That kind of girl...

I promise to come back from the dark side soon...

2008-11-17T22:44:00.000-08:00

I'm headed out of town on a quick business trip but I promise to come back from the dark side when I return.

Thanks for hanging in there (those of you who have anyways...)

Moving...

2008-11-03T09:44:00.000-08:00

I'm mid-move and my world consists of piles and piles of boxes right now, one of which contains my computer. I'll be back soon!

My mysterious disappearance...

2008-10-17T22:18:00.001-07:00

The other day at work I was talking to a client on the phone. They asked how I was doing and I responded with "been better, been worse, but getting by." After I got off the phone with them I starting thinking that, while I am getting by, I've probably never been worse. I'm definitely in a funk, which is why I haven't been writing much. I know I said I was going to open up and share some of what's been going on in my life but it turns out that I'm not quite ready. It's hard to see through the fog when your surrounded by it, if you know what I mean. I will get through what's been going on with me, and my life will be better for going through it, but I'm too enveloped in it right now to talk about it. I will share all of this chaos one day. I am moving soon (to a place I really like), and I did get a new car (which I love...a 2008 Honda CRV!), and work is actually going pretty well so there are some things that are looking up. But in the meantime, I present to you cupcakes!

A few weeks ago, Shannon from Misguided Mommy started asking me if I was going to be in town last week. I said yes, I would be around. When I asked why, she said "No reason". Of course, I didn't believe her. So I pried and pried and finally she told me she was sending me a surprise. Of course, I pried and pried to try and find out what it was. Surprises and me have a love-hate relationship. I love receiving them. I hate waiting for them. So for the next week or so, Shannon taunted me with the arrival of my surprise every chance she got. Saying 'Oh your surprise has been delayed, I am so pissed." or "are you gonna be in your office today?" and then nothing would show up.

Last Wednesday I had a morning meeting with a potential client. At about 8:30am, on my way to the meeting, I get a text message saying 'What's up' from Shannon. Hmmm...she normally doesn't send me messages. Since I was driving, and had my boss as a passenger, I actually didn't get this message, or the 3 others asking me where I was, why I wasn't answering and WTF, until I got to the potential client's office at about 9. I write back saying I was meeting with someone and then I get a message saying 'too late, surprise delayed. Can you hear my jaw dropping? For weeks I had been taunted with the arrival of my surprise, and now it was delayed!!!

I respond with 'NO, I'll be back in my office by 11'. I get this back 'Too bad, surprise delayed'. I wanted to reach through my phone and slap her. She tells me to text her when I am back at my office. So I immediately assume I will get my surprise when I get back to the office. So I meet with the potential client, drive back to the office, exchanging a few more text messages with Shannon. I finally get back to my office and send her a message saying I am there. Then I got about avoiding getting to work. I shuffle some papers on my desk, then decide I should bring the coffee cup on my desk into the break room. As I walk down the hallway to my break room, I see this box sitting on the table visable from the hallway (obviously it was unopened):

A little background, I work in a business where people ship us stuff, many times in coolers. So (thinking to myself that I wouldn't be receiving my surprise until later that day because, you know, I was told that it was delayed...) I say out loud to myself (or whoever happened to be listening) as I walk down the hallway "who shipped us something perishable in a bright pink box?" Obviously clueless to the fact that my surprise already arrived! The second I open my mouth and the remainder of my office realizes I'm even back from my meeting, they rush from the far corners of my office and surround me and pound me with questions: "Why did you order cupcakes?" "You ordered cupcakes? Can we have some?" "We thought about opening it but it had your name on it so we decided not to open it....". At the same time, one of the girls in my office has gone to find scissors. All this is happening while I am CLUELESSLY saying to myself "I didn't order cupcakes. I mean I know I have been ordering a lot of marketing supplies...did one of those companies send me something as a thank you. Did I accidentally order something I shouldn't have? I didn't order cupcakes...these can't really be cupcakes...not, the address label definitely says cupcakes and has my name on it." COMPLETELY CLUELESS I TELL YOU. Then it hits me...MY FUCKING SURPRISE FROM SHANNON! All this while one of the girls from my office is trying to tear into the box with her finger nails (I kid you not! the girls in my office are food-whores). I was surround by half a dozen people at this point. And it wasn't like they were just hanging out in the break room, they were like peering over my shoulders trying to tear into the box...the box that had cupcakes on the outside:

And this was no small bright pink box. The box is probably 8" high by 12" by 18" long. So I finally open it and me (and the food-whores drooling over my shoulders) see this:

Hmmmm...a cute little handwritten note thanking me for helping with her kids and with her generally craziness lately from Shannon. I slip off the checkerboard sleeve and open the box to find this:

A dozen, individual labeled, unique cupcakes. They were shipped frozen with ice packs with instructions to defrost for 4 hours at room temp and enjoy within 2-3 days or to refreeze them and enjoy for up to a month! The cupcakes were fucking awesome. I suspected they would be all fluff but they were made with dense flavorful moist cake and the most intense sugary frosting I've every had! And I'm pretty sure there was more icing than there was cupcake. There were flavors like Smore's with a marshmallow in the middle of the cupcake and graham cracker buttercream frosting, and raspberry chocolate and triple chocolate and oreo cream and red velvet and OMG, too many flavors to keep track of. MMMMM, they were awesome and definitely put a smile on my face for the day and the following days and I enjoyed my cupcakes (I did share a few with my co-workers because if I hadn't, it's possibly I would be hospitalized with a sugar induced coma!). These cupcakes were from SAS (Sweet and Sassy) Cupcakes. Thank you Shannon!

Who woulda though?

2008-09-22T20:37:00.001-07:00

I was driving back to work today from my lunch break and a SaraLee truck turns in front of me while I am stopped at a light. As a sidenote, I've never seen a SaraLee delivery truck before. Anywho, I digress...I read the logo because I am bored... "Nobody Doesn't Like SaraLee". Hmmm, who woulda thought? Since the beginning of time, I always thought their motto was "Nobody Does It Like SaraLee". Seriously, who would have known?

2 out of 3 ain't bad...

2008-09-20T17:45:00.000-07:00

On Friday I got an email from Misguided Mommy. Among other things, it said this "you said that you could maybe watch the boys some time i was wondering if tonight around 7 for like two hours you could watch em at my moms house. i want to take my parents to dinner to thank em for everything they have done for me. if not its coolio i'll figure it out!" Anyone who knows Misguided Mommy know's that she had never let anyone watch her kids except: her parents, her nanny/housekeeper (sorry I have no idea what she really is), and Brandon's teacher. Leaving her kids with anyone else is almost unheard of. I know, and yet I have always said that if she ever wanted, I could watch the kids while her and her hubby went out, or so she could take a nap or whatever. I never actually expected her to take me up on the offer (which is why I almost fell out of my chair at work when I read this...I actually had to read the email like 3 times before I realized that she actually wanted me to watch her kids).

I left work at 6:15 (I swear!) but because of traffic was running late (I swear!). (I'm always late but this time it actually wasn't my fault). I got to Shannon's mom's house and learned I would be watching the kids but also had to keep an eye on Shannon's cousin, who, well, let's say, isn't the most well behaved teenager out there. They kept saying: SHE WASN'T' ALLOWED ON THE PHONE...SHE'S A SNEAKY ONE SO KEEP AN EYE ON HER!. Ok, got it! Mind you, I signed up for babysitting, not teenager-sitting. Those are 2 entirely different things and babysitting, no matter how whiny or annoying they are, is SOOOO much easier than teenager-sitting. But I went with it...

Things went well, most of the night. Brandon and I got into a 20 minute long pillow fight while Shannon's cousin kept an eye on Codi. Codi and I watched the Food Network while Brandon played on his computer. Shannon's cousin stayed close and hung out with us until about 8:15 when she asked if she could go to bed. Ahhhh, you wouldn't that would be such a hard question to answer would you? But it was, so I sent Shannon a text message asking if it was ok...and I'm glad I did, because no, in fact it was not ok. So I told her they were on their way home and wanted her to stay up, they were bringing ice cream home and were gonna play video games when they got there. She said fine and changed into her pj's and laid on her bed in her room with the tv on. Brandon promptly joined her because (apparently) cartoons are WAY more entertaining to a 3 year old than the Food Network. Who knew? So around 8:30 I get a message from Shannon saying they are gonna stop at the grocery store and then will be home.

By this time Codi was getting a little fussy because he was getting hungry and Shannon hadn't left me with a bottle, because, well, Codi won't take a bottle (unless, as a side note, it's water which he promptly spills all over himself and splashes around in). The only thing that keeps Codi from a mini-meltdown is walking around the house with him so I start doing laps from the door of Shannon's cousin's room to check on her and Brandon, around the living room and back to their door, I would peek in and do another lap. And on one or two occasions I may have stopped to watch a few seconds of the Food Network. So I do a few more laps, checking in on them each time. On one of my laps, I turn the corner just in time to see Shannon's cousin headed to the bathroom. So I do another lap, and see her walking from the bathroom to her room (right across the hallway). So I do another lap, peek my head in the door and she's gone. Yup, you read that right, she's gone. For a split second I give her the benefit of the doubt and think she maybe went into another room to grab something, or to the kitchen and I totally missed her. But nope, she wasn't in any of the rooms. So I ask Brandon which way she went and he points down the hallway towards the garage. Again, for a split second I give her the benefit of the doubt and think maybe she's letting the dogs out. So I scream outside for her... (cricket's churping). So I go back inside and text Shannon "Your cousin is MIA". She writes me immediately then calls before I have a chance to read the message, whispering into the phone she's like "is she in my parents room? Is she in the garage? Are you kidding me? Seriously?" Then I hear her mom asking what's going on in the background and her having to tell her parents that her cousin is MIA. "We'll be home in a second". And she hangs up.

So they get home, Codi gets to eat and is all smiles. Brandon is still plastered in front of the cartoons. Shannon's parents come inside just long enough to give me a hard time about losing one of them on my first night of being able to babysit and then take off to find her. I'm not sure of the whole story, but they ended up finding her, and the house of one of her 32 year old male "friends" (did I mention she's 15?), drunk with no money.

And I will never live it down because I am now the babysitter who 'lost one of them'? But to defend myself here:

I was asked to babysit the boys (you read her email...copied word for word). Not teenager sit.
I was never technically told I had to watch her ever second they were gone because SHE MIGHT RUN AWAY!
As far as I'm concerned, 2 out of 3 isn't bad.
Especially if the 2 that made it out alive (and unharmed) were Shannon's actual kids!
And as another important point, I am going to be a terrible mother when my kids become teenagers. I am WAY too trusting!
Again, just to state the important part of my argument, SHANNON'S KIDS MADE IT OUT ALIVE AND UNHARMED.

Apparently Shannon's cousin had actually been planning on running away for a few days and knew that was probably her best shot because Shannon's parents were gonna be home any second, so she risked it, because really, what could I do? I had 2 small kids to watch after..I couldn't exactly chase her down the street even if I had seen/heard her leaving. And apparently she had even told her birth mother she planned on running away. And her birth mother declined to tell Shannon's parents this slightly important piece of information.

And again, SHANNON'S KID'S MADE IT OUT ALIVE AND UNHARMED.

Can I just say...

2008-09-16T17:12:00.000-07:00

...that I feel like the clumsiest person in the world right now! In the past 2 weeks I have committed the following acts of (accidental) self-mutilation:

Cutting my left hand middle finger with a J.K. Henkel (very nicely sharpened) knife while trying to mince garlic.
Slammed my ring finger on my right hand between my sliding glass door and something that was apparently very sharp, quickly puncturing my fingertip and bruising my nail bed.
Hurting my ankle in an accident that I still can't pin-point, it is swollen and hurts like a bitch.
Stubbing my pinky tow on my left food so badly that i now have a blood blister underneath my nail bed.
Scraping my big toe on my right foot while trying to dust (see!!!! this is what I get for trying to clean!!!).
And...possibly the worst (or at least most painful), I just got a paper cut on one of my fingers!

Seriously, I need to take a vacation from work...and life...and just live in my big squishy bed where nothing can hurt me!

The good, the bad and the ugly...

2008-09-14T19:42:00.000-07:00

I know I've probably lost a lot of my loyal readers out there (even Misguided Mommy has stopped harassing me about my lack of writing). When I first started this blog, I noticed I was generally writing about happy stuff, or funny stuff, or maybe just plain old boring stuff, but I rarely wrote about the bad stuff. The ugly stuff. Which should answer your question about why I haven't been writing much lately. Now trust when I say that I KNOW, in comparison to many peoples lives, the bad stuff that's been going on in mine is minor and will be a minor slice in the whole pie that will become my life when it's all said and done, but none the less, my life has been pretty sucky lately.

