The Great Financial Aid Meltdown of 2013

I wrote a blog the other night about the no good, very bad, terrible day that I’d had.  You’re welcome for not posting it, I re-read it this morning and the melodrama just about knocked my socks off. 

 

As much as I love the challenge of trying to do something new, the other night things got just a little too hard.  Across four (yes four) ever growing to-do lists and with time ticking down to the start of summer, the weight of going back to school was feeling a tad too heavy.  Then the University of Florida struck again and I suddenly became unwillingly intimate with the new regulations guiding student loan disbursement.  I know that to get something, you need to give something but … well, I hadn’t factored in how hard loans are to get when you’re working on your second bachelors. 

In an act indulgence that typifies exactly how charmed my life has been, I gave into the overwhelmedness (is that a word?) and took a seat on the cool kitchen floor to let myself have a good wail.  At first I thought that maybe getting it out would make it feel better, so there I was, hiccupping and wallowing in snot on a more than slightly dirty kitchen floor (sweeping isn’t at the top of the Around the House list) and asking the empty air around me when things might get even just a little bit easier.  Not a lot easier but maybe just a little bit easier once in a while.  Sitting there alone I remembered what I always seem to come upon when I let myself go to pieces like this: this act of indulgence doesn’t in fact make anything feel any better.   

The thing is, I pretty much had a default “person" for most of my life to default lean on when things got really hard. (What?  Is that not what boyfriends are for? Could, in retrospect, this dependency (reliance?) potentially account for my singleness?) And so in that moment on the kitchen floor I gave myself an ultimatum: you need to pull yourself out of this – think a goddamn happy thought. 

And what did I come up with but burritos.  Mother effing burritos was the best happy thought that I could come up with.  So I shook myself and had another go: the incredible variety of burritos available.  And guacamole. Straight up pathetic (and perhaps a little hungry) but there I was, smiling through the tears.

Admittedly the smiles were weak and ultimately I had to call in the big guns and sent a “please help” text to Club Fun who pointed out: just need to get to tomorrow, because sometimes tomorrow is when it gets just a little bit easier. 

So while I’m not there yet, I am learning to pull myself up when I’m struggling and stalled but as long there are burritos and good friends in the world it truly does feel just that little bit easier that I need.   And Club Fun was right: the next day I found my way and it felt, just that little bit easier. 

Sad Week

There's a photo-blog that's going around the internet where man documents his wife's (ultimately loosing) battle with breast cancer.  If you haven't seen it, you can find it here.  It's stunning.  The photography alone is beautiful but the emotions, the struggle, the pain and the sadness that so many cancer patients and their loved ones experience, it breaks your heart and it took my breath away.

In some ways the quiet, heart-wrenching sadness of this blog seems to sum up this past week at work for me. People tend to assume that my work is sad when actually that is more the exception than the rule, so I'm not sure why this week at work has felt so sad to me when nothing particularly sad has happened.  

I've started changing gears at work, moving from acute processes that are terrible and impossible to deny but fast, to more chronic processes like myelofibrosis and multiple myeloma that are just as terrible but slower, different.  The early stages of these chronic diseases can be a little ambiguous, patients overall feel fine and they can pretend that it isn't happening, that they aren't sick. I don't want to call it false hope but there's a hard reality that comes with chronic illness. I guess this week I learned how difficult it is to be the reminder of reality.  There's only so many times you can be asked "how long will I need this treatment" and wait for it to hit home when I have to say: until it stops working.  I know that I am far from the only person saying this. I'm often in the room when they hear it from their doctor, but I'm also the easiest person to get on the phone and the person with the time to say it over and over again.  As many times as they need to ask it, I will answer it. 

Over the past five years I've seen a lot and I've learned a lot.  I'm sure that  I'll learn how to do this too.  I'll learn how to do this and I'll even learn to find the honor in it.  This week though I'm still learning and I'm a little overwhelmed by the sadness. 

After a week like this I need a ticklish baby penguin named Cookie, and thanks to the miracle that is the internet, I have it!

