Tomorrow Is Another Day...

This Weekend I...

... Went to a wine tasting at a friend's house.  We had a great evening, sampling six different California zinfandels ranging from $7 to $23.50, and to our surprise, the wine that we rated as number one turned out to be on the low end of the price scale: Gnarly Head.  Also rated fairly highly, taking the third place position was the good old supermarket standby, Barefoot.  I got pleasantly tipsy, probably drinking the equivalent of a full bottle of wine and had a great night talking babies, husbands, traveling, and education with some fabulous ladies.

...Hit the books all day on Sunday, finishing my reading, discussion questions, and writing a paper.  Fortunately, I didn't have a whole lot planned for Sunday, so I was able to get it all done with just a couple of breaks wedged in for Taco Bell and Starbucks runs.  I feel like I totally earned every calorie in that Crunchwrap Supreme and Salted Caramel hot chocolate!

...Watched one of my very favorite childhood movies, the 1985 version of Alice in Wonderland.  Last week, a friend and I got to talking about the upcoming Tim Burton version, and I mentioned how much I had loved an old live action version of the book where Alice wore an orange dress and there was a really terrifying Jabberwocky.  It turns out that she loved it as a kid as well, so I looked it up online, found the DVD on Amazon for $10 and received it on my doorstep a couple of days later.  When we finished our homework last night, we decided to put it on and took a three hour trip down memory lane.  I'll admit there was a high degree of cheesiness, but I also still totally loved the movie!  Alice is adorable, the gigantic cast of 80s stars is both impressive and hilarious (Ringo Starr!  Scott Baio!  JOHN STAMOS!!!).  But of course, the most important lesson I took away from this movie:  "Jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, but never EVER jam today!"

All in all, the weekend was much better than last week, and though I'm still feeling a bit down in the dumpsish, there haven't been any hysterical crying jags in the past few days, so that's certainly a step in the right direction.  How was your weekend?

This Weekend I...

...Had a lovely happy hour with some girlfriends at the Tap House Grill, also known as the home to one of my all time favorite drinks--The Sweet Tart.  Yumminess!  This time I decided to give The Pink Starburst a try as well, and I was NOT disappointed!  Turns out, they also make a pretty mean California roll.  Don't get me wrong, I miss Colby a lot, but it's really awesome to have all of this girl time in my life again.  I didn't realize how much I'd missed hanging around with girlfriends--no boys allowed!

...Took care of some final details for my Labor Day weekend Disney World trip.  What, you didn't know I was going to Disney World?  It's almost like I DIDN'T EITHER!  I swear, generally I spend much more time discussing upcoming vacations on this blog and obsessing over them in my real life, but this trip has just totally snuck up on me.  Fortunately, we booked our hotel a while ago, but I'm still waiting to hear back about our transportation from the airport to the park and am planning to buy my park tickets at the same time as check in.  This is the most fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants as I've been about ANY trip EVER.  I'm not sure I like it.

...Made some fun Disney money selling a dress and some extra Proactiv products on eBay.  Who knew that selling things there would get to be as addictive as buying things?  If Colby doesn't get home soon, he may find that he comes back to an empty shell of a house, me curled in a corner, attached to my Macbook, feverishly checking the status of my auctions as I sell off the last of our belongings.

...Turned in my last paper, effectively wrapping up the first class of my graduate school adventure.  As of right now, I have a 99.4% in the class, so unless I bomb my Philosophy of Education paper, (Which, how depressing would that be?  I think I'd have to rethink my future career plans.) I should be looking at my first 4.0 GPA in a very long time.  I certainly think that's cause for celebration over the next week off of school!  Just think, only two years of this left to go!  Sigh...

...Bought this dress, top, and skirt for the same amount as a dress that I bought at 50% off from Anthropologie and then had to return because it was just TOO orange.  There's lovely orange and then there's TOO orange, you know?  Anyway, I love Anthropologie, but whoever sets their prices certainly does think pretty highly of themselves.  I love Francesca's Collections because they sell clothes that are just as beautiful and well-made as Anthropologie for a fraction of the price.  Because it's a boutique, you do have to deal with some limitations on the size selections (it seems as though smalls are sold out A LOT) and items do go quickly, but you can still find some great deals.  That skirt?  $8.50.  That's all I'm sayin'.