I've never been one to dwell on the less desirable parts of my life so I find it hard to talk about them, I always have (ask any of my friends...I don't talk, I silently contemplate and then cry myself to sleep). But I am going to start talking about the things, all of them, that have been going on lately. I'll probably bore you to tears, and you'll probably think I'm a self-loathing egomaniac who doesn't have anything better to think about but oh well, it's my life and maybe, something will ring true with one of my readers and maybe help them through a similar situation. Because trust me, some of this stuff, friend problems, money problems, and well, just life in general happens to everyone and hopefully by writing about it will I not only help myself through all of it, I might help someone else to.

2008-09-11T22:42:00.000-07:00

So first of all, I promise I will be back this weekend. I promise. With more than just this. I promise.

Now for the really important stuff: cereal and popcorn makes a completely balanced dinner...right?

So the world hasn't collapse, but some days it just feels like it might.

2008-08-26T22:24:00.001-07:00

Everyone has those days. Days where the fucking shit hits the fan and you just feel like crawling in bed, pulling the covers over your head and waiting for the storm to pass. Of course, anyone who, well has anything going on in their lives can't do that. But it's all started to settle, it's all starting to work itself out, like it always does. But it sure sucks when it hits the fan.

Last Monday was, well, one of those days. As a side note, all that's running through my head is that early 90's song "Just One of Those Days" by Monica.

So obviously Memphis is leaving soon, which sucks. This has been a crazy adventure that I was not at all prepare for, and I'm dealing with the aftermath of what happens when life happens to you, before you realize what's going on!

I was also still stressed out about my friend stuff going on, that I'm not gonna go into. It's not something I feel comfortable talking about it on my blog, at least not right now, but on top of those 2 things (Memphis leaving and this friend stuff), the following stuff all contributed to my insatiable desire to bury myself in my big, comfortable bed and never come out.

The day started out with some frustrating issues with my job. I'm in the process of changing positions and while I'm not gonna go into details about it, let's just leave it at it was a 'bad' work day.

My dad hasn't been feeling great for the past few weeks. After my mom mentioned his symptoms to a friend of her's, we suspected he has diabetes. This was confirmed this week and is not quite as serious as we first thought it might be. Luckily diabetes is a relatively manageable disease, but it is a dramatic life change for my dad, for my parents, for our family. It's something we will learn to life with, but finding out about just another ummm....I'm obviously not having one of my brilliant writing days because I can't think of a metaphor so we will just go with it added another match to the fire (does that work, I'm too tired to even figure out if that makes sense or not!).

I also made the mistake of finally asking my parents what the lump we had removed from my dog's paw a while ago (did I ever even mention that? My dog has a huge lump - ok, grape sized- that appeared on one of her front paws removed about a month and a half ago. The vet took forever to biopsy it and I kind of forgot about asking about what it actually was). It turns out that it was cancerous, but the vet said they removed it all and the rest of her bloodwork looked good so they weren't worried. But as I sat there playing with my pup that night I noticed another small lump on her other front paw. I fully admit that I could TOTALLY be over-reacting because I am worried it something serious, but it was like the straw that broke the camels back. After the day I had had, it was just too much. I was done, I couldn't handle anymore.

Since then, everything is working itself out, in one way or another, but thought I should share since I have been MIA for more than a week!

Do you ever feel?

2008-08-18T21:27:00.000-07:00

Like life as you know it is collapsing in on you and there is nothing you can do about it? I'm too tired to go into it all right now but I'll explain it all soon. Sorry if I'm a little distant for the time being...

Memories...

2008-08-13T21:45:00.001-07:00

Memphis is moving. I haven't been talking about him much because I am navigating the unknown here. I've never had a serious boyfriend, I've never been in love. And while neither of those things are true with Memphis, I've also never felt the way I do about him, had the kind of connection I have with him, with anyone else. When I first went looking for someone to break my dry spell, I never thought I would find someone that I really liked. But I did. Memphis and I have never taken things beyond a casual relationship but there is defiantly something there. It's just...well...I'm not sure, I've never been here before, but it is one hell of a lot of passion and friendship.

Back to where I started. He's moving. He's been talking about moving for close to 2 months now, seriously for about a month. Then he wavered and thought about staying around for a while but it's for sure now. In less than a month, he will be headed back across the country, back to the town he went to high school in, back to the town his brother lives in, back to the place he calls 'the closest thing I've know to home as anything'. He was honest from the start, he was a wanderer. He moves where the wind takes him, whenever it blows. It's part of what I found attractive in him, all the adventures he's had, all the places he's been and the people he knows. Of course that doesn't make it any less hard that he's leaving.

He has helped me grow as a person more than I could ever imagined someone could, in such a short period of time. He helped (unknowingly) restore a faith in me, in myself, that I had lost over the years of navigating this thing that has become my life. And I've felt things for him I've never felt for anybody else before. Ever since he first mentioned he might move, I've had this unquenchable desire to record these moments in time with him. The really cute ones, the really sweet ones, the REALLY hot ones. There is this one memory, from the other night, that was so unbelievable hot I just keep replaying it over and over in my head. But how do you do that? Can you even do that? I have this moments, these glimpses of time we've spent together that I want to hold on to. Everyone has memories, they are hidden in the recesses of our mind until we least expect them to surface, but they do. At the sight or smell of something, or upon hearing an old song, they come flooding back. I've never felt the desire to want to remember my memories before. But these moments, these moments with him, I keep playing over and over in my head, hoping they will never go away.

I'm glad I have a friend like this in my life...

2008-08-12T09:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Shannon from Misguided Mommy and me were texting back and forth. The conversation originally started out with some serious stuff, but turned...umm...not so serious when I brought up a memory from when we were in high school (she had this great idea one night to put foam curlers in my hair...when we took them out in the morning I looked like I had gotten a bad perm and, if I remember correctly, might have started crying, or at least gotten really pissy, that I had to go to school with my hair like that). We were chatting about me being stressed because I am doing my own hair for a wedding this weekend that I am a bridesmaid in because I don't have the money to spend to get it done and then the conversation went something like this:

Shan's Cell: Hmmmm fri maybe we can try n do it if you want
Me: Thanks I think i am gonna screw with it tonite or tomor so if I really can't figure it out i might still be able to get it done
Me: And ummm the last time i trusted u with my hair u used foam curlers n i ended up with poodle curls
Shan's Cell: Shush butt nugget I was thinking a nice updo ass
Me: Ha i know just thought i would bring that up for my own entertainment
Shan's Cell: Y think it soooio funny
Me: U suck at texting
Shan's Cell: U suck at risotto
Me: Ugg that was harsh. But true. Sometimes the turth hurts :'C
Shan's Cell: Muahahahaha
Me: U r evil

Any of you who know Shannon know she can be ummm..."a name caller"...yeah, we'll go with that. Any chance she gets she'll call you a slut-muffin, a butt nuggett or a whore-bucket. Anyone who really knows her, knows she does this out of love. Those who don't know her many times find this offensive and she's had many an akward moment with new friends because they don't quite know how to respond to her...umm...'name calling'. And really, her talent for pulling harsh comments like 'u suck at risotto' out of no-where is uncanny, no-one else knows my dream of one day actually being able to make a good risotto except her...I try and I try...and I fail and I fail...

...just good to know I have friends in my life that I can have this sort of "mature" conversation with.

Do you have a friend lke this in your life that you have this sort of comfortable, ridiculousless with? Tell me your stories, stories like this one, that I am sure no-one except the 2 of you would really find funny?

Those spammers sure are getting creative.

2008-08-12T09:55:00.000-07:00

I had a spam email waiting for me at work this morning titled "For: ginger Crazy Woman Goes On Dog Squeezing Rampage". Almost made me want to click on the link that said "Watch the Video". Almost.

The Simple Things in Life

2008-08-09T11:32:00.000-07:00

Is there any better way to start your day than knowing you have a pair of shoes like this to wear?

(Side note: I actually meant to post this yesterday morning because I wore those yesterday but by the time I got to work I forgot I took the picture and sent it to myself via my blackberry and didn't remember until right now, but still felt I needed to share by beautiful shoes with you).

(Side note #2 (mainly for Shannon): NO, I did not buy ANOTHER pair of shoes. My mom bought them for me. Along with 2 other pairs of shoes, for a belated birthday shopping trip last weekend).

Always remember...

2008-08-08T22:42:00.000-07:00

Men are like light bulbs...just keep screwing until you find one that works!

I've been watching the show "Swingtown" lately and I love it. So juicy and dirty without being actually juicy and dirty. This is just a little tidbit of knowledge I just heard on the show.

Total Chaos

2008-08-07T21:30:00.000-07:00

The title said it all. That what the following words are going to be...total chaos (much resembling my life at the moment):

You know you've probably worked too many hours in a week (47 hours currently, it will probably be around 57 by the end of my work week tomorrow) when getting in your car to drive home you realize that you just threw your Ipod shuffle and your FM transmitter in the dumpster outside your work. Hey, at least I realized it before it was too late. Oddly, it was the second time this afternoon I had to dig threw garbage to get something I needed.
Damn it, I swear I had a whitty factoid for my second bullet.
I hate training new employees. Especially when they are my 'kind-of' replacement (as she not-so-confidently-with-questioning-in-her-voice-likeshewasn'tquitesurewhatshegotherselfinto mentioned this afternoon). Did I mention (probably not) that I am changing positions at my work. I am staying with the same company, but have decided to move over into Sales and Marketing as of Sept. 1st.
Memphis and I had a record-breaking sexercise class this past Friday. So our normal routine is to attack each other the second he walks through my door, have sex, then lounge around and chat for a while, then have sex again, then lounge around again, then if it's a good night, have sex again. Normally this whole routine lasts a few hours. This past Friday, he got to my house around 10:30pm...he left around 2:30pm...there was no talking. Well, there was talking but nothing I'm about to share here. And it never lasted long. You knew I had to through a juicy detail in my chaotic post.
I went to Las Vegas for work on Monday. Just for the day. It was a good day. Mostly because it started out with me standing in the airport security line behind a women with a 1 1/2 foot long giant zucchini in her purse. Have you ever seen that episode of Sex and the City where Carrie gets called for jury duty and there is the guy with the briefcase who has a random piece of fruit (like a mango, and a coconut and a pineapple) in his briefcase everyday? That's what this reminded me of. Or maybe it was 5:15am and I was delirious. Or maybe it was a combination of the 2. I also got to eat at Panera (mmmmm) and eat coconut frozen yogurt for my lunch-dessert. It was a good day. Long, but good.
I am super stressed out about some financial stuff that I'm not quite ready to talk about. And some personal stuff too. I will, but not yet. This is probably why I haven't had much to blog about.
Before right now, I haven't done my dishes since this past Thursday (yup, 7 days!). And yes, I had dishes. Lots of them. I was almost disgusted with my own nastiness. Almost. Fear not, I have a clean kitchen finally. Well, my dishes are done anyways.
I'm exhausted and I'm going to bed.

The cutest thing...

2008-08-02T10:02:00.000-07:00

Last night I was at Shannon's house, and, anyone that has ever read her blog, knows how adorable her kids are. But I just can't get over when little kids do super cute things so I feel I must share this moment with you all.

Last night when I got to her house, I went to set my purse on some tall bar stool/chair things they have. Brandon was walking by so I said Hi and he ran over, jumped up on the bar stools and said hi, and grabbed his gum, which was sitting up on the counter. Shannon and I were talking and Brandon pulls out 2 pieces of gum and hand's me one. When I didn't immediately notice he was sharing with me, he said "Ginger...HI!" and then "Here, want gum?"...so cute.

A glimpse into my mind...

2008-07-31T19:20:00.000-07:00

At my work, on occasion, we have to use our local competitor because they offer a few services that we do not, that unfortunately we have not started offering yet. So yesterday I had to go to their office to ... umm...'request some services" (I'm trying to be general, as to not give away too much about where I work, although I'm sure I've probably already mentioned details, but oh well...). I don't like our competitor. For the obvious reasons that they are, well, my company's primary local competition. But mainly because the people that work for this company suck-ass. They are rude, they are inconsiderate and they are just plain assholes. And I realize that I work for the competition, but to them, I should be another customer. I bring them work, we pay them money. I am a customer. But they treat me like shit. Which isn't surprising, because they treat all of the customers this way. Which (to get in a little bragging) is why many of their customers start using us. Anywho...I went to their office and when I turned in to their driveway, smack dab in the middle of their driveway, was a road-kill skunk. Their entire parking area smelled skunkish and they had roadkill in their driveway!

Now the point of my post. I found this incredibly satisfying. I hate them, and I LOVED the fact that they had a nasty road-kill skunk stinking up their parking lot and that even though it was 4 in the afternoon, no-one had take the effort to remove it, or even push it to the side. So every one of their customers had to drive over it, and smell it, while visiting their office. So gross...but so satisfying. I never said I wasn't a little sick and twisted.

The Bachelorette Party

2008-07-24T20:46:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we threw a bachelorette party for one of my best friends who is getting married on August. The theme was (well at least unofficially) "Burlesque Gone Haywire". We had the best intentions of making a whole burlesque theme, and of buying a corset for my friend to wear all night, and of wearing pink and black and white (the pink idea came from a burlesque cabaret/restaurant called the Pink Door, that we all ate at when we were visiting her in Seattle once). Anywho, parts of our theme worked out great, others...not so much. Either way, we had a blast. Some pics to highlight the evening...