 

http://youtu.be/Wz92ANMTR2M

 

 





Let's Talk Ground Rules

Confession: I joined Match.com.  Okay fine, I tried to join Match.com once and it didn’t go well so I took a break and then nine months later I joined it for real. True story.

The first time that I tried to join Match was after maybe three months of singledome when I was in the “my life is over and I’m never going to meet an interesting guy ever again” place.  It was an odd place, one with lots of Popsicle’s, Netflix and no small amount of emotional cutting. Surrounded by popsicle sticks and fearing permanently cherry stained lips, I turned to my friends for support and advice.  This, was  a terrible idea.  I don't know about your friends but sometimes my friends give me great advice, other times they tell me to join Match.com.  

Thankfully, dating websites seem prepared for this exact situation and in order to weed out emotional train wrecks (ahem) they require prospective members fill out a very snazzy questionnaire intended to assess emotional stability.  Tricksy questions such as, “what do you like to do in your spare time?” (Sit on the couch, watch Gossip Girl on Netflix and drink red wine?) and “How important to you is it that your potential match wear deodorant/ have basic social skills/ not be married/ have a job?” (Hint: when your answer is one big…meh…that’s a bad sign.)  Thank GOD this super dog sniffer of a survey was filled out before actually signing up for or paying for anything.  And so, abundantly aware of my overwhelming apathy towards members of the opposite sex, I closed my laptop, grabbed another fudgsicle and went back to my solo couch party.  I wasn’t there yet.

Four seasons of Grey's Anatomy, two semesters of nursing school pre-reqs and one MAJOR crush on a certain A&P teacher later – my super friends struck again.  This time I found the wherewithal somewhere within myself to care a little bit more about the bar against which I measured my potential suitors and embraced the idea of trying something new.  This brings me to my first line of defense.

Criteria for which you get ex-nayed / considered on first look:

1.       Gratuitous shirtless selfies.

I don’t think that this one needs an explanation.

2.       Any reference to wanting “like, not a supermodel or anything, but you know, someone who respects their body.”

The want to be attracted to one’s partner is implied in the whole “more than friends” situation and a need to turn the implied into the overt is distressing in and of itself.  Add in the idea that anyone not meeting a certain physical standard (one that I assume is most likely stereotypical and unrealistic for the likes of me) is lacking in respect for their body?  No thank you.

3.       Any reference to needing an “active sexual relationship.”

Vomit. 

 

4.       Current relationship status of anything other than single, divorced or widowed.

What else is there you ask?  What other status could one reasonably put on a dating website profile? It’s not normal, it’s not reasonable and it’s certainly not very smart but you could also choose: separated.  I can hear your collective gasp and please rest assured that I share your horror.  Take a breather dude, it’s okay to be alone for more than a week.

5.       Substitution of single letters and numbers for full words and/or refusal to abide by basic mechanical writing principles.

U for you.  4 for four.  B4 for before.  All caps, no periods, no commas?  You don’t have to have a Pulitzer Prize but Microsoft Word has an outstanding spelling and grammar check system.  Use it.  Please.

Add in the basic safety rules (no identifying information, no at home pickups and providing a friend with my password to the oh so handy Find My IPhone app) and you’ve got yourself a blind dating ball game. 

You might be wondering why I’m telling you these things.  Perhaps if you are in an established, loving relationship you might be thinking, "that sounds fun!"  Trust me, this ain't Sex in the City and in the coming posts there will be moments (trust me) where you ask yourself: “what the hell kind of criteria is she picking these guys with?”  In retrospect, perhaps I ought to have made more rules, but then again, what's the point of stepping out of your box if you're just going to box yourself back in with rules? 

So now you know that a.) I'm super lame and b.)  that it is with these rules in hand that I embarked upon an entirely hilarious, occasionally humiliating and entirely surreal six months of online dating. 

I'm back!