And finally, when I hit post in a few minutes here, I will have posted my 500th post to this blog over the course of almost exactly three years!  I completely forgot my 3 year blogoversary took place on Friday, so that celebratory post will be coming soon.  Just think, if I had spent all of that time that I took writing FIVE HUNDRED blog posts, writing actual literature, I'd probably have at least two finished manuscripts by now.  But it is just so much easier to write about shoes and The Hills.

Anyhow, I've got my big interview with the mysterious Company B today, so here's hoping that goes well!  But while I'm off sweating bullets in a job interview and then going in search of a bra that doesn't insist on peeking out over every single top I wear that dares dip below my clavicle, in celebration of my 500th blog post, I want to hear about the best present you've ever received.  And then I will imagine that I am getting those presents, and together, we can make this day almost as exciting as Christmas!  (Just with fewer cookies.)

Little Heart Squeezes

You know what I mean by heart squeeze, right?  When something good or bad happens and then you get that little squeezy feeling right around your heart, like a band of emotion is just closing in around your chest?  Sometimes it results in tears, sometimes my breath just starts to come a little bit faster until the band dissolves, but over the past twenty four hours I have had one after another.

• Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was pushed back for a release date of July 17, 2009.  I am just... heartbroken.  I know that is completely ridiculous, after all IT'S JUST A MOVIE, but I am amazed at just how much I miss Harry Potter in my life, and apparently I was looking forward to this release a little bit more than I realized.  WB gave the most ridiculous reasons for the push, and I think it's not quite a coincidence that the movie version of Twilight is scheduled to be released just a couple of weeks after the original Half Blood Prince release date.  I think WB was just afraid of being knocked out of the top spot by another kid friendly, immensely popular fantasy movie.
• That women's gymnastics all around competition nearly killed me.  Granted, it was very late, and I was very tired, but I was this close to a complete Hulk type tantrum when those judges kept over-inflating the Chinese scores and giving Shawn and Nastia the most ridiculous deductions.  I think the medals were given to the right girls, but I really don't think that the competition should have been that close.  But let me tell you, there were some serious tears during that medal ceremony.  I loved watching Nastia's face as she focused on breathing and remaining upright while she stood on the podium, you could just see the realization that she had just won gold breaking over her face again and again.  That was a really beautiful moment for US gymnastics after a really tough week.
• A few months ago, my high school boyfriend's mother passed away from cancer, and that was a hard thing to accept, then I found out yesterday that the man who was my high school band teacher and the father of one of my friend's ex-boyfriends passed away a few days ago.  Sad enough on its own, but when combined with the other parent death, it hit me pretty hard.  I don't like to think about my parents as mortal beings, and I can't imagine the pain that my old friends are going through.  I feel ridiculous sending them Facebook messages with my condolences, but it doesn't feel appropriate to intrude on their lives any more than that right now.
• Every time the phone rings, I race to answer it thinking that it might be one of the companies I've applied with calling to set up an interview.  One of the managers I dropped an application with told me to my face that she'd be calling this week to set up an interview, and nothing.  Honestly, this is one of the suckiest things I've ever been through.    Yesterday my hair dresser told me that the unemployment rate for high school age kids is at its highest right now, and I tell you what--I feel their pain!  I'm putting in another couple of applications this weekend, but yesterday was a pretty low point for me when I realized that I have a college degree, I have tons of experience in the work place, as well as personal recommendations from CEOs of companies and colonels in the military, and I can't even find a job selling an effing skirt.  What the hell world?

Anyway, I could go on and on ad nauseum, but I still have a long chapter and an article to read and outline for school today and the day isn't getting any longer.  I have a pretty quiet weekend planned--just working on a 30-minute presentation on "Teaching with Purpose" and a book club meeting tomorrow, which means I should probably try to finish A Tree Grows in Brooklyn before 6:30 pm tomorrow night!

This Weekend I...

...Spent Friday evening at a local Y, enduring the most torturous abs and buns workout class of my entire life.  When I was in college, I spent a semester pledging a military fraternity--I'll have to write about that some day--and every week we would have essentially a 3 hour workout from hell.  This class wasn't quite that bad mainly because there was a lot less screaming, tobacco chewing, and camouflage involved, but wow, the pain I felt reminded me so much of those nights.  After more leg lifts and crunches than I could possibly count, I ran for a little over a mile on the indoor track.  My relationship with running is so complicated.  I really do hate it so much, but then when I haven't done it for a very long time, I start to miss it.  I felt really good stretching my legs out as I did lap after lap, but it was still nice to come home to my elliptical machine.