Leading the woman of the hour throw a casino blindfolded, we found out, not the easiest thing...but entertaining! Can you think of anything better than being greeted by a giant plastic pecker? I sure can't! And by the way, apparently my digital camera sucks ass and takes blurry pictures half the time.

Some of the girls..

First we went to dinner and on our way back to our room to change for Round 2 of the evening we came across this guy who (quite on his own accord) volunteered to be our stripper for the evening. Which was good because budget didn't quite allow us to spend $200 for an hour with a stripper...I'm sorry, and maybe this is just me, but if I'm spending $200.00 for an hour with a half naked man, I better get more out of the situation that a little looky-looky. But like I said, that's just me.

Getting the party girl dressed for Round 2...like I said, we were going for a burlesque them (gone haywire) so she had to wear a corset for the evening. As a side note, seriously considering buying one because HELLO..LOOK AT THE GIRLS! I even had a hard time not checking out her boobs all night.

The group (minus one who is taking the picture)...Notice me, there in the middle, looking quite sexy and sophisticated in my little jacket..yeah, I know, you already noticed, didn't you?

Seriously, they are such dorks. And yes, those are little silver penises on her head.

In situations like this, I find it's best not to ask questions. You just find our later on you didn't want to know the answer..

Umm, again, best not to ask. BUUUUTTTT, you do need to take note..see that girl in the black..this may be the only photographic evidence of her ever dancing. She was such a good sport (although after a few drinks the fact that she hates to dance became somewhat irrelevant).

Desperate situations call for desperate measures...when you can't afford a stripper, give the woman of the hour a lap dance yourself. Or let one of the other girls do it!

Yeah, I have no idea...but they were fun, they were Canadians. From my experience, Canadians are always a good time, and they know how to drink. And yes he is swiping a credit card (and American Express which is even funnier because they are Canadian..ok, maybe only I found that funny) through her cleavage.
Holy aftermath (aka the next morning)

And, remember how I said there's nothing better than being greeted with a giant plastic pecker...well try waking up to one. My view from the floor where I spend the evening.

So there it is, what I spent last Saturday night (well into Sunday morning...) doing.

Help me out here.

2008-07-23T22:58:00.000-07:00

Ok, so when your own blog starts writing you letters telling you that you don't blog often enough, it's probably a sign you need to blog more often.

I promise I'll have an actual post (not just an "I'm sorry, I'm a horrible blogger, post). But now I am too tired to write anything except this.

I get it. I haven't been a good blogger. It's not because stuff isn't going on. Actually there are a lot things going on. But not stuff that I necessarily feel comfortable talking about on my blog. So because my mind has been tied up elsewhere, I've been a loss of what else to blog about.

Soooooo....here we go. From my dedicated readers who keep checking back here day after day, with no new, inspirational words from me (because I know how inspiration my writing is!), I ask you for some ideas. My plan is to give my blog a little more structure, at least for a little while, until I get my writin' mojo back. So here is my challenge for you all:

I want ideas from you all for ideas for me to write about. I may not actually write about all the things suggested, but feel free to suggest anything. Who knows what I might share with you if the right questions are asked. So ask away my loyal readers...ask away..

Dear Ginger

2008-07-21T15:50:00.001-07:00

I don't understand. You used to visit so often. But now, it seems like I am nothing more then an after thought to you. You toss me a few meaningless words and then leave me here, alone, in the dark for days or weeks at a time. You only visit me when you need me. This relationship is so one sided. I feel like you never think about my feelings. I have feelings to though, and at night when you don't come to visit I cry.

I realize it's hard to find time to visit me, when your always busy with Lovermuffin. While I do realize sex is important I'm sad that you no longer call upon me to discuss the events of your life. I had to find out you were still seeing Lovermuffin from Shannon, and even she waited this long to tell me. I even had to find out from Shannon what you did on your birthday. I had to hear it from her how you had two deserts and copious amount so food. I had to hear from her about going to Target and buying more shoes. YOU CAN BUY MORE SHOES BUT YOU CAN'T EVEN TALK TO ME.

My feelings are hurt Ginger. I would say we need a break but I think you already decided that. Maybe your just not into me that more. Did I gain weight? Am I not pretty enough anymore? Do I need a spiffy new color or design to make you miss me?

I miss you Ginger.

Sincerely,
Your blog

It's my birthday...

2008-07-12T18:19:00.001-07:00

...and I don't have to blog if I don't want to.

Off having fun. Be back soon.

The most painful moment of my life.

2008-07-10T20:01:00.000-07:00

I have now discovered the most painful thing that could ever possibly happen...

Think you know what it is...

Seriously, you can't EVEN BEGIN TO IMAGINE the pain I am feeling right now...

Because I am a jackass and somehow managed to get a paper cut RIGHT where my fingernail meets my finger, you know, that little crevice where the nail meets the skin...imagine having a paper cut ALL the way across that location. It fucking hurts!

Do you think I can file for workman's comp since it happened at work? (for those of you on a high horse about the abuse of workman's comp...I AM JUST KIDDING!).

Obviously, it is the day before a 3 day weekend.

2008-07-03T13:32:00.000-07:00

I mean really, that last post? WoW, that's what I'm doing right now! That is between writing out my list of stuff I need for my camping trip, gossiping with co-workers and snacking in the break room. I think I answered the phone once this morning...maybe, it rang once, I can't quite remember if I answered it or someone else did?

On this note, I am leaving to go camping this afternoon so stop readying my blog and, as the Simpson's said (paraphrased of course because I don't remember the exact quote), "Go enjoy your country's independence by blowing up a small part of it!"

Do you ever?

2008-07-03T13:30:00.000-07:00

Run your hand across your chin and feel one of those stiff little black chin hairs? And then, for the rest of the day, you can't force yourself not to keep touching it? Because all you want to do it pluck it, but you are at work, with no tweezers...and your car tweezers have gone MIA...so you just keep touching it to make sure it's still there?

Just making sure I'm not the only one...

Since when did Corporate America get to decide if I should or shouldn't be eating those donuts?

2008-07-02T11:22:00.001-07:00

The other day on my way to work I was (for once) running a little early, and I was hungry, so instead of going and getting something healthy to eat, I decided to go get Krispy Kreme donuts ~~for me~~ for my work. I pull up to my local Krispy Kreme and pull in to the drive through. I pull up to the speaker to place my order and look up to notice the menu is missing. Well shit! How am I going to order if I don't know what to order? I sit there waiting for the magical donut fairy on the other end to ask me what I want. As I'm sitting there, I start thinking to myself: Mmmm, those buttery yummy donuts will taste so good. I wonder how many I can eat before I get to work. I wonder if I should even bother bringing any into my work. But I can't buy a dozen for myself. Well, ok, I COULD. But I shouldn't. Gosh, this is taking a long time. They must be busy. I wonder where their menu is. It's probably got vandalized and is out getting repaired or something. Mmmm, donuts. Geesh, ok, this really is taking a long time." Finally I speak up, "Hello? Hello?" Ugg, by this point I am no longer early so I decide that I don't really need the donuts and pull forward to drive out of the drive-thru.

And it's also not until I pull up and drive past the pick-up window that I see this sign: " Sorry for the inconvenience but this Krispy Kreme location has closed." Hmmm, I guess the missing menu makes a little more sense now. All in all, I probably sat there for like 5 minutes. And when I mentioned this episode to some friends, they were like, 'duh, it's been closed for like a month!"

I wonder how many other people have done this? I wonder if they ever considered putting the ~~stupid fucking~~ sign on the speaker where you place your order?

Ok, seriously, just one more thing

2008-07-01T15:07:00.000-07:00

Do you ever learn something, that isn't really THAT big of a deal, or really important in any way whatsoever, but it just kind of blows your mind and you can't stop going 'OMG, I can't believe that"?

I'm not gonna reveal what it is (to drive you all a little crazy thinking about what it MIGHT be), but this happened to me last night. And I'll give you a small hint: it's amazing how small of a world it is, and you never know who is gonna end up knowing who.

Oh, by the way...

2008-07-01T15:04:00.001-07:00

Shit, my 26th birthday is in 10 days. Totally came out of nowhere!

Kind of a big thing. Maybe. I think. I don't know. I am pretty sure it is though.

2008-07-01T14:12:00.000-07:00

There has been an interesting development on the Memphis front. So I realize I don't talk about him as much as ya'll would like, but it's because I'm not entirely sure what to talk about. But I'll try. This is all new to me, and I'm not entirely sure how to handle it or if I really even need (or want) to do anything more than I am.

Memphis and I see each other 1-2 times a week. We really don't do anything except...well...each other. And talk. We talk a lot. We have dinner sometimes, we don't others. Not exactly what I would call a relationship, but on that note, it's actually the exact kind of relationship I want right now. To spend the time I want/can with someone who excites me and entices me, physically and mentally. I don't want the humdrum of every day life with someone, I don't want to wash his clothes, or deal with his bad moods. I have enough dirty laundry on my own! At least not yet. Up until very recently I wasn't even sure I wanted him to sleep over. I've always slept by myself, and on the few occasions I sleep with someone else in the same room, let alone the same bed, I don't sleep well. But a few weeks ago, he came over on a Saturday night. This is the only night that we CAN really spend together because Sunday morning is the only morning that neither of us has to work (he works Tues-Sat, I work Mon-Fri). Back on track here, he came over a few weeks ago on a Saturday night. We did what we do (each other) and we spent a few hours talking and cuddling, then, well, we did what we do again, and then we laid there in each other's arms (ahhhh, I know) and fell asleep. A little while later I woke up randomly and was sneaking out of bed to turn off some lights I had left on, assuming that maybe he would just stay the night, but when I got back in bed he woke up and said he had to go. This has honestly been the only night I was disappointed he left. I was really looking forward to him sleeping over. Not really sure why, like I said, I don't sleep all that well when someone else is in my bed, but something about taking that next step of staying the whole night was something that would have been a perfect ending to that night. But nope, he went home. Which was fine, because it meant I actually got a decent nights sleep.

Fast forward to this weekend. We haven't seen each other all that much because I've been on vacation, he's been spending his weekends out of town kayaking and his weeks staying in the town he works in (he works about 45 minutes from where we live and to save money on gas from commuting, he's been crashing at his dad's house during the weeks). Come Saturday, we hadn't talked (texted...is really mostly all we do when we are apart) since the prior Sunday. It was partially because I was busy, and partially because I was half seeing if he would touch bases with me, since it is almost always me getting in touch with him to hang out. Come Saturday night I went to the Rodeo with a friend and shortly after getting there I got a text message from him asking if I was busy...I wrote back saying I was but I might be up for a late night booty call if he was. He was...so around midnight he came over. We stayed up until about 3am, when we drifted off to sleep. Around 5 I woke up and he was still there. I snuck out of bed to close the blinds and totally expected him to roll over and say he had to go, but instead when I crawled back in bed he just wrapped his arms around me, mumbled something about getting to play with a certain part of my anatomy that he likes very much all morning and then go boating at the kayak park, then drifted off to sleep again. I honestly laid there for probably 45 minutes thinking to myself "he's not really gonna stay the night, is he? He's gonna really wake up any moment and leave...any minute...nope, not yet...maybe I should go to sleep?"I finally fell back asleep for a few hours, rolled over, woke him up for a little morning delite, then let him go play with his kayaks for the rest of the day while I went back to sleep. So there it is, he stayed the night. It's kind of a big thing. But I'm not really sure what exactly it means. And I'm not about to ask him, because I kind of like things exactly as they are.

Letting Dallas redeem himself...just a little bit

2008-06-24T19:57:00.000-07:00

I haven't written about the going on's of my bedroom too much lately. Obviously, being out of town as much as I have been, things have been a little slower than normal in that department. I am still seeing Memphis. Quite a bit. Well, not that much, but 1-2 times a week. I like him. A lot. But we are keeping things as is right now, casual and fun. Because that works for us. For now. But we will leave that for a whole 'nother post when I am ready to dive into that.

On that note, I have still been seeing (or trying to see) Dallas once in a while. I actually haven't seen him since the night this happened. But we've been playing text-tag for a few weeks...The reality that is my life is that I didn't date or ANYTHING for a very long time. And I'm not ready to settle down with someone, I want to enjoy, and explore, different people. Everyone has their good (and their bad) and I kind of hope I can learn something about myself from the different people in my life (this includes these guys, and everyone else in my life!). Sooo, before I left for vacation Dallas and I were going to hang out one night. He ended up never showing up, which was fine because honestly I was too busy to see him, and didn't actually notice he was 'late' until like 2 hours after he was supposed to show up. So I sent him a text message giving him a hard time about it and it turns out he passed out (asleep) after work. Anywho, we were going to hang out on Sunday night when he got back from camping and I sent him a message about an hour before he was going to come over to see if he could come a little later. He wrote back saying "4sure, why what's up?"