Have you missed me?!  I hate it when my life gets so nutty that I can’t and/or don’t want to write anything at all, much less proofread it for spelling and grammar errors and post it on the internet. With the addition of classes these last nine months, my life qualifies as beyond nuts.  Add in that there were parts of my life that I felt as if I shouldn’t be posting on the internet that it got difficult to write and I just threw in the towel for a few months. How do you write about your life when you feel obligated to hide parts of it? 

I’ve been single now for almost a year and a half and up until this point, I’ve refrained from posting the more entertaining aspects of this single life because a certain ex-boyfriend was still a friend and I worried about inflicting unnecessary hurt or sadness.  It might be my blog and the internet may be a free forum but those of us who post our lives for all to see are still responsible for the things that we put out into the world.  I know that I’ve unintentionally hurt people with things that I’ve written and so I try to ask myself before I post: is it kind? Kindness isn’t a very a tall order especially when its someone you care about and I wanted to take whatever road would keep him in my life as a friend. You can pick whatever road you want but when it gets rocky you may very well find yourself walking down it alone.

My personal road got REALLY rocky last month.  I’m sorry to be vague but you’re just going to have to trust that about a month ago my life got turned upside down and at times I’ve had to look reeeeally hard just to recognize it.  I am rarely, truly down for the count but I have been and as I’ve been climbing out of the valley, I’ve had to face some very real truths. 

Truth: There’s nothing like being truly down and out to find out who your real friends are.  It’s nuts (or insanely lucky) that I saved this lesson for 29 but there it is.  A few people who I previously considered to be “true blue” have somewhat disappointingly faded out but far more heartwarming has been the so very many people who were there before I even thought to ask and haven’t budged since.  It’s challenging at times not to focus on the losses (hey, it still stings) but since we are speaking of truths:  losses notwithstanding, I am beyond blessed to be surrounded by amazing people.

Truth: Once somebody shows you who they are, what their priorities are or what kind of friend they are, no amount of arguing or trying to make them feel bad for letting you down will make you feel better.  There are certain things that can’t (or shouldn’t) be unseen and there comes a point where you should just walk away.  

Truth: this might be redundant but it bears repeating, I have SO MANY amazing, wonderful, warm, loving and supportive friends.  With an arsenal like that, it might hurt to walk away from the not so great ones but it’s not hard.

Back to my point: I am free from my emotional obligations (both real and imagined) to hide my okay-ness (or not so okay-ness as the case may be), AND my classes this semester are not quite to all-encompassing as they have been in semesters past.  So, what does all this garment-tearing, tear-soaked, soul-searching mean for you my loyal readers who have been suffering in the silence of the last six months?  It means the return of…..dating stories! Okay fine, it just means the return of the blog period, including some dating stories here and there.  They’re being told a little bit in retrospect but don’t you worry, time may dull the pain of loss but it certainly has not dulled some of the more fan-damn-tastic details of the last six months.  

On the Election

The election went the way I wanted it to on Tuesday night, from the presidency, all the way down to state level decisions to allow gay marriage.  I voted for President Obama four years ago and I voted for him on Tuesday, so I'll admit that I'm feeling pretty content right now.  I do remember though, how frustrated and angry I often felt when President George W. Bush was re-elected and in some ways I understand the upset that Romney/Ryan supporters feel right now and so I'm doing my best not to gloat. Losing something that you feel strongly about is hard, I've been there.

This election season has been pretty rough all the way around though.  As reassured as I feel by the outcome of the election, I spent a lot of the last year feeling pretty darn disgusted by almost all the political commentary I read and listened to. When I'd rather listen to Bret Douglas on Kiss 105.3 in the morning instead of NPR, you know that it's bad.  

Regardless of whether people are currently celebrating a victory or nursing the wounds of disappointment, I am floored by all of the rage, hatred and racism that continues to get thrown around by both sides. Apparently if you aren't a racist Republican, then you're a racist Democrat. I think we need a new word to fling about because this one is losing meaning. Social media that is supposed to connect us with our friends and families has turned into a mudslinging, name calling free for all that would horrify our children. I'm grateful that most of my friends and family and even my office kept it classy despite opposing ideologies but what I've seen through the internet and friends walls, that sadly doesn't seem to be the norm.

