Oh hey, blog. I've neglected you. Aside from meandering through a congested steam of consciousness (PS. it turned out to be a pretty nasty sinus infection, with subsequent "Restricted Airway Disease," not just a run-of-the-mill cold. Go figs.) and a(nother) daily affirmation regarding happiness and appreciating the little things in life, I've been pretty remiss.
Example of such:
I never introduced the new addition to our family.
She is a rescue cat from the same organization where we found Trevor and she is 8 years old. Her name is Lucille 2 because I love Liza Minnelli, one of the dogs upstairs is already named Lucy, and she has red hair like Lucille Ball which sounds an awful lot like Lucille Bell, which is hilarious. Lucille 2 is rather terrible and is very good at teasing and chasing Trevor. He tends to sequester himself in a Fortress of Solitude in the backroom, since she doesn't jump up on things very much. He also likes to hide on the window sill.
Trevor is the best hider. (No he isn't.)
Lucille 2 also happens to be a naughty pee-pee cat. This is something I don't know how to handle. Any ideas on how we can get her to stop peeing on, say, the dirty laundry sitting in laundry baskets 1.5 feet away from her own litter box? Any advice is quite appreciated.
I've also finally joined the world of Pinterest. So far I mostly focus on cool clothes, cool house decorating, and cool ideas for the cool party I'm going to have for my cool 25th birthday in September. Pinterest makes me feel desperately cool (even though it feels like basically the same 37 photos are just being passed around) so CLICKY-CLICKY and let's be Pinterest friends!
Also, Ames and I got to channel our inner future Disney employees in the Provo Freedom Festival parade last week. It definitely made a part of my lifetime complete.
Also also, we've been making drastic improvements to our little basement apartment house. We have aqua colored walls in our living room, guys. HOW RAD ARE WE???
Also also also, I officially started my Couch to 5k program last night. In nine weeks, I hope to become a runner. I'm always impressed with people who run, and I want to be one of those people. I also want/need to be skinny so, that's good motivation too. Has anyone else done/had success with a C25K?
I'm not sure if it's the new Sharpie pens that write perfectly and make my handwriting look cool, or the whole pound of pink beans (tutti-frutti jelly bellies) I got, or the sushi from last night, or my aqua living room, or having everyone tell me I look skinny even though I've actually gained weight, or reading my own tweets from the last year all morning, or the rain last night, or feeling so good about myself lately, or having the cutest cats in the world. I think it's all of those things.
Whatever it is, I'm happy again today.
Actually, I've been happy every day since last Wednesday evening. That's one whole entire week of straight-up Happy.
I think it must be a little strange that I'm so marveled about being happy for a week. Happy shouldn't be something so awesome that I feel compelled to remark "I am happy again today." Happy should be a given, shouldn't it? It absolutely should be. I'd be sad that it's not always a given, but to be sad mean being un-happy and I can't be that right now, please and thank you. I'm too busy being happy.
It turns out the congestion from my previous post was actually a pretty nasty sinus infection with subsequent "Restrictive Airway Disease." Doesn't that sound dire? It was, actually, only now I'm taking antibiotics and I feel so refreshed about life. Probably because I can breathe. I'm sure there's a lot of psychology behind the all the oxygen flowing to my brain, aside from the basic anatomy of it.
Also, I'm eating the greatest customized salad from that place Marley's in the Riverwoods and I'm seriously having a come-apart about how delicious it is. I'm eating it as if I've never eaten a salad before-- as if I've never eaten at all before.
Somehow, all good things in my life manage to conclude with food.
I'm alone again in the office today. It's becoming so frequent that I think I might forget altogether what it's like to actually work with people. Okay, so I've been playing a Ke$ha-inspired playlist on Pandora between phone calls! Okay! So I have! It's my way of going all Risky Business without stripping down to underpants because this actually is a business and I'm more professional than that!
But not so professional as to refrain from Ke$ha while alone in the office.
