Moving

I have moved my blob.

It's now at thisismyblob.wordpress.com

See ya later dudes!

Portlandia

(let's pretend for a moment I write in here a lot and just pick up where we left off...)

Tomorrow I'm going to visit my brother in Portlandia and I'm thuper exthited.

Since we all love lists, I will share the reasons why in list form:

• I have new giant glasses so I can look 'hip' in the hippest of towns. Not that I care. Too hip.
  
• My lovely sibling bought the hubs and me something to sleep on in his basement, no floor for us!
• I get to see the broski and meet his girlfriend and hang out.
  
• Let's face it... this is just good timing. I'm a little frayed and ready to recharge.
  
• I planned ahead and bought Benadryl to knock myself out so I'm not horrendous on the flight and can just hold my husband's hand in a coma instead of a death grip. (FUN FACT: the active ingredient in Benadryl is the same as the non-headache sleep aids, however it is ~2 cents cheaper per pill)
  
• After Portland I get to go stay in LA with one of my favorite people, Blair, who made a spreadsheet of how we can spend our time awesomely and effectively. I already made my case to visit Coffee Bean at least daily. Looking forward to seeing college friends and just be having a good time, having a good time.

Shorts

Today I rubbed all the color out of a spot on my hot pink shorts while trying to fix them after accidentally sitting in sap/tar. The original spots were tiny, and would have been fine if I would have just left them alone, but instead, I feverishly tried to restore them to the perfect shorts they were when I bought them.

Now there is a big white patch just below the right ass cheek. Unwearable.

You have no idea how excited I was about these shorts. For one, they are the most flattering fit I've found in a long while, in a size I was ecstatic I could finally fit into, in a color that made me want to skip around with delight.

I tried to look up hot pink dye brands, as if maybe I can still fix them (I know that is very unlikely). I fantasized that soaking them would more evenly leech out from other parts of the shorts onto the white spot (I know also, this is unlikely). But mostly, I keep looking at the shorts trying to convince myself maybe it's not that bad, maybe I wasn't overzealous in the scrubbing, maybe they're not ruined. Maybe it wasn't my fault.

From the beginning my husband took a very "accidents happen" "you're too hard on yourself" "just buy a new pair" attitude-- which may be kind of right, but these sort of accidents make me crazy, and you can't just "buy a new pair" (ladies, am I right??) because the price included that initial joyous rush I felt at finding them, and he should know we can't afford to be replacing full-price hot pink JCrew shorts every 6 weeks. Anyway-- had I left the shorts alone, and left the microscopic tar stains, it would just look like maybe I had recently sat in tar, no big deal. But instead, my own hand took the ruined-factor to the next level. And knowing I turned something bad into something that totally bums me out, well, that bums me out even more.

Of course, once I thought I was thoroughly "bummed," I started thinking, maybe that's how I am with everything. If I could just accept that some things aren't perfect and sometimes things get a little crapped on, my meddling and trying to make everything exactly as it should be isn't going to make anything better, it will make it worse to the point I can't stand looking at it, and no amount of examining it at all angles would be able to convince me it's fine. So maybe I do need to stop being so hard on myself, even though I've spent a long time convincing myself my problem is I'm not hard enough (it's a Catch-22).

That's not to say "things" aren't bad. Things are good-- I'm really lucky, I just lack perspective 70% of the time. My real problem is that because I'm lucky, how come I can't seem to make any more out of the luck I've been given? I feel this real need to live up to expectations and then to exceed them, because-- as with the shorts-- everything I've been given has been so close to perfect, I can either just wear the shorts and run with it, or scrub at them until I go too far and have nothing suitable to run in.

Thus, metaphorically speaking: next time I need to just wear the damn shorts (why didn't I do that before?? GAHH.)

So, in the end (which is now, btw) I may have just gotten more out of ruining a $45 pair of shorts than I did out of earning the $45 I needed to pay for them.

Crest 3D White commercials

Sooo maybe I'm the only one who gets really strong reactions, positive or negative, to certain people in commercials. Let's start with a positive: The Mayhem man. I love the Mayhem man-- "I'm a racoon!" That is quality advertising.

Now for the reason I am here: the Crest 3D White lady. I can think of 3 scenarios where her OCD about the Vita shade levels of her teeth may or may not prohibit her from doing totally awesome things.
***I may have mixed up scenario/reaction for 1 & 2... but you get the idea***

Scenario 1: Red carpet invite. Longtime best friend calls up Crazy to tell her that boyfriend is sick and can't go to the premiere tonight, would she want to go.
Reaction: "TWO HOURS?" Immediately breaks out in hives and, panicked, looks at her teeth in a teeny mirror, while at a restaurant (rude). It's worse than she expected. Two days can take a toll on that sparkle.
Thanks to Crest whitestrips... : Is able to be the center of the universe again.
Where she would be if not for Crest 3D white strips, paste, and mouthwash: Locked in a Harry Potter cupboard avoiding the world.

Scenario 2: Vegas (or should I say "VEGAS?!"). Friends inform her they're running off to Vegas for crazyass funtimes.
Reaction: "VEGAS?!" While driving her saucy convertible down the freeway at 80 mph, cranes her neck to check her teeth in the rearview mirror, which of course look disgusting! She hasn't whitened since the premiere last weekend!
Thanks to Crest whitestrips... : Is able to ride the whole way to Vegas with gooey crap on her teeth, drooling into a plastic water bottle while her friends gently tease but quietly bottle up the fact that her teeth are going to be see-through by the time they cross the Mohave.
Where she would be if not for Crest 3D white strips, paste, and mouthwash: Playing bingo in a hall with a bunch of ladies in wigs, which would be cool if her mouth weren't taped shut to prevent others from seeing her hideous grill, which also makes calling out "BINGO!" impossible. She will never win at gambling or at life.