I'm glad that the election season is over but I'm now more than aware of how far we have to go to be the place and the people that I once thought we were.  Then I found this quote from a writer for the American Conservative (not exactly a publication that I routinely follow) and just knew that I had to share it:

"I think both men – Mitt Romney and Barack Obama – tell us something very good about the US – seriously – where else could a Mormon and a guy whose grandfather was a Muslim run for the presidency? So despite some of the racist sounding stuff being said in the aftermath of the election (Karl Rove announcing “we’re outnumbered”) it looks to me like this country really is the land of opportunity for people of all races and creeds.

There is something amazing about it – consider that Romney’s grandfather left the country because he was persecuted for his polygamy and yet he could still a few generations later run for the presidency.And then there is Obama’s life story. This is a pretty amazing country."

 This IS a pretty amazing country. :-)

You Get What You Wish For

Years ago I added "live alone" to my list of things that I wanted to do in my life.  To be quite honest, I'm not quite sure why I felt like living alone was such an achievement or why I felt that it was something I needed so badly.  I've sat here for over an hour trying to remember and I've got nothing, but the fact still stands that younger Anna felt I needed it.

Living alone is nothing like I expected in that I didn't expect to be doing it at 28 and single.  I didn't expect to be doing it in the aftermath of some of the most heart-wrenching decisions I've had to make so far in my life.  I didn't expect to being doing it with two cats.  I didn't expect it to be as easy as it has been.  I didn't expect to find the heavy, imperturbable silence when I walk in the door comforting in a lonesome way.  I honestly don't know what I did expect but for all the good and the bad, I am grateful for it. I suspect that short-term I would have been more grateful had it never been necessary, but that in the long-term I will be better off for it since it takes a sheer force of will not not learn a lot about oneself when living alone.

Some day I may be able to remember what exactly my expectations were and decide if I've fallen short, met or exceeded them.  One of the few things that I do know to be true though, is that twinkle lights make a place homey when it feels just a little too empty.

April 16, 2012

Just your average evening

Netbook - check. Kindle - check.  Kitteh treats - check.  It's just your average evening in the Kingdom of Ashton.

March 27, 2012

It's never too late to resolve

I've changed my mind about not having New Years Resolutions. It's a position reversal to be sure but it's still less than 30 days into the new year and if I'd purchased my no-resolution position in the store, I'd still be able to return it for a full refund. And if it weren't so soon after the new year?  I'd still get to change my mind anyways because I've decided that I get to do that.

At the behest of a few fabulous friends, I do here and now declare my 2012 Resolution:

I will stop being friends with people who routinely insult me.

Not to be too dramatic but this places more than a few people on the chopping block, so you best check yo'selves be fo' you wreck yo'selves.

Several methods of ex-naying these non-friends have been suggested. My favorites include a Facebook status update (a la "if you would like to know the status of our friendship, please check FB at midnight...") followed by a mass un-friending.  Oh if I had it in me I would, but I don't, so I won't.

More likely than a Facebook maneuver (yet incrdibly unlikely over all) is a form letter that almost certainly would warrant a submission to PassiveAggressiveNotes.com (Dear Ex-Friend, it has come to my attention that you are an asshole.  According to my records you were an ass on the following occasions...)

So, while I can't tell you for sure the method by which I'll be implementing this resolution, most likely I'll just stop returning phone calls (take that for passive aggressive!) but if you are one of those who feel compelled routinely comment on my weight, the worthiness of my work, the things I find enjoyable or the way I choose to live my life, we will be parting ways sooner rather than later.

Life is just WAY too short to spend with it  people who rob me of my joy or make me feel like less than I am.

What next?

There aren't a lot of things that have stayed the same this past year but here's two of them: people asking when I'm going to go back to school and that I really don't want to go back to school. 
I've totally brought this upon myself by sharing my aimless musings of the past two years about the possibility going to nursing school or a history PhD program with, well, just about everyone I know but I'm really REALLY sorry about than and can everyone please just forget it now?