I've got a nasty cough and a thick layer of mucus lining my nose and throat. Gimme a break.
I've also managed to be really pretty productive, so we'll just see who's laughing when everyone gets back and all the records are nice and clean, okay?
Speaking of productive, I'm getting ready to paint my living room a lovely shade of Aqua Ocean (just go with me-- in truth, this living room is going to blow your mind) and so spent last evening doing some heavy-duty spring cleaning on the walls and baseboards. While I knew there was no way these walls have seen soap for a long time, I was truly unprepared for the amount of grime awaiting me. Four magic erasers, three cloth rags, two refills of soapy water, and dozens of disposable wash cloths later... I finished half the room. But I also rearranged the furniture and had a stroke of inspiration regarding what to hang on the walls to cultivate storage while maintaining aesthetic and, admittedly, cutting back on the general amount of exposed Aqua Ocean.
I'm excited/terrified to tackle the bathroom.
Speaking of bathrooms, that's the worst part about being alone in the office-- trying to time bathroom breaks just right so I don't miss phone calls or the possibility of a visiting UPS man. It is much harder than you'd think, particularly due to the frequency of my bathroom breaks, owing to the tiniest bladder known to man + guzzling water in an attempt to flush out this cold x I have to sing tonight and tomorrow morning.
I think if I'm ever rich, I'd like to get a bladder enhancement. Do you think that's even possible? To increase the size of my bladder? Because pee breaks seriously cramp my style.
Oh, and have I mentioned that this very post may be the one to push me over 40,000 hits on my counter? LET'S MAKE THIS HAPPEN! And I'm going for 50,000 by the end of summer-- because I know just how much everyone likes to hear about my congestion, the grime on the walls of my apartment, and my unfortunate bladder.
Isla Fisher. She is so pretty. And she has a very pretty name, too.
She gets mixed up with Amy Adams (but I think Isla is way cuter).
She also has very pretty hair, that I intend to copy soon.
I mean it this time. I'm seriously actually going to do my hair like this. I know I was all about the red hair last summer and then wimped out, but not this time. It is happening. Viva summer!
It is summer and therefore couth to wear white shoes.
Isn't it weird when you come to those occasional points in your day/week/life where you have to remind yourself why you're happy? I mean, I know that I'm happy. In general, I'm really happy.
I have the most loving and patient husband.
My kitchen is navy blue.
We have reached a place of relative financial stability.
But in spite of all the blessings, sometimes the only thing you can do at those points is to hunker down and just make a list, and repeat it like a mantra. It sounds like you're just trying to convince yourself, and maybe you are to some extent, but it's more of a gentle reminding conviction instead of a desperate one. It's not even desperate at all. It's just like, these are all the things that are super awesome about my life. Quit worrying about the inconsequential things, why don't ya?
My family is safe and healthy.
I have a lovely roof over my head each night.
I love television and have access to plenty of it.Toddlers & Tiaras starts a new season next week.
Food is so plentiful that I have 20 extra lbs to prove it.
I think I just need some time to be spontaneous about this abundance of non-consequence. Some really exciting and important things seem to be happening lately, like having the opportunity to be funny in public, and kind of being appreciated for it. Also, it's finally summer. It definitely snowed only like two weeks ago, but this weekend marked a turning-point in the season and I think it's safe to say, it is summer.
It's June. It's 80 degrees outside and it's sunny. This weekend we'll march in the Orem Summer Fest parade and watch fireworks in the warm nighttime. We can go on bike rides and stay up late without getting quite so exhausted as when you stay up late during the winter. We can eat tacos and drink slurpees because it's summer, and there are feathers in my hair, and Best Husband Of Mine and I have a cat who is cute, and I have too much food to eat with little shame of eating it, and Mackenzie on Toddlers & Tiaras, and being funny, and so many happy things that I just need to keep reminding myself about.
Make time for happy.
Look forward to all that happy on a daily basis.
Be healthy and happy and take 15 minute breaks to go stand in the sunshine.