Me: not much, just had to do something today and took me longer than I thought
Him: You sure you want to hang out tonight?
Me: Yeah, why, do you?
Him: Truthfully I am pretty tired but I don't want to flake on you again.
Me: You know what, no worries, lets do it another night
Him: Ok, you sure?
Me: Yeah, I kind of in a shitty mood anyways and not really up for it.

So, I didn't really mention it, but I was in fact in a very shitty mood. I'm not going to go into details because I am over it now, but I was pissed off about something on Sunday and really just wanted to mope around and be pissy.

Then my phone rang. It was Dallas calling. When I answered he was like "Are you sure you're ok? What's going on?" So I tried to skate around it and not really tell him what was going on. But he wasn't gonna have any of that. He kept probing until I dished about what I was in a pissy mood about. And it was kind of nice. I've never been in a relationship, not that I am in anyway in a relationship with him, where you just talk about your shit, the good, bad and ugly. And it was kind of nice. And even though Dallas is a Bush loving red-neck, he really is a decent guy. So I just thought I would give him a chance to redeem himself a little bit after my last post about him.

So I realize I have been MIA lately...

2008-06-24T19:51:00.000-07:00

My life has been ridiculous lately. I have been out of town so much, and going through so many changes that I honestly just haven't had time to process everything. Everything has been great, and I am looking forward to a lot of the changes, but it has been exhausting and left me, honestly, speechless most nights. Anywho, hopefully that is a slightly better excuse than "I know I suck at writing on my blog"!

Important business

2008-06-18T15:44:00.000-07:00

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He he

2008-06-18T15:36:00.000-07:00

MySpace Countdown Clocks

Going on vacation...

2008-06-15T15:05:00.001-07:00

Need I say more?

What's your media?

2008-06-10T22:10:00.000-07:00

Singers have their lyrics and melodies, painters have their colors and shadows, writers have their descriptive phrases and idioms. Even if you aren't one of the few who have officially declared themselves a writer, or a singer, or an artist, we still all have a media in which we feel most comfortable expressing ourselves. Some people are great speakers, they can force a room into silence, or laughter, or tears just by putting together a string of words. They can evoke great sadness, or happiness, just by the tone of their voice. Other's express themselves through the various art forms: photography, painting, sculpture. Creating physical manifestations of their emotions, of their stories, of their lives. Others write. I write. I don't pretend to be a great writer, or even a good one for that matter. I have my moments, we all do in whatever media we choose to express ourselves. But it doesn't matter if I'm not a great writer, or even a good one most of the time. Because I write for myself. I write to express my ideas, to get them out of my head and to create something from those vague ideas floating around in the matterless void known as my brain. Even if I'm just creating a string of letters that mean nothing to anyone but me, they are still my words, my thoughts, my feelings and ideas. I've never been a talker. Ask anyone who knows me, especially those who know me best. I talk, but I've never been a big talker. I talk when I have something to say, otherwise I tend to think things through, work out situations, create my dreams and destroy my fears, within the safety of my inner thoughts. Few know it, but I've written for years. Again, nothing important, nothing noteworthy, but I wrote poems, I wrote stories, I just wrote. Most if it I didn't save, because I got it out and found I didn't need it anymore. Some I saved; some I held onto because I still found it important to my life, my world, my desires and my emotions. I still write (I know, I know, not as much as I should, or could) thanks to this crazy modern invention called a blog. I love it. Because, somewhat ironically, as much as I love to write, I hate actually having to write. I hated sitting down with a journal and putting the pen to the paper. I would write a few sentences and then my thoughts would get so far ahead of the words flowing out on my paper that I would give up. Leaving my words trailing off into nothingness. Trailing off into the thoughts that remained within. But, typing is a whole other story. For once I can actually 'write' and think at almost the same pace.

It was a hard thing for me to start sharing the details of my life on my blog. Not because I was embarrassed, or ashamed, or anything. It was because I didn't share the details of my life with anyone like I did on the blog. Daily updates on my thoughts or my happenings were never a part of my daily life. Most my friends probably know more about the daily happenings of my life now that they read my blog than they every have before. The reason for this isn't because I wanted to keep those details for them, but because I felt more comfortable sharing them, expressing them through the written word, than through the spoken one. I'm not sure why, it's just how I work. When I started this whole dating adventure (that really started months ago with my attempt to ask out the Dog Park Guy) I didn't discuss this with anyone really, except Shannon, and that's only because she had read my blog and then would quiz me about it in person. But I'm sure if you ask her, she would say I was sparse with the details at first. I still am. I actually seriously considered not writing about any of my man-ventures because I realised at that time, I hadn't actually told any of my friends about it. How could I write about something so dramatic, so important, in my life when I couldn't even tell my friends about it? Because I felt comfortable doing it. The words just flowed. The words never seem to flow when I'm talking; I always feel awkward and half of the time on the verge of tears because my mind is working overtime, trying to express itself and process what it's taking in.

I've had a few people, friends, point out lately that I won't tell them about things in person but I'll write about them on my blog. I was driving home from a weekend with friends on Saturday and Memphis and I were exchanging dirty text messages back and forth. For close to an hour. My friends knew who I was texting with. They knew the just of the messages. And they wanted the details. But I just couldn't do it. I couldn't look them straight in the eye and tell them I just got a text message telling me that he want to bend me over a coffee table and pull my hair. But see, I have no problem telling you now. When I was worried I was getting fired, I was scared shitless of having to meet with my boss until Shannon recommended that maybe I email her beforehand to let her know what I was thinking. It was the best thing I ever did. I got a chance to lay my thoughts out and re-read them and make sure that I was saying what I actually meant to say. That being said, now that people have mentioned that I have a hard time telling them things in person, but not on my blog or in an email, I feel as though I am trapped. I enjoy writing. I enjoy sharing. But now I feel that if I do that, some people in my life will think that I'm NOT sharing with them but sharing with complete strangers. I feel like I am going to hurt their feelings because I want to share things in a media I feel comfortable working with, but not necessarily in the media they want me to share in. I'm not entirely sure where this post was supposed to go.

My rant about birth control...

2008-06-03T20:33:00.000-07:00

I am out of town yet again. Right before I left town I stopped by Longs to pick up the refill for my birth control that I called in over the weekend. Only to find out that apparently I can't get a refill on my prescription until June 5th. Because apparently I refilled my last one on May 16 and APPARENTLY I have to have 21 days between my refills. Which for those of you who are familiar with birth control, means that I can't actually refill my birth control until I am in my inactive week. Which fucking sucks in my opinion. I am sorry, but I am a busy person and if you really expect me to remember to refill my prescription in a short 7 day period, you are fucking insane. Especially when you are closed on Sundays. So that really means I only have 6 days. And considering I have only been in town on the weekends lately that means I have 1 day to remember to refill my birth control this month. You all fucking suck ass. So this means that in the 2 days I am back in town I have to remember to go pick up my fucking birth control. But I better not forget until Sunday, because they are closed. On this note, when I was in college I used to get my birth control from our campus pharmacy and they would let us refill it 90 days at time. Which made sense because you know what college kid can remember to refill something every month. And really, it's so much better for the environment (I have to try some other sort of logic because apparently 'I can't remember' isn't a good enough excuse). Instead of 12 trips to the pharmacy, if I could refill my prescription every 90 days, that would mean only 4 trips a year...so much better for the environment! And I realize that it may be as simple as calling my doctor, or calling my insurance to ask them to do that, it still is ridiculous that they will sell me as many bottles of vodka as I want, but I can't purchase 3 months worth of birth control at a time!

On this note, a few days ago I needed to stock up on condoms. Because, as you all know, I've been getting some action lately. Because I didn't want to buy condoms from my normal grocery store (because the kind of geeky-cute checker who I have a little crush on was working), I went to another grocery store down the street from my house to buy them. It was probably about 6pm and I went into buy condoms. I also went to this store because they have those nifty self-checker things so I wouldn't even have to face the checker buying only condoms. However...ugg, I came to find out that this particular store stocks their condoms in their pharmacy, which APPARENTLY is only open until 4pm. Seriously? The first issue that is wrong with this whole thing is that if a horny teenager makes the right decision and decides to go buy condoms, but lo and behold it's 4:15 in the afternoon, they are shit out of luck because the condoms are locked up behind the gates with all of the drugs (i.e the pharmacy) which is just poor planning on someone's part in my head. The second is that who the fuck shops before 4pm in the afternoon? Housewives and old people...not exactly the biggest proportion of condom purchaser's are they? It's probably not too far out of the ballpark to say that the normal average condom purchaser probably works during the day and might possibly do their grocery shopping AFTER they get off work, is it? I mean, even those horny teenagers are in school until at least 2 or 3, right? This pisses me off. I mean if they are afraid they are going to get stolen, shouldn't they at least consider that at least they are possibly preventing the spread of disease and/or unwanted pregnancies, instead of...well...leaving those chocolate bars out in the open to be stolen...they are going to get a bunch of overweight, stressed out people...oh wait, that's kind of what most of us are anyways. See, blame it on the grocery stores who lock up the condoms after 4pm!!!

ALSO....I happen to take notice while I was ~~trying to reach between the bars and grab some condoms~~ trying to ~~figure out if I should call someone and then realized that I would the girl who called someone to open the gates to get her some condoms~~ decide what other store I should go to buy condoms that they also keep the pregnancy tests back behind the gates as well. And not just behind the gates, but behind the actual counter so you have to talk to a pharmacist to get them. Now, I wasn't looking for a pregnancy test but I thought about this for a moment. There are really only 2 reasons you would be looking for a pregnancy test, (1) you are excited at the possibility of being pregnant or (2) you are seriously hoping you ARE NOT pregnant. In the first case, I suppose you probably wouldn't mind talking to a pharmacist to get the pregnancy test. Or you might just want to get the test and get the fuck home to pee on a stick and find out if you are. But either way, if you think you are pregnant, and you are excited about it, I would imagine you would probably drive to the store as soon as you thought it was a possibility to buy a test and would super duper pissed off if they were locked up behind bars because it was 4:05pm. In the other case, where you are hoping you ARE NOT pregnant, the last thing you probably want to do is ASK something for a pregnancy test. The last thing you want is the smiling face of a pharmacy employee wishing you good luck when they hand over a pregnancy test (when all your thinking is "why don't you shove this box up your &$?*! I better not be!"). And on that note, if they are closed and you need to find out, how pissed off would you be that after stressing in your head all day at work, you show up at the store and they are locked up behind bars?

So I suppose I really didn't have a point with this post except to rant, but seriously, doesn't this just annoy any of you just a little bit? I mean, in this day and age, even though I realize there are those people out there that don't support birth control, we live during a time period and have the technology, where we, as intelligent people, have the choice to have sex for pleasure, and not risk having children (thus adding to an already overpopulated world) and not risk spreading disease (in a world already plague with so many other diseases) and yet our choice is not supported by a large chain grocery store. I guess it's all about choice, right? Which just means that I will probably choose in the future to shop somewhere else...

So I have a problem...

2008-05-28T21:06:00.000-07:00

I got an email from one of the girls at my work saying she is starting a book club with some other girls at my work and some of the wives of the guys at my work. I really like all these people, and I love reading, but I have desire to sit around and talk about a book with them. How do I get out of this? Do I just not respond to the email or do I say I'm not really interested? I'm not in the office so I don't have to deal with it for a few days but they are eventually gonna ask me about it and I have no idea what to do.

A little glimpse into my life.

2008-05-26T15:36:00.000-07:00

I have been making an effort to get a little more exercise and both for my sake and for the mental and physical health of my dog, I've been going on little hikes to replace our morning walks at least one day during the weekend. Here's a few pictures of our hike last weekend..(that you know, I forgot to post last weekend...).

My dog, probably thinking to herself "Mom, what the F are we doing? We are supposed to be walking...NOT driving!"

However, her thoughts were soon taken away from wondering what I had in mind, to staring down her arch enemy...the cat (sorry for the blurry pic).

Apparently, her arch enemies were out in full force this morning here's another one...

Sierra...on high alert due to the recent sightings of THE CAT'S

Galena Creek

An emerging Snow Plant...this one was just breaking through but they can grow to be 12-20" high on only last for a month or so during the early spring.
What else would my dog when confronted with water?

Umm...Trees

Sierra, doing what dogs do...sniff, sniff, sniff

A picture of me for good measure.

My dog...mid-graze, she likes to graze on fresh grass on occasion...just for fun, she's always done it and this is one of her favorite grazing spots.

Ummm, more trees...

So there we go, a little glimpse into what my Sunday morning's have consisted of lately.

Does this mean I can officially start celebrating my birthday now?

2008-05-26T15:19:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I was out walking my dog and decided to check my mailbox (I live in a condo complex and we have a mega-mailbox structure that I check, maybe once a week, I am really bad about check my mail!). Anywho, I had a key waiting for me which meant that I had some sort of package. I open the 'package' mailbox and see a box from Amazon.com sitting there. I stare at it slightly confused for a while wondering to myself if I blacked out one night and ordered stuff off of Amazon.com ~~again~~. So I take the box and continue on my way back to my condo, still wondering what is in this mysterious Amazon.com box. "Did I really order something and not remember it?" I think to myself the whole way home.