I assume that a huge part of this is because I, from time to time, bitch about my job: the pay, the sadness inherent in working in oncology and the frustrations inherent in working with MD's and people in general. That much is mine and I own it because I should stop whining, about my job and in general.  But I suspect that another part of the trouble is that this good job that I enjoy is not anywhere near that for which I went to school. Hell, you can barely make a logical leap from what I did in school to what I do now. If I were teaching right now, would people be asking me when I'm planning to go back to school?  Would they be asking what's next?  While I may be wrong, I honestly think probably not. The job I do now comes with better pay, better time off, probably better benefits and in all likelihood a much higher level of personal satisfaction and enjoyment of my day than teaching would yet it seems that everyone is waiting for my next move.

The thing about school is that I've done it. I've done a lot of school and if may say so myself, I killed it. I get to class on time, take organized notes and, wait for it, actually enjoy writing papers and studying for exams. I know, it's totally sick.  I've done well in school and I've done enough of it that I've come out the other side with three (count 'em) three, degrees. These degrees have worked pretty well for me thus far in that I have a good job that I enjoy, yet for some reason the feeling that I get from the "what's next?" question is that I should be aiming for something, not necessarily more, but different.

When Wes and I first broke up (okay - maybe a few weeks later), I started getting asked "so...what are you going to do now?" I got asked this A LOT and when I say that, I mean, at least once a day on most days. What do you mean, what am I going to do now? I'm going to wake up every morning, feed my cats and go to work. I'm going to keep on living my life, yes - that one that has a giant gaping hole torn through it. My relationship was not a goal and as huge of a loss as that relationship has been, it wasn't the defining feature of my life. I am the defining feature in my life. 
I only mention this because that gut reaction of disbelief I feel when people ask me "what now" post Wes, is very similar to the one I get when people ask me "what now?" in terms of work and possibly going back to school.

I have a good job. It's one that challenges me, pays me sufficiently to render me independent and comfortable, provides me with kick-ass health benefits, leaves me with a sense of worth and satisfaction at the end of each day and as an added bonus, comes complete with a coworkers that I enjoy hugely. Why can't I just be working and living my life right now? Must there always be plan for what comes next? And in the absence of a plan (because what comes next will probably happen whether you plan for it or not) why is more school the default option?

In the near future there will be decisions to make and what-nexts to figure out but what happened to just enjoying the living part of life? That part of life with free time to read, where sleep deprivation is a thing of the past and re-emergence of sleep deprivationis so far in the future that you can't see it yet.   Where you work really hard each day and spend time with friends who make you laugh and who are there for hugs when you need them.  Where extra cash can be spent traveling and going to concerts, and extra time can be spent learning how to cook delicious food.  I'm not sure where the idea of this has gone but it is where I live right now.

Going back to school won't fill in the gaps in my life right now, it'll just give me homework. 

Don't let a sting slow you down

Sometimes I feel like I don't know much, most of the rest of the time I'm pretty sure that I haven't got a clue of how this madcap life is supposed to be going.  Occasionally though, I stumble upon something that appears to be a gem of reality, even when, like this one, it's completely stolen from someone smarter than me (thanks Mama!) Life changes constantly and sometimes it changes really fast. 

Life has changed a lot of the past few months and nothing quite calls attention to how life has changed than the holidays. A lot of people were worried about how I would feel this Christmas without Wes.  I am proud to say that I more than survived Christmas this year, I positively enjoyed it.  I had a wonderful time with my family, received far more thoughtful gifts than I could possibly deserve, created a reading nest with an electric blankie and overall was surrounded by love which is really all one can hope for in life.

Christmas was lovely but I have in fact been dreading New Years Eve.  Actually, I dread New Years every year so this isn't new or a product of singleness.  New Years Eve is this one night every year that gets heaped in the expectations of  being THE BEST NIGHT EVER!  I have to honestly say though I've never had a New Years Eve that lived up to the hype, because once people start realizing that it's not really going to the "best night ever!" we just up the drinking and by morning don't even remember that it wasn't anything to write home about. Awesome right?  Some of the best New Years Eve's I've ever had have been low key, with people I enjoy and didn't in epic hangovers the next day.  Actually, now that I write it out that's probably my formula for all good nights: low key, vomit free and with people I adore.