...Went to an amazingly stereotypical Chinese restaurant with a friend to order takeout and then came home to watch the opening ceremonies.  Unfortunately, reports came back that the Amazing Chicken was not, in fact, amazing, but how about those opening ceremonies?  Good Lord, I have never seen an Olympics like this one.  I thought that the show they put on was beautiful and so far beyond impressive.  Those boxes that went up and down to mimic water and wind and Chinese symbols were amazing, and the synchronization of all of those thousands of people literally had my jaw dropping.  Some of the parade of nations uniforms though?  I think someone needs to remind a very specific portion of Eastern Europe that the early 90's are dead and gone and that puce green is very rarely an acceptable fashion choice.

...Finished my last group project for my current class, hallelujah! It was not without a great deal of annoyance on my part, as one girl in my group seemed to labor under the delusion that deadlines were mostly just suggestions, and she didn't feel the need to respond to the many, MANY messages I sent her asking where her portion of the paper was. When she did finally deign to turn it in, two days late, it came with the response, "The paper is due tomorrow. I don't see why you're making such a fuss." Imagine, if you will, stunned silence. Anyway, it's over with and I got another A. So whatever.

...Turned in another job application and then took myself shopping as a reward for surviving my group project without murdering anyone.  I scored a couple of good deals at the Banana Republic and Ann Taylor factory stores and then decided to check out Marshalls.  I have a few friends and family members that frequent stores like Marshalls and TJ Maxx and always come away with the cutest stuff, so I thought I would try my hand at bargain hunting.  Well, apparently I need lessons.  Or maybe they were just between shipments.  Because that was the hugest collection of hideous clothes that I have ever seen in one location.  I did find a couple of potentially cute things, but they were always at least a couple sizes too big.  So, I gave up and went to Target.  I can always find something adorable for under twelve dollars there.

...Went out for a friend's birthday dinner and drinks.  We went to a really tasty Mexican restaurant where I had a super spicy tomato and polenta soup and a moderately spicy ceviche.  Mostly, the margaritas were some of the best I've ever had.  When our waitress up and vanished around 10:30 we decided to try another location for one more drink and landed at a fantastic dive of a martini bar.  I had the vodka sampler that came with a watermelon infused vodka with soda, a raspberry vodka and lemonade, and of course, the jello shot.

So, that was my weekend.  How was yours?

Time Keeps on Slippin' Slippin' Slippin' Into the Future

Somehow, over a week has passed since my last post.  I do not understand where the time is going and how the days could possibly be flying by so quickly while simultaneously dragging on endlessly.  In the words of Confucius, "Time is a sneaky, sneaky bitch."  Oh, wait, no.  That was just me.  Although, Confucius did say this, "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves."  Creepy!  Also, this one would have been good to throw around while taking my Air Force physical fitness test, "It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop."  I mean, seriously, if someone wants to shoot me, I don't think running an eight minute mile as opposed to a ten minute mile is going to change the outcome.  But anyway.  I digress!

I've been managing to keep myself fairly busy in Colby's absence--an absence which is officially one-quarter of the way over.  Hallelujah and thanks be to God!  Sometimes that seems like quite the milestone, other times I need to focus on my deep breathing exercises, because oh my God, I'm not sure I can do this for another three months.  And yet, I know I can, and I will, so the dramatics are fairly unnecessary.

I have a wonderful group of girls with whom I've been spending a lot of time.  They're other wives and girlfriends, so we have a common goal to get through this thing in one piece, and I'm still always so surprised when I can find other people to hang out with and actually ENJOY their company.  Last week alone I did a couple of gym classes, had a cookie baking, martini drinking, So You Think You Can Dance watching get together at my house, and went for a five mile hike in the Snoqualmie National Park.  And let me tell you, you have not had a chocolate chip cookie until you have had these chocolate chip cookies.  They're so good it hurts.  I've also been spending most of my waking hours tearing through the Twilight series.  Current verdict?  Fun and quick read, not as good as Harry Potter, but I'm thinking a more thorough review post will be coming as soon as I finish Breaking Dawn.