I finally get back to my condo and tear open the box and in it is this...

It's part, yes I said part, of my birthday present from Misguided Mommy. With a note on the shipping list saying "Happy Birthday! I saw this book and loved it. Hope you love it." Have a mentioned before that I read cookbooks like I read novels? From cover to cover! And, well, truth be told some of them get me as excited as a good porno, but you know, in a totally different way. Maybe.

But my real question is this: Does this mean I can officially start celebrating my birthday? You ask me when my birthday is...July 12. 48 days before my birthday isn't too early to start celebrating is it?

Ummm, and some days I wonder why I can't lose weight.

2008-05-23T21:43:00.001-07:00

So it just dawned on my that I booked my entire Sunday around eating. This is what my day planner would look like. That is if I had a day planner. Oh wait, I do have one. So let me re-phase...This is what my day planner would look like IF I actually used it.

10:00am: Breakfast with boss, well not really boss anymore, more friend/owner of company I work for, someone else is officially my boss. Either way, breakfast and coffee with boss.

12:00pm: BBQ (in the rain?) at Shannon's house. Must remember: make potato salad. Must remember: do not eat potato salad BEFORE BBQ.

6:00pm: Dinner at The Melting Pot! Yeah, fondue! Yeah! I am so excited! This is really dinner for my mom's b-day but because she is easily influenced I convinced her that SHE wanted to go there. I am so excited I might pee my pants. But that would be embarrassing. So if I did, I wouldn't admit it in my blog. But I wouldn't do that. Seriously. Damn, not you all think I pee my pants.

10:00pm: Memphis is coming over. So technically IIIIIIII might not be eating anything but...

Does anybody else find this kind of cute?

2008-05-18T17:15:00.000-07:00

You all know Memphis is southern. And he speaks with a great southern accent. And the best part is that he even text messages with a southern accent.

I got this message last night while Shannon and I were having dinner:

Wanna get nekid?

The first time he did it, I half way made fun of him because he couldn't spell but then threw in how it was kind of cute that he even wrote with a southern accent. I think he was slightly impressed I picked up on what he was trying to do instead of just thinking he was a dumb southerner.

Hello, my name is Ginger...

2008-05-18T12:12:00.000-07:00

...And I am a drunken texter. That's right, when I drink, I have a tendency to send inappropriate text messages to people in the middle of the night. Some people are drunk dialers...I am a drunk texter. I'm up and drunk and having a good time, shouldn't everyone else be? Shouldn't they be having a good time with me?

Friday night I went out with some friends from work. I had talked to Memphis earlier in the evening and he told me to call if it wasn't too late and maybe we could meet up for a late night booty call. So around midnight I sent him this message (I was pretty sure he was already asleep by then):

Hopefully this isn't waking u. I am going dancing so I am going to be out until 2ish. Probably too late for u? Call me this weekend if u want to hang out?

Then when I got done dancing, at 2:30am, I sent him this message:

Too bad your not up right now...wink wink

(All the while thinking I am so seductive...)

Then I drove home (I was not drunk by this point in the evening for all those out there thinking I drove home drunk), just horny...

So then I might have maybe taken the scenic route home and driven by my old FB's house (which is like 2 minutes from my house) and after discovering his truck in the driveway and his living room lights on (he works as a bartender so he is up at these hours some nights) I sent him this text message:

U awake? Wanna fuck?

And then because I didn't hear back from him by the time I made it home, I proceeded to pass out around 2:45am.

Then Memphis made fun of me for sending him drunken text messages last night. Which didn't really matter because he did it in between bouts of hot sex.

I have a question for you all...

2008-05-13T16:28:00.000-07:00

So I know a lot of you have Myspace pages....I do as well. What I want to know is do you guys ever get random people emailing you? Not like spam, I get tons of that. But actual people (in my case it is always guys emailing me because they saw my profile and thought I looked cool...they are so unoriginal). Anyways, they seem like real people (who knows though, right?) and I've never responded, but I get probably 1-2 guys a week emailing me.

I just wanted to see if other people get this too or if, you know, I am so magical and hot that my hotness can even transcend cyberspace?

A quick update for ya'll

2008-05-12T16:43:00.001-07:00

So I figured I would give you all a quick update on my man situation since I haven't been keeping up on blogging lately.

Ashton: never emailed me or called for a second date. I never followed up after the original response telling him to call me when he got back into town. I am kind of disappointed, but kind of not. He was nice, but I didn't really get anything. He seemed like a nice guy and thought I would give it a second shot but like I said, there was no WOW factor there which is why I didn't hunt him down and demand a second date.

Dallas: I haven't seen him/heard from him since the pro-Bush rally in my bedroom. I would definitely still consider him a good booty call, because he was very good in bed, but as far as anything else goes, ummm...no.

Memphis: Ahhh, Memphis. First of all, things are definitely still causal between us. But they are a fun, intense casual type of thing. I could see this going somewhere someday, but I am completely happy with how things are right now. He is exactly what I want right now. He is a totally cool guy. We have a blast just talking, we have even more fun in bed (or in the kitchen, or on my sofa, or...I digress). We have hung out a few times that I have blogged about and then on and off last week while I was out of town we sent dirty text messages back and forth...all leading up to seeing each other of Friday night. Kind of nice to know you're on someone's mind as much as they are on yours.

I also went out for drinks a few weeks ago with another guy. He was nice, but a little A.D.D. metro for me. Plus he had a really bad lisp with drove me crazy while he was talking. And he had braces. Which was annoying. So I'm not sure about him either. We've exchanged a few emails back and forth since then, but he's been out of town, then I've been out of town so neither one of us has really brought up getting together again.

Ok, so I promise (I will try at least) to write about SOMETHING besides my man situation tomorrow.

As a side note, I totally CANNOT spell the word definately correctly (thank god for spell check)!

Random Tidbits about me...

2008-05-09T17:32:00.000-07:00

Chinese restaurants in small towns gross me out. For some reason they just don't seem right. I am very afraid of them.

However, I have no problem eating tacos from that big silver lunch truck parked in the random parking lot.

I hate to admit it, but I think I like mushrooms now. I have hated mushrooms since I was a little kid. I am pretty sure I like them again.

Kenny Chesney said it best... There's something sexy 'bout the rain. I love the rain. The rain turns me on. Thunder and lightening turn me on even more.

That is all for now.

I totally suck don't I?

2008-05-09T17:30:00.002-07:00

I know, I have been totally slacking on blogging lately...go ahead, tell me I suck. It's something I need to work on. I am aware of it. I accept it. I am working on it.

I must go now, Memphis just knocked on my door...

For all the inquiring minds out there...

2008-05-05T16:12:00.001-07:00

...who are asking themselves what is up because for once I actually wrote a post about something besides sex. Gasp!

I did however see Memphis on Thursday and (gasp again) Friday. Although Friday really was just a quickie visit since I was going out dancing with some work friends. But you know...why not if you can, right?

But now I am out of town for work all week, so I am guessing I won't have any exciting gossip all week...maybe I will dig something interesting to write about from the depths of my, lately, unused brain.

Don't you hate it when you see something so cute you want to puke?

2008-05-05T16:06:00.000-07:00

The other day I was driving my dog to the park and as I'm driving down the road I see this perfect Ken and Barbie couple jogging (of course they were!) down the road. He was shirtless and tan, toned and perfect. She was the same. Well except not shirtless, but had a cute little pink and white exercise outfit on. She was on the inside and he was closest to the road. They turn a small corner and then you can see the guy spot this dog that was off lease and from the looks of it, unsupervised. It was a pretty big dog, a little scary looking. Next thing you see is the guy rest his hand on his beautiful jogging partners lower back and slowly maneuver himself on the inside, putting himself between his girlfriend/wife and the big scary looking unsupervised dog.

I mean seriously, doesn't that just make you a little sick?

Hmmm, does this seem strange to you?

2008-04-30T12:13:00.000-07:00

So I realize I've been talking about sex a lot lately. But I mean, I'm finally getting some and it's all I seem to be thinking about, so here is yet another post about sex. And politics.

Last night, Dallas came over for a little late night booty call. He was supposed to stop by after work, but around 9pm (and after a bottle of cheap wine) I sent him a text message that might have been slightly vulgar...but I won't subject you to that, I just wanted to see where he was and encourage him to come over. He sent me one back "On my way" so 45 minutes later he finally showed up, dressed in sweats and said he was already in bed because he forgot about coming over! What kind of guy forgets about a booty call? Shouldn't I be the one forgetting? I am sure you can figure out what happened next, but the following conversation occurred, post-coital:

Him: You know it would be nice if we actually went out sometime, I don't want to just come over here and bang.
Me: Umm, yeah, I guess we could go out sometime. I mean we were going to have dinner that first night, that never happened though.

Now wait a minute...shouldn't I be the one saying that I want more than just sex out of a relationship. The thing is, we laid in bed talking for a while after this and I'm not so sure I want anything more from him than sex. Or even that anymore. I mean, he's really good in bed. But he is a gun-toting, Bush-adoring, pro-war, gas-guzzling republican. I don't talk about politics much but I am definitely a liberal. I'm not sure I would class myself as a democrat, because I don't really believe there is a big difference between Democrats and Republicans, but I am definitely more of a granola crunching, anti-Bush, tree-hugger type than most. I'm not one to throw someone aside just because they are a Republican, but WOW, he is really a Republican. AND HE REALLY LIKES BUSH. LIKE THINKS HE HAS DONE AN AMAZING JOB IN THE PAST 8 (7?) YEARS. LIKE ADORES HIM. LIKE I COULDN'T GET HIM TO STOP GOING ON AND ON ABOUT HOW GOOD OF A JOB HE THINKS BUSH HAS DONE.

So now I am torn, he's really good in bed, but I'm not entirely sure I can morally let someone who likes Bush THAT much in my bed EVER AGAIN! And I definitely don't want to be subjected to that type of Bush-loving ranting ever again. Especially in my bed, while I'm naked!

Ahhh, Thursday night with Memphis is looking more and more appealing.

When it's so good the earth moves...

2008-04-30T11:58:00.000-07:00

Friday night Memphis came over. I made this for dinner, only with chicken instead of steak. We shared a bottle of wine and some good conversation. It was a good night. No, a great night. Want to know why? I mean, the food was good, the wine was good, the company was great. But it was this next thing that made the night memorable. For those of you not familiar with the Reno area, we have been having a shitload of earthquakes lately. Last weekend there was something like 250 recorded earthquakes. Most are so small no-one feels them, but the biggest one (a 4.7 magnitude) hit on Friday night around 11:30 pm. While most people were being jarred awake by the earth shaking, or things being flung from cabinets or falling off walls, I was enjoying something so much better. While the earth was ACTUALLY shaking, I was having my world rocked. It's not too often you can say someone rocked your world, and mean it both literally and figuratively.

And the best part (well...maybe not the best part) of the evening, was that he even did my dishes again. Hmmm, life has been pretty good lately.

Workplace Hazards

2008-04-30T11:20:00.000-07:00

So I realize that we all have certain workplace hazards that we have to deal with as part of our jobs. For some it may be paper cuts, for some it may be heavy equipment, for some it may be hazardous chemicals...for me, it is this: (sorry in advance for the crappy cell phone pics)

The fact that I work we people who like cake. And people who actually make cake. For any reason whatsoever...

And you know...the infamous candy bowl...

And then there's the the extra supply of candy for the candy bowl. That is about $80 worth of candy that will last us about 3 weeks...seriously, we spend so much money on candy.

And then there's the most recent addition, yes folks, that is a popcorn maker! We got it as a gimmick for our trade shows, but I believe we are now having what is referred to as "Popcorn Friday's" around here.

Sigh, no wonder I can't seem to loose weight!

What would you give up?

2008-04-25T09:38:00.000-07:00

So let me preface this by saying I am by no means in a position to be thinking about something like this seriously, it is just a random thought that has crossed my mind lately. It's a problem that Carrie in Sex and the City came across when she was dating 'the Russian', and I am sure hundreds of other women have come across. Would you give up having kids to be with a man who didn't want children?

The other night Memphis and I were talking. I was talking about going to the Earth Day celebration with Shannon and her kids and talking about how much fun it was, but how it made me think even further if that is something I want. I've been thinking a lot about kids lately. Shannon has her 2 wonderful boys. Another friend of mine has recently revealed she really wants kids, my other friend and her fiance want kids in the next few years. And here I am, looking at them like they are all a little crazy. I like kids, and it's entirely possible that my biological clock hasn't started ticking, but more and more I'm starting to wonder if I want to bring a child into the world we live in nowadays. If I want to give up all the things you have to give up to have kids. Memphis said he doesn't want kids, loves them, but doesn't want them. He had his reasons, and I related to everything he said. I always thought I wanted kids when I was younger, but now that I have gotten older. Now that I have seen the life you can live without children, I'm not sure I want them. The thing is...I'm not sure I don't want them either. I've also seen some of my friends with kids, and seen the joy and love that having kids can bring to your life.