I know, I sound like a Scrooge and okay, maybe I'm being a little bit Scroogie at the moment.  You see all of my old friends (and I use the term 'old' not necessarily as former but as indication of that group of people that I hung out with when I was one half of a couple) are going out to St. Augustine to ring in the new year.  I wasn't really invited to this.  I found out about it on Facebook a few weeks ago and I have to admit, that stung a little.  Granted, I've been asked by a few people over the past couple weeks if I will be coming out to St. Augustine with them which I suppose is an invite in itself but you know, it's just not. 

Life changed.  Life changed fast. 

The good news in all of this is that while this changed life may occasionally sting, the change its self is often for the better.  I found that I have friends who invite me for me and not just through the person I may or may not be dating.  This year, instead of going along on the drunken quest for THE BEST NIGHT EVER, I'll be wearing a funny hat (it's that or a dress and heels and we all know that silly hat trumps pointy shoes every time) with people that I adore and sipping good champagne that won't make me want to die in the morning. 

The other thing that I think I might know now?  Don't let a sting slow you down. 

StarWars has all the answers

"So Han's walking down the halls of Bespin with his old friend Lando.  Leia's there, and lookin' good.  Han thinks he's off to dinner - maybe some wine, a little flirting and then back to the ol' guest quarters with Her Hotness. 

But the door opens, and there's Darth Vader.

Han doesn't look incredulously at Lando; he doesn't duck or run away. 

What does Han do? 

He starts shooting at the motherfucker. He just starts shooting. 

Be like Han."

Star Wars.  It might, in fact, have ALL of the answers.

Mini Madness

I fought the idea of buying BB for a long time.  A BMW engine seemed excessive and ridiculous and a two door car is the epitome of impractical.  Excessive and impractical as she might be though, I smile every time I get into her and know that she is mine.  I love BB even more when I can pick her out of a line-up of Mini's and say, "yup, that one is mine!"
 

November 14, 2011

Occasionally being a grownup IS more fun

October 7, 2011

This NEVER would have happened when we were kids - specifically the fact that my mom is smiling at the double bird.

How to Be Alone

‎"Cause if you're happy in your head then solitude is blessed and alone is okay" 

Given how reluctant I generally am to actually watch any video's on other people's blogs, I'm pretty sure that most of you won't actually watch this.  But you should.  Seriously, it's only about four minutes long and it's beautifully done.  And no, it's not beautiful just because I find it exceptionally pertinent right now, it's beautiful because it is so stinkin' true.

Poet/singer/songwriter, Tanya Davis -- would you please come be in my posse?

Link: http://youtu.be/k7X7sZzSXYs 

Song of the Day: minor overshare / broken hearted addition

The details in my fabric are currently that the oft written of Wondieful Boyfriend has moved out.  He is still wondieful in oh so many ways, just no longer mine. We decided on this together and yet it is is a thing that makes me panic as I look around my life and think, "now what?"  My heart hurts in a way I didn't know was possible, nobody ever told me that a mutual split is just as painful.


Please forgive me for the sadness that may appear here in the coming weeks.

"Details In The Fabric"
(feat. James Morrison)

Calm down
Deep breaths
And get yourself dressed instead
Of running around
And pulling on your threads
And breaking yourself up

If it's a broken part, replace it
If it's a broken arm, then brace it
If it's a broken heart, then face it

And hold your own
Know your name
And go your own way
Hold your own
Know your name
And go your own way

And everything will be fine

Hang on
Help is on the way
And stay strong
I'm doing everything

Hold your own
Know your name
And go your own way
Hold your own
Know your name
And go your own way

And everything, everything will be fine
Everything

Are the details in the fabric
Are the things that make you panic
Are your thoughts results of static cling?