I'm not being hard on myself, and I'm not hoping/asking for an outpouring of comments about how that is or is not true. I'm just saying.
I'm worried I've become a crummy friend.
I think it might be one of those Growing Pains things. Not a thing like Leonardo DiCaprio on Growing Pains was a thing. I mean an actual, awkward growing-up-is-hard-to-do thing.
I get that people grow up and maybe grow out of each other. It's not always like you wake up one day and when you think about your BFF, you're just kind of over it. I mean, I guess sometimes that happens but usually people just go to college, people move away, people get married, people's priorities shift. That doesn't mean your friendship sucks or ever did suck. It just means growing up sucks. And I think I've been doing a lot of growing up in the last few years.
I'm quick to say, that hasn't sucked. In fact, 95% of growing up over the last two years hasn't sucked at all. But I think the part that has sucked is my seeming inability to be a good, constant friend as we all grow up and out and on and upward. My natural affinity for social events has taken somewhat of a stunning hit ever since I started being a Grown Up with an 8-5 job and actual responsibilities to attend to. I'm not hanging out like I used to. I'm not texting like I used to. I'm not even Facebooking like I used to. It's weird. I'm not used to it. It's a smidgen lonely if I think about it for too long. So that part kind of sucks.
I look at the new friendships that I develop lately-- the ones that seem to take the places of others. I don't think I've lost friends necessarily, at least not completely. But they're gone in a way, replaced by others, and the weirdest part is that the new friends in my Grown Up Life are actual Grown-Ups. Like, older than me. Like, filled with world experience. Like, who go to bed at a boring decent hour like I've started to. I look at my new friends and they are starting to look like the friends I remember my parents having when I was small-- friends who you maybe see only sometimes, and definitely not until 2AM.
This weekend I was able to fly for a few days back into the land of College Friends, shopping and talking and quoting and adventuring and drinking large cups of Diet Coke in the early hours of the morning. It was nice. It made me glad and a little sentimental. Of course then it also made me thoughtful and fretful about what am I missing? now that I'm apparently ventured off into Grown Up land where it's a whole lot less carefree and involves remarkably fewer meals at Denny's. It was fun. Grown Up land isn't quite so fun. Even Grown Up Friends aren't so fun-- at least, they're not the same fun, and the only commonality between Fun Friends and Grown Up Friends in my life is me so what's my deal? All my Fun Friends seem to still be Fun and they're all still Fun Friends together, which is not to say I'm not Fun or that my fun Grown Up Friends aren't Fun, but why am I not a Fun Friend with the other Fun Friends? The only thing I can think is that somewhere between college and now, I have turned away from the Fun.
Which is clearly why I'm worried I've become crummy friend.
I want to resolve to make more time for the friends I'm worried I've lost. I want them to know I still love them and that I can still be Fun. I don't want my job or my responsibilities to define me or my time. I need to take a deep breath and relax about my schedule because people always matter way more than most other things.
I'm sorry if I've seemed a little out of the loop recently. I don't mean to be. I love you. I want to be your friend. I want to make you red velvet cookies with white chocolate chips and eat nachos and laugh and laugh and laugh. I want to text you. I want you to be in my life.
And someday, let's all hang out in the fountain at the JFSB at BYU like the very funnest friends I know:
She is a rescue cat from the same organization where we found Trevor and she is 8 years old. Her name is Lucille 2 because I love Liza Minnelli, one of the dogs upstairs is already named Lucy, and she has red hair like Lucille Ball which sounds an awful lot like Lucille Bell, which is hilarious. Lucille 2 is rather terrible and is very good at teasing and chasing Trevor. He tends to sequester himself in a Fortress of Solitude in the backroom, since she doesn't jump up on things very much. He also likes to hide on the window sill.
Trevor is the best hider. (No he isn't.)
Also also, we've been making drastic improvements to our little basement apartment house. We have aqua colored walls in our living room, guys. HOW RAD ARE WE???
