. She's really quick to get me off the phone, so I'm starting to think that there's some kind of emergency. My dad was outside cutting the grass, so I thought maybe Terri had called him and he just didn't hear his phone which was why she called me but that wasn't the case. So I flag him down and tell him what's going on, and that I'll be back as soon as I figure out what's going on. As I'm pulling out of the driveway I can see my dad on the phone calling someone (which turned out to be my mom), and then as I'm pulling into the parking lot he calls me (the blood drive was being held at the fire station that's directly behind our subdivision). He tells me that mom didn't answer her phone, and to just let him know as soon as I can what's going on. So I'm freaking out a bit and when I walk into the room I'm greeted by the sight of my neighbors (who were all working the blood drive) and my mom sitting around and talking, and the only thing that goes through my mind is "what the fuck". Then my mom says "now don't get mad", so of course I get irritated immediately, and then goes on to explain that Tyler was working the blood drive so he could enter for a scholarship, and in order to be eligible for said scholarship he needed to bring in at least 35 people and collect at least 65 units of blood. Don't ask me how the people vs units thing works, because I don't know. Then they tell me that the only reason they told me Tyler needed me and wouldn't say anything else was because my mom didn't think I'd come up and donate if they asked me to.

Now, I'm not really the kind of person that can say no when someone asks me for a favor. Had one of them just called and said "Hey, Tyler needs to bring in more people for the blood drive so he can be eligible for this scholarship" I would have said "Sure, let me chug a glass or two of water and I'll be right there." But no. My mother had them concoct this whole scheme to trick me into coming up to the fire hall because she knew there would be no way I could say no once I was there in person. I WOULD HAVE SAID YES ANYWAY. YOU DIDN'T NEED TO TRICK ME. Gah. So now I'm annoyed with my mother and my neighbors on top of feeling shitty while I'm recovering because the actual donation process went like this: try the right arm, can't find a good vein, try the left arm, can't find a good vein, have someone else try the left arm, still no luck, go back to the right arm, finally find a good vein to use, prep and get the needle in, no blood comes out, poke and prod and stretch, still no blood, discuss whether or not to take the needle out and try the left arm again, decide to switch arms, go through the prepping poking and prodding again, still no blood, end up switching back to the right arm, poke and prod some more, finally get a slow drip. My veins don't like giving up blood. Sigh.

Now the second part of our day: we have no running water. After the whole blood drive fiasco, I came home to find my dad finishing up cutting the grass and getting ready to turn on the sprinklers. He tells me I have about half an hour before the zone that hits my bedroom window will come on, just giving me a heads up so I can close the window. We can hear the first zone turn on, but nothing is happening. The sprinkler heads aren't coming up, and there's no water pressure. I really don't know what's going on with that since dad has now locked himself in the basement and banned us from using any water. So I got sent to pick up dinner and I might have to take my niece home in a bit if dad can't get the water working again. And if he can't fix it by tomorrow morning, they're not going camping as planned which pisses us all off because they're out the reservation money and I won't have the house to myself. So that's fun.

The original plan for today's post was to have a fall wishlist of sorts for clothes and various other things since I'm having serious issues not being able to go shopping right now. Materialistic? Yes. But fall is my favorite season for clothes and I'm a little cranky about it. I have no idea how long it'll take me to put the post together, but I'm thinking I might try to get it together for tomorrow. We'll see.

8/5 Social networking overdose

Let me set the scene for you. As I'm beginning to type this it's 930pm on a Sunday night, I'm stretched out on the couch in the living room watching the Olympics, my laptop battery has dwindled down to 34%, and I've settled into a rhythm of jumping between browser tabs to refresh Tumblr and Twitter while alternating browsing DeviantArt and Pinterest. Gymnastics just started (yes, it took me half an hour to make it this far), and I'm working on finishing my 3rd beer for the night. Sounds pretty good, right?

Wrong. Not much about this scene has changed all weekend except for the beverage in my hand, the sport on TV, or the battery level on my laptop. And I have no one to blame except myself. I'm not sure exactly when things changed, but I've fallen into this slump of internet addiction and I'm having a hard time finding a way out.