Are the things that make you blow
Hell, no reason, go on and scream
If you're shocked it's just the fault
Of faulty manufacturing.

Everything will be fine
Everything in no time at all
Everything

Hold your own
And know your name
And go your own way

Are the details in the fabric (Hold your own, know your name)
Are the things that make you panic
Are your thoughts results of static cling? (Go your own way)

Are the details in the fabric (Hold your own, know your name)
Are the things that make you panic (Go your own way)
Is it Mother Nature's sewing machine?

Are the things that make you blow (Hold your own, know your name)
Hell no reason go on and scream
If you're shocked it's just the fault (Go your own way)
Of faulty manufacturing

Everything will be fine
Everything in no time at all
Hearts will hold

I want

I want to go places.

I want to see things that make me not want to blink and despair over the fact that sometimes pictures just don't do it justice.

I want to see things that make me want to close my eyes and turn away but that open my soul and make me a more valuable part of this world.

I want to then do something to make those things less prevalent.

I want to write a book. 

I want to have things to say that are worth being read.

I want to decorate a home with color and light so that poeple know that it's a place to live in, a place to spill wine in because you're laughing so hard you just can't help it.

I want to talk like they do on The West Wing.

I want big book cases.

In highschool I wanted to be voted "most likely to brighten your day," I still want that.

I want to see my parents more often.

I want to pay more attention to detail without sweating the small stuff.

Meet Blueberry

The seemingly never ending saga of Anna Needs to Buy a Car has, against all odds, has ended.  Buying a car has been terrifying to me, it's a lot of money (something that my miserly little soul doesn't like spending), it requires financing (something I've never had to get before) which in turn means monthly payments (something I've never had.) Big, scary, looming adult-y decisions to be made and I seriously miss being twelve.  So after months of cowardly inaction I bit the bullet and did something that scared me, I bought BB:

She's cute, she's speedy, she comfortable and she's completely impractical.  She only has two doors and if I want to get more than two bags of groceries at any given time, I have to fold the back seats down to fit them in.  Yep, entirely impractical but it's okay because my life doesn't need practicality right now - it needs fun and she is most certainly is fun. Even more fun than her speedy cuteness is the absurd and faaaan-tastic Mini Nod.  As someone who has always driven entirely inconspicuous cars I didn't know this until recently but there seems to be a strange and entirely absurd camaraderie among people who drive certain cars. 

Jeep drivers have a wave, a small and oh so cool "hey there" kind of wave out the driver side window.  I giggled a little when Wes explained this requirement to driving his Jeep until I remembered Todd Brewer telling me about Jeep Love when I was in high school. Todd was (and probably still is) an interesting cookie and I just assumed that this waving thing was code for Todd Brewer likes to wave at strangers. While that might be true, Jeep Love or the Jeep Wave, whatever you want to call it, much to my Mom's amusement, it exists. 

I think it's been well established that coolness is just not among my attributes and to find out that the Mini Coopers have their own version of The Wave, well that's just typical. :)  It's not a wave, not even so much a nod as a "what up" chin lift as you pass in traffic. One would think that this would be an easy acknowledgement to master but I've NEVER been able to make a chin lift look anything but ridiculous.  My uncool nature means that I instinctively nod down instead of up and lets just say...that's not the Mini nod.  This is going to take some practice.

Ski Utah

A little over a week ago Wes and I hopped a plane to Utah to tear up the slope with some friends and some not-yet-but-soon-to-be friends.  I say not-yet-but-soon-to-be because there were a couple people on this trip that I had never met, including V, the mastermind of the whole event.  I've been told that it's a brave (or stupid) thing to embark on a 5 day vacation with 9 other people whom you may or may not know but I have a history of making "brave" vacation decisions that ultimately turn out well.  Exactly one year before this trip I flew to the Bahamas for a friends Dirty Thirty birthday and found myself at a rapidly closing airport in a field in the Bahamas realizing that if my ride didn't arrive in the next two minutes I'd be sitting, quite alone in an empty field in the middle of the Bahamas.  Talk about being the dumb girl at the beginning of the very bad Lifetime Movie Special. This years endeavor was far less nerve wracking in several ways, the least of which not being The Wes by my side, but quite similarly it worked out brilliantly. 