Scenario 3: Fine dude on the train. He looks at her.
Reaction: Thank God! She timed this right and skipped lunch to white-strip it up. She smiles, of course!
Thanks to Crest whitestrips... : Soulmates, duh.
Where she would be if not for Crest 3D white strips, paste, and mouthwash: Under the tracks.

My day today

K so it's been a month since I last wrote, deal with it. I am. I had an awesome day.

A list:

• To start off, it always helps when it is gorgeous outside.
• Found out I will be teaching a Body Flow class every week. Team teaching to begin, then getting my own class in the fall. Exciting! If anyone happens to read this blog and is interested in trying Body Flow, let me know-- it is a combination of tai-chi, yoga, and pilates set to good music.
  
• Learned about Inbound Marketing University, a way to get a free certification in marketing online.
  
• Met new people. Between some talented candidates for the marketing specialist I am on a search committee for, and the fellow geeks at the Providence Geek Dinner, I met some neat folks. I had been meaning to go to the dinner for months, and even tried to go once before but there was absolutely no parking and it was pouring down rain... so Fraser and I got sushi instead (fail/win or win/fail?)
• Cut open the watermelon I bought to find the reddest, crunchiest, juiciest, bomb-ass melony deliciousness I've ever had the pleasure of slicing and devouring.
• I didn't cook tonight, as Wednesday is usually leftover night. So homeboy and I heated up the 2 Freschetta pizzas I bought as a treat and decided they are probably the best frozen pizzas we've ever had. So thank you, Freschetta, for tasting so fresh you are almost bruschsetta. Luckily I had just eaten my weight* in watermelon so it was impossible to make a complete fatty of myself. *exaggeration
  
• Since I'm going down the food path... I got complimented on my baking. I made some friends cookies last weekend, and she was nice enough to bring up how good they were. Yay! And uh, not to toot my own horn, but I do kind of rock at cookies (tooooooot). You can credit my mother for refusing to buy me the Easy Bake Oven I wanted with all my tiny, excitable heart. She insisted that if her 5-year-old daughter wanted to bake, she would do so in a real oven. And bake I did.
• Fraser's happy because the Bruins are currently beating the "ginger army" in the final of the Stanley cup finals. Just so you know, he's ginger too, so that apparently makes it less racist. Aside from the yelling, I like his enthusiasm.
  
• My optimistic attitude and feeling like I have finally shaken the funk I've been in for a good while. Good things are gonna come. Just gotta hold onto these good days like gold, and keep working toward my goals, whatever those goals may be (see last post). :)
  

I've said it before, and I'll say it again

...but I really need to start writing in a blog. Preferably this blog.

The more I work, the more I come to the realization of how to work, what this all means to me and my "life plan," and where I want to go with my career. Nothing's concrete, but I just know I should really be forming my own ideas about the things I do... if I ever figure out what I do, per se.

Currently I am a designer/developer for a university. I make mockups, create graphic designs and artwork, write code, and put out fires. I am the 5'4" human version of the Adobe Creative Suite, plus Google and a bucket of water.

I'm in the quarter life crisis of "this is not moving fast enough," paradoxically in conjunction with "where am I," "how did I get here" and "where am I going." I don't have a life plan because, really, what the heck does that mean? Is it a bucket list? Is it some sort of almanac of what I'm supposed to fulfill (i.e. marry at age 25.5, birth 1.5 children and bring it/them to our home with 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths and a 2 car garage)? In some cases, I'm a planner, but as I go through life and relationships with friends, I see from all our experiences that the things we don't plan for impact us just as much as, if not greater than, the ones we expect or plan for.


I think around this age, or maybe not, I haven't asked anyone, but we start realizing life is precious (I made it bold to give the word some cojones, because I don't mean precious in the sense that a teacup poodle sitting inside of an actual teacup is precious), and as much as I feel the need to be in it, live, and do, I feel an equal and almost opposite need to reflect on it, take stake, and count my blessings. Perhaps this will help me lead a better life, and perhaps actually be my best self when that whole life plan starts falling into place.

All I know, and these are the only things I'm sure of for my future, is I want to look back at my life and know that I gave due consideration to my actions, but didn't hesitate to take any out of fear or a lack of confidence. I think those things come with experience and time. But I guess I'll know when I'm old.

Michelle Obama's Speech to GW Grads

I had to repost this after seeing it on the Oprah website.

"You guys can't be stopped. You don't know the meaning of the word 'can't.' And every time someone's tried to say to tell you that, you've replied, 'Oh, yes we can.' In fact, you remind me of something President Wilson once said. He said: 'Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that's the way I know I'm an American.'

"Even so, you've probably also run up against people who love your idealism but warn you to lower your sights, to scale back your ambitions a bit, to settle for something less. And you know their hearts may be in the right place. They may be worried that you're in for a letdown once you realize that it can take years and even decades for your best efforts to bear fruit. See, we live in a culture, after all, that tells us that our lives should be easy, that we can have everything we want without a whole lot of effort. But the truth is, and you know this, creating anything meaningful takes time."

— First lady Michelle Obama, who promised to speak at George Washington if they performed 100,000 hours of community service

Now there's some inspirational words.