School has also been keeping me occupied.  I'm getting very close to the end of my first class, and I'm pretty sure that I'm dominating.  I've spent the last few weeks in the throes of group work agony, and let me tell you, group work over the internet?  Not easy!  I thought my first group was a bit difficult, mostly because many of them seemed to have problems with basic spelling and sentence structure (please, don't judge me based on my blog!), but I will say that they were all hard workers and very kind girls.  We managed to coordinate on a fairly complicated 18 page paper, most of it a chart in Word (product of hell as I stated previously) and it came back with a 100% grade.  This next paper I'm much more nervous about as it's due in exactly five days and I haven't even heard back from my group on who is going to work on what portion.  Group work, how I loathe thee!

Finally, the miserable, esteem crushing job search continues.  I have been rejected from the store from which I very much like to buy my furniture, with a name something along the lines of Earth Shop, and am having an awful time gettng the store where I would LOVE to work, beginning with an N ending with a strom and filled with multiple floors of delicious, buttery clothes, shoes and purses, to even take my application.  Their online application site doesn't appear to work, or it's just not compatible with my computer, and when I went in to do my application at the store, their system was down.  Because it's all done electronically, and as much as I love my computer, my internet, my TiFaux, and indoor plumbing, I think we all know that technology is a thing of the devil.  Then there's the coffee shop route.  There are actually two very well known coffee shops right down the road from my house, but seeing as I have zero experience serving up a cup of joe, I'm not sure that I'm their ideal barista.  Also, it could be dangerous working around that many pastries.

So, there, that's pretty much been my life lately and about all I see stretched out before me.  Colby is doing well, just working hard and flying when he can, and I'm just doing my homework, trying to convince a company to give me both money and an employee discount, and trying to imbibe as much vodka and eat as many cookies as I possibly can without going up a clothing size.  It's a tough life, but someone has to do it!

Blogging About Blogging = SO BORING

I've been spending the past week or so mentally composing my goodbye letter to the internet.  I think upon review of my past couple of months of blog posts, it seems more than a little bit apparent that I began reaching blog burnout long before I realized it.  I've been writing sporadically, I've been stressing over comments and page views and return visits to new visitors.  More recently I haven't been able to keep my Reader at a manageable level and feeling guilty about writing on my own blog before reading and commenting on my blog friends'.

At first I blamed it on the fact that I was busy entertaining one set of friends at my house, then visiting another set of friends in San Francisco, then having my parents in town for another full week.  Combined with school my attention was completely diverted from blogging and I spent all of my computer time writing papers or outlines and trying to keep up with email.  But then I was alone again, and once more I had plenty of time to blog.  But then I got caught up in Smallville and I started job hunting and once again, there was always something to do other than blogging--even though I was on the computer practically non-stop.  Anytime I would click over to Google Reader, I would immediately recoil in horror at the absurdly high number of unread items glaring back at me accusingly and then I would just click the X on the tab.

The thing is, I just can't keep up anymore.  Joining 20 Something Blogs was like Dorothy leaving Kansas and landing in the beautiful Technicolor world of Oz.  Prior to that day, I read mostly mommyblogs or infertility blogs, and I LOVED them all--still read them in fact--but I was so envious of the community that those bloggers had that I didn't fit into.  But with the 20 Somethings, I found blog after blog written by amazing women (sorry boys, I'm sure yours are great too!) whom I completely identified with and I promptly began adding one after another to my list of daily reads.  It was so great, but at the same time, the burden of blog interaction got a little heavier.  That unwritten, unspoken social contract that states "I comment on your blog, you comment on mine."

That was fine for the world that I was living in a few months ago.  I had a desk job and reading all of these blogs kept me sane and gave me something to do during those long, horribly boring days.  But then I quit, and I started school.  And it occurred to me that the only job I can really take on right now is an hourly, retail job, and that's not terribly conducive to blog reading throughout the day.  And eventually, I'll hopefully be working as a teacher, in a classroom all day, where I think it would be frowned upon to spend the school day glued to my phone, checking blogs.  All of these realizations have hit over the past week and I figured it was time to just throw in the towel.

But then I realized something else.