This was my first trip to the mountains out west and they completely lived up to the hype and then some. The mountains are insane.

The view from our front balcony at sunset

People warned me that skiing out west is different from the north east but I didn't understand it until I got there.  Suffice to say that it made me re-assess where I place my self on the ski-competency / skill scale.  .  One run down a double blue mogul run put six of us firmly in our place on the first day out. I generally don't get cocky about physical pursuits but I apparently I did with skiing and have since cheerfully placed myself  much more on the mid line than previously.

Thanks to V's impeccable planning skills we hit up three different resorts.

Park City: 

Nothing like a Blue Moon to make this even better

Brighton:

and Canyons:

There's nothing like a gondola ride to get you pumped for the slopes :)

WINNING!!

The skiing was unreal and one of the most fun things I've ever gotten to do, though I have to say that the three and a half mile run at the end of the second day was the longest thing ever.  The quads they were a-burning by the end of that one. 

After long days on the slopes we went home to to relax like the very fancy people do: next to the fire or with some drinks in the hot tub.  Yes I know, we are quite fancy.

Who would want to come home when life can be like this?! 

I'm not sure that any of us really wanted to go home at the end of the weekend, who would want to get back to business when there's hot tubs to lounge in, ski slopes to cut-up and friends to laugh with?! 

Still home we went to warm and breezy spring temperatures (well, at least the Florida contingent did, WINNING!) and the affections of two very snugly kitties.  Verdict: vacation well spent. :)

Thanksgiving 2010

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, I think maybe this is because its based around something that I absolutely adore: social eating.  Social eating reached a whole new fever pitch this year: Wes deep fried a turkey:

I'm so thankful that Wes does Turkey duty on Thanksgiving, I'm generally not sqeemish about meat but preparing a turkey just really doesn't ring my bell.   So while deep frying a turkey makes me feel a little bit back words, it was super tasty and with the added bonus of freeing up valuable realestate in the oven. 

We sampled some of the worlds strongest beer: the Sink the Bismark:

AT 42% alcohol its much more akin to a shot of whisky then beer AND I can say from personal experience, it can be lit on fire. Yet we drank this, though admittedly not much of it.  It tasted a lot like I imagine drowning in jet fuel would taste. 

And then we ate:

What's there not to be thankful for this year?

To Miami I went

Ah home.  Much like hobbits, I love being home and there's nothing quite like leaving home to remind me how much I my own bed, my kitties and my Wes.   It's boarderline pathetic I know, to become minimally homesick over the course of barely two days, yet there I was, hour 45 and just desperate to be home.  Still, being sent to Miami for work to learn something new is hard to complain about and there were definitely fun parts, so for your reading pleasure, I'll hit the high points:

2/3 of Club Fun had delicious Greek lunch.  Ashleigh put it best and so I quote:
    "that time we were both in Miami and got together for lunch but I got lost
     and you had to stand on a corner like a homing beacon and I paid a toll
     in pennies and we ate Greek food and drank Starbucks and I paid $15 to park
    in the scariest parking garage ever? That was awesome! :)"

Then I went to a conference where we talked about herpes and the impact of the latter on immunocompromised patients for TWO DAYS.  Seriously, two days of looking at pictures of and discussing herpes.  Varisella Zoster, HSV, Cytomegalovirus, Esptein Barr and that one with the insanely long name that I have no shot in hell of remembering. You get where I am going?  Lots and lots and looooooots of herpes, which brings us to high points numbers two, three and four:

Lots of coffee:

lots of coke can-bottles (which I find to be odd in a less than pleasant way):

and a little bit of happy hour while waiting for my flight home:

It was an interesting couple of days and when I got home I realized that this is where I love to be.  So I snuggled down in my bed and sent up a prayer of gratitude to the Universe for the fact that home equals happy.   Can't fight it and wouldn't if I could.