So tell me...

Would you give up having kids to be with a man who didn't want children? What about if you, yourself, weren't sure you wanted kids? Would you give up the option of ever having them to, ideally, spend the rest of your life with an amazing man?

When it rains, it pours...

2008-04-23T12:08:00.000-07:00

After a pleasant evening spent with Memphis, I woke up and had this email waiting for me in my inbox:

Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:52:40 -0700
From: Ashton
To: Ginger
Subject: Re: Hello

Hi Ginger.

I had a good time at the drive in. Wanna go out again? Maybe dinner and drinks. I will be gone this weekend. Maybe next week???

Let me know.

Ashton

For all those women out there who are wondering how to get a date (and trust me, I used to be the last person to say something like this) "Go out and get yourself one." I have never been the kind of person to ask a guy out, I always thought "the One" would end up being the one guy who actually took the initiative to ask me out. But, as you've all been reading about, it took ME taking the initiative to do something about a situation I was unhappy with. And I can tell you, it was totally worth it! The past few weeks have been a blast, and I've met some really great guys. And who knows if any of them will turn out to be "the one", but does it really matter? I've had some really great nights with some really different guys, and I've learned to just enjoy it as it is, not worry every second you spend with or without someone what will come of the relationship that's forming. Just enjoy it for what it is. And who knows what the future holds, it will reveal itself eventually...and you know, the sex isn't bad either!

Proof that dreams can come true...

2008-04-22T23:29:00.000-07:00

Tonight I found myself sitting on my couch, watching Memphis doing my dishes half naked. Just a little proof that sometimes, every once in a while, dreams can come true.

(Nevermind the fact that I might have spent some time on my knees for this dream to come true, but in my world, that's totally worth it, and by choice mind you).

Character Profile: Ashton

2008-04-18T12:25:00.001-07:00

Name: Ashton

Age: 26

How we met: We met through Yahoo personals. We haven't slept together yet (haven't even kissed...remember, he didn't walk me to my door after our date).

Relationship status: single, that's all I know so far...

Home State: California (northern)

Job: Structural Engineer

Random Tidbits:

Loves fly fishing and the outdoors in general
A little geeky and a few extra pounds, but he's kinda cute
Super sweet
Is from a very small town and is very close to his family

Note: I haven't spent as much time with him so I don't know that much yet, I'll add more as I learn it about him!

Character Profile: Memphis

2008-04-18T12:15:00.000-07:00

Name: Memphis (he's lived in Tennessee, although not originally from their, and has the absolutely sexiest southern accent)

Age: 31

How we met: He responded to the second ad that I posted on Craiglist. We met for dinner the next night, spent 2 hours talking at the restaurant then spent another hour talking at my house, and then another 2 or 3...well...not talking so much (for those of you who can't read between the lines, that is code for 'had sex')

Relationship status: single, single, single. Had some long term relationships but is a wanderer (remember, not all who wander are lost, and he is definitely not lost).

Home State: Tennessee

Job: Becoming partner in a window tinting/auto accessory business, however, as he puts it "he works so he can play, he doesn't much care what he's doing as long as it let's him the way he wants to"

Random Tidbits:

LOVES white water kayaking, was a rafting guide for many years
Like I said before, he's a wanderer and has lived in a dozen or so states.
He is funny and a little sarcastic, which is a great combination
He has this ridiculously curly black hair which is great for grabbing on to in the heat of the moment
I never would have guessed it when I first met him, but his entire back has this AMAZING tattoo (or the start of it) that he brother is doing for him. It's like a waterfall/forest scene. He also has like 3 other tattoos but unless he's just in a pair of shorts, you would never guess he has a single one. Tattoo's are kind of hot, they give you a chance to rub your hands all over someones body!
He is all about marathon sex and is an amazing kisser

Character Profile: Dallas (formerly refered to as Oakley)

2008-04-18T12:02:00.000-07:00

Name: Dallas (I refered to him as Oakley in this post because I couldn't think of anything better to name him, but Dallas is much better)

How we met: Craiglist. He is the first guy I responded to on there and the guy who stood me up the first night (got stuck at work, etc.). We slept together the first night he came over...

Age: 32

Relationship status: divorced (married for 8 years, married before he graduated high school), has 3 kids that live with their mom in another state, recently out of a 5 year relationship, dating others

Home State: Wyoming

Job: Professional electricial, works for his family's business.

Random Tidbits:

Smoker, but a 'clean smoker' (i.e. I didn't know he smoked until he told me because you can't smell it on him or taste it on him).
Likes big boy toys (trucks, boats, street bikes, etc.)
His dad died a few years ago
Has like 4 siblings (2 brothers and a sister)
LOVES sport fishing, deep sea fishing
Is obsessed with getting head

Character Profile's

2008-04-18T11:58:00.000-07:00

I had a request to create profiles for the character's involved in my new found social life!

Bare with me, but I will try to keep them consistent so they are easily comparable. Hopefully these will help you all more easily follow my stories. If there is info I am leaving out, please let me know and I will try to add it.

Obviously, all names have been changed. I am going to maintain basic info about them but won't reveal specifics (like where they work, etc.)

It's raining men

2008-04-17T23:55:00.000-07:00

So I realize I have been MIA for about 6 days now. I am sorry. But I have brought with me from the adventures upon the M.S. "This is Ginger's Life" tales of mystery, excitement and well, let's be honest...a little (or actually a lot of) sex. But a warning...this is a long one, you may need to read it in multiple sittings.

Sooooo...we all remember I was having a shitty week at work last week. It was bad. I'm still not sure it's alright, but I have been out of the office all week taking a well needed sabbatical from work (i.e. I am taking a class for work). However, I have also been working a few hours at night when no-one is around. It's nice, I actually get stuff done. But this tale isn't about my work worries, or my incredible long hours, or even about how I am so exhausted that it's entirely possibly I might sleep straight through the entire weekend. Nope, this story is better than that.

I can't believe that I am about to admit this, but a few weeks ago I created a profile on the Yahoo Personals site. I also posted an ad on Craigslist...under 'casual encounters'. So we all remember a few weeks ago when the guy from Tahoe asked me out, and that whole fiasco. I never called him back. But I will give this guy all the credit in the word because he jump started my ego. For many years I never had self esteem issues. Even though I've always been on the heavy side, I never had a problem hitting on a guy, or believing that I guy could find me attractive. That is until the last few years. When all the sudden it seemed like there wasn't an interested guy on the planet. No-one ever checked me out, no-one ever hit on me, no-one ever asked me out (except that REALLY drunk and REALLY gross old guy at the Silver Club one night...and even I'm not that desperate) and dare I say I think a few even saw me coming and ran in the other direction. I never hit on guys, I never persued guys, I started believing that no-one would ever or could ever find me interesting. I know this sounds all weeepy schmeepy but it was true. I mean I couldn't even get my old fuck buddy to actually follow through on any of his flirtatious text messages...and he lives like 5 blocks away...and seriously, what guy wouldn't stay up a little late for some sex. And the worst part about all of this was that every time I starting talking to anybody about this, the response was always 'what are you talking about? There's ton's of guys out there." OR THE WORST! THE ABSOLUTE WORST RESPONSE "you know if you stop looking you know you'll find someone." I FUCKING WANT TO SHOVE PEOPLE OFF A CLIFF WHEN THEY SAY THIS. FUCK YOU, I HAVEN'T BEEN DOING ANYTHING, HAVEN'T BEEN LOOKING, BECAUSE NO BODY WANTS ME YOU FUCKING IDIOT!

That is until the other day I had my parents over. It was a few weeks after the Tahoe guy, when things in my head started shifting. It was also after I had both my ad on Yahoo (and had 1 guy that I had been emailing back and forth with) and after I had been chatting via email from a few I had met from CL. My mom has an uncanny ability to say the right thing at the right time. We were sitting in my living room after I cooked dinner for my parents and my grandma and my mom just looks at me, completely off the last subject we had been talking about and says, "I know when you're ready you're just going to pick a guy out and that will be that, he'll be the one. But you know, guys are kind of like shoes. It can be fun to try a bunch of different ones on just for fun. You never know if you'll end up finding something that you you in something you never thought you'd like." Awww, the wisdom of my mom (and you can see she realized the only way to get through to me is to appeal to my intense desire for shoes). After this something totally shifted. I was like 'what the fuck? There has to be someone out there that will well...whatever at this point..."

Let me go back to the ad's I posted. The Yahoo Personals ad was because I knew most people on that site were probably looking for something more serious. I also mentioned I posted an ad on CL's 'casual encounters.' You can assume what people are looking for if they are posting/responding to anything posted under that category. Let me back up for a second. I stumbled upon this one night, I was bored and had been on CL looking through job classified, through stuff people were selling, whatever. I wasn't looking for anything imparticular, I was just bored and clicking on things. Then I noticed the category 'missed connections' and I remembered posting on that once. I had been in South Lake Tahoe for a job interview. I was super early so I ran into the grocery store to buy a bottle of water. I was walking in and this very attractive, slightly older, fire fighter walked right by me. Our eyes caught and we both smiled and kept walking. A few steps went by and I turned to look at him and right when I did that he turned as well and our eyes caught again. We smiled, hesitated, but then we both went our separate ways. Still, to this day, I regret so much not chasing him down and at least introducing myself. Anyways, the point of this was to say that after that encounter, I took a long shot and posted something under the missed connections about our encounter. The only response I got was from a girl saying she stumbled across it and 'hoped he responded because the moment seemed too good to be true and would make a great story for our future children.' So I clicked on Missed Connections, or so I thought. My mouse had missed it and I opened the Casual Encounters. I got completed engrossed in looking to see what people posted on there. Everything from guys who seemed like they were honestly just looking to have a one night stand, or find a long standing fuck buddy, to husbands trying to have affairs, to so sick pervert who wanted a girl to...ummm..be a girl's...ummmm....living toilet paper. Yeah, you read that right. All the things you do with toilet paper, he wanted to do with his tongue. Can you see why I couldn't stop reading? It was like an awful accident that you just can't look away from. Did I mention I was bored? So I posed one under "W4M". Truthfully, when I first posted on this I really just wanted to see how many people (and what kind of people) actually responded to the ad. So I posted a pretty basic ad that just said "Single 25 year old, with a few extra pounds, looking for a cool guy to have a good time with." That's it. I got ton's of responses. Most were freaks, some were married, but there were a few thrown in there that seemed like decent guys. I mean, I realize you can't tell that from an initial email, but my comment is based on the fact that I responded to a few of them. Just to see. Mind you I did this all from a 'fake' email, that has nothing attached to my personality, or my name, so that way I could always just stop responding or delete the email account. A few of the guys wrote back. A few didn't. One, after a serious of emails, turned out to be married. But there was one who seemed like a pretty decent guy so I sent him a picture (only after he had sent me a few of him). I'm not sure what you're thinking about me at this point, and truthfully I don't care. The turn my life has taken (at least socially) over the past couple of weeks is worth any of you thinking to yourself "she did what?" or "I would never do that" or "I hope she was careful, there are a lot of freaks out there". I was careful. And I never thought I would do this either. But here I am. Writing to you about this thing called life. And truthfully, for a while now, I haven't felt like I've been living much of one. I needed a change in my life, whether it was professionally, socially or geographically and since professionally and geographically aren't realistic options, I choose socially. I digress...

I should probably mention a few things. I have been on a very, very long dry spell. I'm not going to admit how long because it is awfully embarrassing. But it's been a long time. Another thing. I wrote this post a long time ago when I was in the midst of being obsessed with Dog Park Guy. I never fully explained why I was really afraid he would say yes. One of the main reasons is because if he said yes, we would go out, maybe many times, and eventually, if all went as planned, we would have sex. I hadn't had sex in a very long time. And even when I was having sex, I never was having very much of it, and it definitely wasn't very good. I was scared shitless of having sex with someone I really liked and having no fucking clue what I was doing.

This guy (we will call him Oakley because he was wearing an Oakley t-shirt the first time we met) and me exchanged emails over the period of a few days and then decided to meet for dinner and drinks one Friday night. He never called. I sent him an email the next morning asking him what was up and that afternoon he responded that he had gotten held up at work, his phone died and then his car broke down on his way home at like midnight. I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and see if he wanted to come over. I wasn't looking for anything in him except someone to break my dry spell. He seemed nice enough, but, as crazy as this sounds, I just needed someone I could easily never talk to again, to make it start raining. It rained that night...for many hours a good rain fell. I realize I am completely insane in inviting a guy to my house that I have only exchanged emails and a few phone calls with, and I realize it could have gone wrong. But it didn't. It went very right. So my dry spell was broken. This was 2 weekends ago.

I kept talking to the guy from Yahoo, who admittedly is a little dorky, but seems like a nice guy. We made plans to hang out tonight. More on that later, we have another juicy story first.