I have always loved to write.  I have two partial manuscripts and a whole slew of Word documents filled with story ideas, but every time I sit down to work on them, I am paralyzed by this overwhelming pressure.  Pressure to write something that someone else will want to read.  Pressure to write something that someone else will think is "good".  I write a few pages, and then read over it with a critical eye and I want to cry.  Because oh my God, I suck.  But blogging is writing that I used to do just for me.  Before the page views were in the triple digits, before the comments were in the double digits, I still loved it.  Before I started worrying about writing something that someone else will want to read.  That someone else will think is "good".  And I loved my community, even though it was a small one.  It's not that I don't love all of the new readers and the new blogs that I've discovered over the past year, it's just that I find myself unable to live up to my own expectations.

And so, to make this very long story longer, I'm not giving up blogging.  What I am giving up is that narcissistic hope that I'll ever be an Amalah or a Dooce, or even a Molly or an Isabel.  And I'm okay with that.  I haven't totally wiped my Google Reader slate clean, but I have pruned it back a bit.  And I may not comment on every single one of those blogs that remain, but at least now I'll be able to say that I AM reading every single one.  In a day and age where businesses and schools are focusing on getting back to basics, I'm going to try to do the same thing.  I'm going to try to find that same joy in blogging that I felt even if I didn't get a single comment on my post and my most consistent readers were my parents and a creepy Spam-Bot.  So, for now at least, you're stuck with me.  And honestly, I hope I'll be around for a very long time.  That I'll always have this living document, this story of my life, even if it's of absolutely no interest to anyone else.

Not to mention, have you seen the teaser for the next season of The Hills??  I couldn't live with myself if I didn't have this outlet for my recaps...

Letters to the Internet

Dear Typepad,

Things have been distant between us lately.  I know it.  You know it.  There's no sense in pretending that we haven't hit a rough patch.  I know that I've been ignoring you, spending very little time at home with you and then on the few occasions when I have turned on my computer, glancing guiltily at your button there on my favorites toolbar and then navigating over to my class website or Facebook.  I just want you to know, it really isn't you, it's me.  I've just had so much going on lately and I haven't made an effort to keep you a part of that life. 

But you see--it's just been so hard.  (That's what she said.)  First there were the visitors from out of town, so of course I had to take some time away to show them around Seattle and drink lots of wine and cocktails.  There was even a brief moment of rockstardom at the Experience Music Project where we morphed into the Bourbon Belles and took the stage with an enthusiastic rendition of "I Love Rock and Roll"--I was the guitar player.  Oh, and then there was the time that I went to my first major league baseball game and came this close to being smacked in the face by a speeding baseball!  I wanted to tell you about it right away, but then life got even more hectic and our distance grew.  Then there was the 4th of July weekend in San Francisco!  It was so much fun, Typepad, I wish you could have been there.  I know you would have loved to have heard the stories about hiking up Telegraph and Russian Hill and even finding Scottie's house from Vertigo on Lombard Street.  And the Korean Karaoke!  Oh, the things I could have told you about that night in a private room with seven other friends, an endless supply of Asian cocktails and a heaping collection of classics from the 80s, 90s, and today!  One day, I even won a game of Wii bowling--can you believe that?--and my tennis game really is improving.  I knew you would have been so proud of me if only you could have seen it.

I'm so sorry that I've kept all of this from you for so long, and I hope that we can find a way to make this relationship work.  I have a pile of homework to get through now, and my parents are coming to visit tomorrow for a week--you've met them, they really like you--so I can't promise that everything will be back to normal right away, but please know that I'm thinking of you often and missing you desperately.  It's not often in life that you can find a connection like the one that we have, and I want you to know that even when it seems like I don't care, I really do.  You are the cheese to my macaroni.  The Harry to my Sally.  You complete me.  I'll never let go.

Yours always (even when I have better things to do than blog),

Dear Google Reader,

You are killing me.

Go to hell,

Back to School

Well, I think I can finally say that I'm making my 9 year old self proud.

As of June 30th, 2008, I will once again be able to take advantage of student rates and discounts without any residual feelings of guilt as I'll be officially on my way to earning a certification and masters  degree in elementary education.

And being that this is a solemn occasion, I would like to take this opportunity to declare before God and the internet that I will never photograph any of my students placing phallic objects in their mouths for "career days".

I'm the one in the middle there with the purple skirt and fashionable suspenders.  Also notable, I'm the only girl actually putting the tongue depressor in my mouth.  Thanks Mrs. Fuller, I'll bet this picture made my parents proud.