So trust me when I say this, but if you are feeling down about yourself, there is nothing better than being hit on. Even if it's from freaks via email. When I posted that ad, and within minutes I had responses from interested guys, it was like "fuck, I am a sexy bitch". So take my word on this, if you are ever down in the dumps, create a 'fake' email, post something on CL and you will either be flattered or appalled, but either way entertained.

My first ad had turned up something good, so I figured I would post another one the other night just for the fun of it. Again, I really had no intentions of actually responding to anyone and then I got an email from a guy whose email had something to do with kayaking and could easily be made into a dirty joke, I won't share it obviously for privacy reasons. I couldn't resist myself so I wrote to him with my super duper cleaver line "So you either like kayaking or you have a very dirty mind?" Are you as embarrassed for me as I am? Good, I hope so! Although at this point I have no shame left so blush away for me. He wrote back "Both...do we know each other? You seem to know me too well already." We chatted back and forth and actually seemed to have a lot in common. But he made it clear he was looking for a long term fuck buddy, someone to have a good time with, hang out with on occasion for more than that, but really was not looking for something serious. Yes we met, and yes after meeting him, I understand why he's not looking for this. Truthfully, I'm not looking for that either. I feel like I have missed out on so many things in terms of relating to men, dating, sex and passion that I am just looking 'to try a few different styles on" and see what fits best and see what I can learn from the ones I decide don't fit. We decided to meet at a local bar for dinner and drinks last night. Right off the bat I really liked this guy. Things were so comfortable with him that 3 hours flew by before we even realized it. Since we had already talked about this, and since we had met with the understanding things would remain casual between us, I invited him back to my place. Do you think I'm a little slutty yet? Good, because I have been a good girl for way too long. We got back to my place and just kept talking. We talked about everything...kayaking, rafting, traveling, our lives, our families...even death. He was so easy to talk to and so much fun to be around. Things finally got a ~~little~~ lot heated and, well, let's just say we were still talking at 2am, except instead of being on my couch fully dressed, our clothes stayed in the living room and we were in my bedroom, and most of the talking that happend during those few hours was very X-rated. And very satisfying.

Are you sick of hearing about me having sex yet? How about an night that ended innocently? Or well, intended to. So tonight was date night with the guy from Yahoo. We decided to get take out and go to the drive in movie theater because they were having an opening night and it was free. He picked me up (I was running late as always), we picked up some take out from a little Italian place near my house and drove to the drive-in. Because neither of us bothered to check what time the showtime actually is (sometime after dark) we got there like an hour before the movie started. Which was actually perfect because we spent the time talking and got to know each other. We watched the movie and he took me home. He really is a little dorky, but super nice, and I told him to call me next week so we could hang out again. It was a really nice date. I mean, except he didn't walk me to my door, but a girl can dream can't she?

Then Oakley called shortly after I got home and the night ended a little less innocently than planned. And here I am again, at 1am, waiting for my laundry to finish so I can pack to go out of town ~~tomorrow~~ later today.

I know I didn't include details. I doubt most of you want many. I know Shannon is having a hissy fit right now that I am just revealing this info to her, but is probably jumping up and down in her seat because I finally got out of the dugout and may have actually found some decent guys to hang out with. I know you're probably thinking that 2 of them are only in the for the sex, and to that I would say "so am I!" Especially when it is as good as it's been...and when the gettin's good, the good keep gettin', right?

Dude, where are my clothes?

2008-04-12T12:32:00.000-07:00

So it's been unofficial until now. And I didn't want to mention it in case the reality of the situation was that I was really so disorganized in my own life that I lost an entire load of clothes. But it's been 3 weeks now and I have searched everywhere (except the deep dark scary place called the trunk of my car...but I'm pretty sure they are not there...you know, unlike the cooler, the thing of firewood, the picture frames and the pair of flip flops that have been in there for close to a year...). It's official that a load of my clothing has been stolen. I live in an condo complex that has community laundry rooms which I use, but I can bear to think about giving up the precious space in my 'laundry room' for an actual washer and dryer. Plus I can't afford one. Plus I count it as exercise, since I have to walk up and down my flight of stairs at least a dozen times because I have so many clothes. I have lived here for coming up on 3 years now and never had a single problem (except people who leave their clothes in a washer or dryer ALL day so no one else can use that particular machine- assholes!). But about 3 weeks ago I did a crap load of laundry (like 10 loads worth of clothes, bed linens, towels, etc.). And because I didn't start until the end of the day, most of them ended up unfolded tossed in my guest room, on top of my blow up guest bed that I still had out from over a month ago when someone stayed at my house. I've slowly but surely either put away the laundry or shuffled through the pile to get clothes to wear. Over the past few weeks I felt like certain items were missing, a favorite pair of jeans, my favorite pair of running pants, an old ratty UNR sweatshirt...I really just thought I would find them all laying right at the bottom of the pile when I finally put it all away, which I did last weekend. Guess what? They still were MIA. Then I thought "maybe I've worn them and don't remember, and they are really in my dirty clothes pile?"...this is still not proven, but I am pretty sure they are not in there. Then I thought "maybe I threw them in a garbage bad and hid them in my closet while I was frantically cleaning my house before I had some guests over the other night" (what, don't tell me you've never done that! Come, I remember all you out there who admitted to hiding dishes in the oven! Don't think I don't remember!?!). But, alas, they are not there. So I am pretty darn sure that someone stole a load of my laundry from the laundry room. I am more confused than anything, but gross, I totally would not touch someones clothes, and seriously, how fucked up do you have to be to steal someones clothes from the laundry room. But I'm a little pissed off too, because (of course) the load that got stolen contained 3 of my favorite pair of jeans (including one that I have not been, until recently, able to fit into so I have been holding them hostage in my closet until I lost a little weight) and my favorite running pants (which I searched high and low to find). Aggggg, what kind of person would take someone else's clothes?

So here's my plea...

To the freak who stole my favorite pairs of jeans and running pants. Could you please return them? No questions asked. You can keep the ratty old sweatshirt and any of the other miscellaneous clothes that were in there, I really just want the jeans and the running pants back. I'll even trade, I have about 10 bags of clothes I am giving away, you can have them all if I can just have the aforementioned items back.

Thank you clothes-stealing-freak!

I haven't died, I promise...

2008-04-10T20:29:00.000-07:00

So I am first of all going to totally embarrass Shannon over at Misguided Mommy. For those of you who don't know, or haven't figured it out yet, Shannon and I are long time friends. We have known each other since we were in elementary school, and except for a brief period where I (unsuccessfully) tried to divorce her, we have been great friends!

I have been pretty much MIA for about a week now, I don't think I have talked to anyone except a brief conversation with my mom a few days ago. It has been a bad work week, and on top of a totally fucked up sleep schedule that I have somehow adopted (like going to bed at 2 am and waking up around 7), I haven't been in the mood, or had the energy, to do anything except hibernate. I got this email from Shannon on Wed. when I failed to return a phone call (from Monday):

Subject: ARE YOU ALIVE

DUDE!!!!!!!!!

When I responded I had to go out of town at the last minute (after working all day Monday, I had to drive 5 hours), which is why i was MIA, she wrote back:

Subject: i'm lame

so. when you hadn't replied even though i knew you were okay i started to think, what if something happened to her. and it is safe to say, i would have a total mental breakdown. not to mention, i dont think your parents realize you and i are close again, so i think they wouldn't keep me in the loop. but safe to say. fulll on mental break down, so don't die mmkay.also. That is super shitty about Elko. I think you should get out of town pay. LIke when rob was in construction he was salary, but he was still put in as 40 hours per week, that way if he went out of town he would get 30 hours at reno rate and 10 hours of out of town rate!

Then, because apparently I was having a super memory day, I remembered back to when we were younger. In middle school I went on a school organized trip to Spain, France and England with a group of classmates. It was shortly after there was a horrible plane crash that killed a bunch of people. Including a (or multiple groups of) school organized class trips like the one I was one. I was pretty much not in contact with anyone except my parents when I was on my trip but when I got back I had a message from Shannon on my machine (because I was a super-cool teenager with her own phone line...what were my parents thinking!). The message was like 5 minutes long (ok, maybe I am exaggerating) and featured Shannon crying and, through the tears, telling me how much I meant as a friend and that she didn't know what she would do without me and how she just started thinking about that other plane crash and...ahhhhh, for someone who doesn't like giving hugs, she is a great friend (mushy mushy).

Ok, embarrassed much, are you now Shannon?

Anyways, like I said I have been having a bad work week. As of today (Thursday) I have already worked 45 hours, and I still have to work all day tomorrow...I have also traveled to Elko and back (in a 16' moving truck, none the less). I am exhausted. And frustrated.

A while back I had my annual review (which was more like my 1 year a 5 month review because it got delayed so much). One of the things I brought up is that I don't really have an interest in managing other people any more. I am completed overloaded at work and just feel like everything is suffering because i don't have the time to think, let alone try to manage other people. Plus, even though I have definitely gotten better at managing people, it's not for me. I thought for a while it was, but it's not. I'm ok with that. I'm just not sure how to proceed from here. Shortly after my review we had organized a third party staff evaluation to come in and take a look at our company and give us some outside points of view about what we are doing and what we should be doing. We've kind of put any major changes on hold until after the staff evaluation because of what it might say. The only thing is that both of the employees that i manage right now were supposed to have their 6 month review. So I did them, except I didn't have enough time to prep for them beforehand, and just did it the morning of their reviews. Which I realize is totally unfair to them. Except the fact that I gave them both raises so I doubt they really care much. Up until now, I've pretty much been giving the responsibility and authority to do this with little to no input (unless I asked for it, which I normally did). This time I didn't because, like I said before, I had so little time to even think about it that I did it right before I me with each one of them. Then I sent a summary email to my boss and my supervisor and no-one said a thing back. And then I talked to my boss a few days ago and she was like "when I come in on Thursday let's meet about their reviews." and I was a little confused so i asked why and she said "well it's just that we were kind of on a freeze for everything like this, reviews, raises, future plans, for everyone until after the staff evaluation. I mean what's done is done but I think we all need to met to discuss it more." This was never really made clear to me, but the more annoying part is that today I was all ready to meet with them and they both totally forgot about it, so we ran out of time and never met. Now we are supposed to do it tomorrow but, well, whatever. We'll see if it happens. I've thought about it and, with the exception of my decision to give them raises, everything I talked about in their reviews I had already discussed with my boss and my supervisor months before, so I was really just reinforcing ideas that were already in play. And yeah, I fully admit I probably screwed up by not clearing their raises, but it's never been an issue in the past.

Except the difference now is that for some reason, it seems like I slowly just keep getting downgraded and downgraded. Not in pay, but, well...let me explain. Are you absolutely bored with my work rants yet? You can stop reading it you want, but I need to get this out so I shall continue.

When I first started, my position was technically supposed to be equal with the technical director. I fully realized this wasn't the case because he had close to 10 years of experience and I was fresh out of college, but I pulled my weight, and did a damn good job at it. Things were all good, until we hired Mr. THIC (remember him?) as an operations manager so my boss could step back from the daily operations of the business. We all know how I felt about him, for many many reasons. Admittedly one of them was that all the sudden, him and the technical director were equals and I was slowly sinking down the food chain. Fine, whatever, I minded my own shit and took care of my responsibilities. Then the OM quit and there was this bizarre shift of power that occurred. The 3 'managers' (me, the technical director and the sales and marketing guy) all met and decided we would meet and work through some things as a team until we decided to hire a new OM. Things were going great until the past few weeks (months...maybe it's been that long). Now all the sudden it seems like I have completely been removed from any decision making. I haven't even recently been told about major changes in one of our long time staff members (from full time to part time, giving up her supervisor duties) which dramatically affects everyone. This decision was made like 2 weeks ago and i just found out today. On top of that, we had this staff evaluation and it seems like sales and marketing guy (because he happened to be the one to volunteer to organize it) was also given the first copy of the report. Which seems very strange that it didn't go directly to my boss, since it (supposedly, I still have no idea what their findings were) has some sensitive staffing issues/information. But I know my boss has discussed it with both the technical director and the sales and marketing guy. We are meeting tomorrow as a group to discuss it, but it still definitely makes me feel like the odd one out.

On top of all of this, it has been a very strange dynamic between my boss and me since she went on maternity leave (or actually before, after she hired the OM). We are very similar to each other and were always very friendly and chatty (not in a 'friends' sort of way, but in a very friendly boss-employee sort of way). She would come to me with my input about ideas, she would run things by me. She would stop by my office and say hi, ask me about my weekend plans, etc. We now just have this awkward exchange when she's around the office and she does all this with the Sales and Marketing guy now. It got really awkward today when they were in his office talking and she asked me to come over there and then presented an idea about making a pretty dramatic change about something that am currently in charge of. They phrased it as a question, like "What do you think about this and that?" and when I started to say I didn't really think it was that good of an idea, it became very clear that they weren't asking my opinion on it, they were telling me they had already decided it was changing and that they were mearly informing me of it. I've made it clear I want to change the focus of my position because I am not all that happy about certain aspects of it, but it seems as though these changes are being made without anybody actually telling me they are changing.

I am just feeling so frustrated. Like to the point where the thought of quitting my job has crossed my mind. And while I have no intentions of doing that (and well...financially can't), it frustrates me that I feel like while I am sitting in my office dealing with the things I am supposed to be dealing with, everyone else is making plans that affect me without even giving me the courtesy of telling me. I don't know, I am probably just overworked and need a good night's sleep, but at least I got to vent for a minute. Are you still reading? Don't you have better things to do than listen to me complain about my bad work week?

I am so mature

2008-04-03T21:51:00.000-07:00

I was just on the Internet doing something that required me to enter one of those validation codes that is hidden in a squiggly mess of artwork to the point where you can barely read the note, just to verify I'm not some spammer or some shit...anywho, how much does it say about me that I giggled out loud when the code I got was "psuy"

...for those of you who haven't already found this slightly dirty (and funny), put on your dyslexic hat and switch a few of the letters around!

Hanging your dirty laundry out to air...

2008-04-02T17:16:00.000-07:00

I read this post by Jen over at Lost in Translation the other day and it got me thinking (well more her comments got me thinking)...what's your dirty laundry that needs airing?

She was talking about setting a schedule for herself to clean her house and get her chores done. Sounds all fine and dandy to me, best of luck I told her in a comment. I wish her well!

I, on the other hand, generally only clean when I am having company over. Which doesn't bode well for unexpected company. But since I have no life, I also have very little unexpected company. Of course it means I can't go to the bar and pick up on some random guy and bring him home with me...because I would be too embarrassed by my pile of dirty laundry in my hall. Or my pile of clean laundry next to my bed. Or my pile of dishes in the sink. Or maybe I could just hide them in the oven like I did when I knew my dad was stopping by (it was easier than explaining why the dishes from when I made them dinner on Sunday were still in my sink on Tuesday when he picked up my dog). Or well, I would probably never go to a bar and pick up a guy so I really have nothing to worry about. And even if I did, we're going to his house because I don't want some stranger to know where I live anyways.

But there you go, I have been known on occasion to hide dirty dishes in my sink for a very short period of time to avoid the snide comments about my lack of desire towards doing mundane household chores. I, after all, have better things to do with my time (like watch Hell's Kitchen).

P.S. I DID actually do my dishes last night. But (as my mom might have pointed out on another occasion) only because I wanted to cook something else and needed the pots and pans to do it. And the forks and spoons to eat it. Because as of last night I had 3 small plates in my cupboard, and 3 knifes. The rest were in the sink. And, on a whim, I decided to make the following last night: beef stew (a giant pot full of it) with polenta, banana bread muffins and artichokes (for dinner, since the beef stew wasn't done until 11pm). I have completely lost it!

As a side note:
Criteria #1 for any applicants for the position of Ginger's dream man: Must be willing to do dishes whilst keeping the snide comments about my utterly unbelievable overuse of dishes whilst cooking to a minimum. Ability to do dishes while naked is preferred, but optional.

A Letter to my Grandchildren

2008-04-01T22:51:00.000-07:00

A few years before my grandpa passed away he had this plan to start writing a series of letters to his grand kids to share his wisdom with us. This is the one and only letter he ever wrote but I will cherish it forever because it is one of the few memories I have left of him, besides the pictures of course. And the book that he wrote. And my love for scuba diving, and my hate of seafood. And my ability to ~~cheat~~ win when playing cards. My sister got his love of gardening, I got his love of desserts!

A Letter to my Grandchildren who I am very proud of and who I love very much.

I have a few thoughts that I would like to pass on to you and hope they will be of some value to you. As one lives (gets older) he or she passes through many stages in life and accumulate experiences which hopefully contributes to wisdom.

Life is not easy, particularly as a teenager -- pressures of learning, finding out who you are, wondering what the future holds, peer pressure many times in conflict with parent wishes. Having a set of values and guidelines will make decision making and choices easier (not always easy, but easier).

HERE ARE MY SUGGESTIONS AND THOUGHTS, WHICH I HOPE WILL BE OF VALUE TO YOU.

Remember you are where you are today because of what decisions you made yesterday so what you do today will determine where and what you are tomorrow. Give thoughts to the meaning of these words and you realize how important it is to make the right decisions today because will affect the rest of your life.

Remember no one is better than you and of course, you are not better than anyone. If you feel this way you will not talk down to anyone nor will you find it necessary to talk up to anyone. I have found that using this philosophy I would be accepted and respected by almost everyone I came in contact with (children, older people, blue collar or top management). With this approach to life you develop a style of conducting yourself. I will give you one example of how it helped my in business. At one time I was employed by AMF Voit selling and promoting water sports equipment. I remember calling on a big account in Massachusetts who had three sales people in the diving department. While most salesmen ask for and cultivate the manager (which I did also) I took the time to acknowledge all the personnel in the department. After a year or so the manager left and the lowest sales person (not lowest in ability but in time employed) was made manager. Guess who became their major supplier? I selected this example because it illustrates how all people are important and should not be treated as if they are beneath you or of less importance. Because they are not in charge at a particular time, only God knows what the future holds.

Mike Kelley, Vice President in charge of sales at AMF Voit when I worked there, closed all of our sales meetings by saying, "don't forget to walk tall". A simple statement until you think about the deeper meaning. Carrying yourself with confidence -- shoulders back, etc. you give the appearance of someone in control...someone you can trust...someone who belongs. I can't remember how many times (in department stores, offices, even train stations) people have come up to me and asked if I was the manager, head of security or asked for directions or been singled out to lead or take control of a group. When you see me now, you see a middle-aged man of 76 with a limp and slightly bent -- just remember I still walk tall and hold to all the beliefs already stated and those that follow.

To really be content and happy you must want something. An example would be a high school graduate who has no particular direction. He or she usually takes the first job that comes along. It could be in a fast food restaurant, factory, or office and will plod along doing the same thing at the same level for the rest of their lives. The same graduate who wants something - to be a nurse, fireman, business manager, musician, doctor or lawyer, etc., this will direct his employment and efforts towards obtaining that goal deriving pleasure in progressing in the desired direction.

Hold on - keep reading - the end is near.

I believe one should not lie, steal or cheat. Always do your best, the very best no matter what chore is request or required of you. Pay your debts and do not make lenders come to you for payment.

Not only do I behave in the above manner, I have lived by these beliefs. I hope these thoughts will be of help achieving your goals and bring you happiness. NOW GO WALK TALL.

Love you,
Grandpa Charlie

P.S. Don't relax too much, because more thoughts will follow soon.

I found this the other day and it hit a chord with me. Struggling through this journey, trying to find who I am, trying to uncover what the future holds for me, my grandpa's word's serve as an inspiration on how to live my life, long after his is over.

Missing the boat.

2008-03-30T21:07:00.000-07:00

This past week I was out of town training some new staff at our satellite location. Most of my time out there was spent training but on the last day of my trip, I attended an open house for a company that we do work with. This company happens to employee this guy who, well, hmmm...let's start from the beginning...

I met this guy when he worked for another company that I do work with. He was in charge of a project that they were using our services for. Because of some bad scheduling on their end, they started this project without really knowing what they were doing or what they needed. And this guy was relatively new at the job so he needed help. Because of this, I spent a lot of time on the phone with him. Most of it was totally professional but it got to the point where he was calling me at home or on the weekends to help sort stuff out at the last minute. As lame this sounds, because I realize we had a totally professional relationship, I almost missed talking ot him when their project finally got organized and we were no longer talking all the time. Anyways, at that point I had only met him once in person for a very brief period of time. He was my age, cute and, as I learned in all of our conversations, funny and seemed like a cool guy. So I might have developed a little innocent crush on him. The kind that you have a guy you know nothing will ever have anything with, but you still can't help but be attracted to him. Shortly after this project was completed, he left the company and went to work for a different company that we do work with as well. Since then, I have talked to him once or twice but just for quick work-related things.

Anywho, he worked for the company that was having the open house. And I was (maybe) a little excited to see him again and try to find out if he was maybe single, because he always seemed kind of available, but it never came up and I had no idea. But you know, I am always trying to keep my eyes open because I am sick of being single. So I go and I'm talking to some other people and finally make my way to where he is and we start talking and having a good time, talking about college and living in Reno and moving back there (home to him) and this and that and, auuuugggg, he was so cute and such a cool guy. A few other people join the conversation and it somehow gets around to someone else's trip to Mexico in April. The he says he is going to Mexico in 2009 but doesn't seem too excited about it so I probe for details (because, if you all haven't figured this one out yet, I don't understand people who don't like to travel). Then he says "Well, it's for my wife's friend's wedding." FUCK FUCK FUCK! He wasn't even wearing a ring! Another one? Seriously? You've got to be kidding me?!?!?!

So I left for home feeling totally dejected. It honestly had nothing to do with this guy specifically because I barely knew him, it just has to do with the fact that every guy I know that is around my age, cute, funny, attractive and seems like he might be a possibility is fucking married or engaged. It left me feeling like I totally missed the boat. In college I has some fun, but honestly got totally wrapped up in school and now I feel like I may have missed my chance for finding someone. In reality, I know this is totally (well, maybe not) absurd because I am sure there are a ton of great guys out there, but how can I not feel totally left in the dust when every guy that I start to notice is taken? If nothing else, if they are married, can we maybe pass a law that causes all married men to get a stamp on their forehead's that says so. This way, right from the start, I will know they are off the market.

The Soundtrack of your life...

2008-03-30T20:56:00.000-07:00

This morning I was out walking my dog and I was listening to my Ipod. I thought I would do a list for my post tonight of 5 random songs on my Ipod, and why they are there. I have tons of songs that are on there because I bought the whole CD, but I have those random songs that I choose to download for whatever reason. So here we go...the 5 random songs from my Ipod and why I have them:

"Un-Break My Heart" by Toni Braxton - I have always loved this song. One night I was just hanging out at home and it popped into my head, it was just one of those songs that I HAD to download.

"Take Me There" by Raschal Flatts - I like Raschal Flatts but just downloaded this song the second I heard it, I think it is such a good 'falling in love' song.

"At Last" by Etta James - Again, a great romantic song. For a single chick, I sure have a lot of sappy ass music.

"Red High Heels" by Kellie Pickler - Can there be a better single girl song?

"Into the Night" by Santana (featuring )Chad Kroger - This is an amazing song, by an amazing artist. I could listen to this song over and over again.

So tell me, what are 5 songs from your Ipod and why are they in your list? Do they hold a memory, do you just think they are great songs, did you get a free download and have never listened to the song (I have a few of these!)?

Going out of town.

2008-03-25T21:33:00.001-07:00

So I am, yet again, going out of town. I will try to blog while I am away, but I wouldn't expect too much from until Saturday.

Life in Six Words or Less

2008-03-25T10:28:00.000-07:00

I came across this meme (thanks to the trusty "More From BlogHer" sidebar that has introduced me to more blogs than I can count...or possibly read) on the blog titled A Wealth of Semi-Useless Information. I love the title!

Anywho...

Life in six words or less…

Here’s how this one works:

1. Write your own six-word memoir.
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere.
4. Tag five more blogs with links.
5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play. (This last step is optional.)

____________________________________________________________________________________

So here’s my life in six words or less:

Shit this is hard...no, that's not it, although it could be...this is really hard to come up with a memoir that is six words or less...

So I started writing this blog at about noon today...it is now 9:30pm. And I just got done with a cooking class. A CREPES cooking class (this loosely translates into "A 'food of the god's' cooking class"). I LOVE crepes! In light of my recent culinary experience, I have finally decided what my memoir is going to say....

Great Food, Great Friends, Great Life.

I am so cheesy (and strung out on crepes!).

As a side note, I am watching American Idol wrap up and I want to shove David Archuleta off a cliff, I hate him!

If you read this post, you are officially tagged. I am so lazy.

Community Supported Agriculture

2008-03-24T23:01:00.000-07:00

Most of my life I have had home-grown produce of some sort or another gracing my dinner table. My parents have always had a garden in the backyard (that grew as much as I did over the years, from a small plot in the sunny corner to a small farm that takes up almost half of their backyard). A few years back, my sister finally decided what she was going to do with her life. She discovered her passion for food and for supporting local agricultural efforts. Her love for organic agriculture and her passion for helping the people that provide these products took over her life. In turn, this meant that on every trip home, in addition to an entire carload of dirty laundry, she also brings boxes and baskets of great, homegrown, organic produce. Between my parent's home garden and my sister's bi-annual produce deliveries I have made a conscious effort to buy as much organic and locally grown produce and products as my meager budget can afford. Thanks to my sister I've been aware of CSA, Community Supported Agriculture, programs for many years but just recently learned that the Reno-Sparks-Tahoe area has a CSA program.

For those of you not familiar, CSA consists of a group of individuals who pledge support to a farm’s operation. In doing so, the growers and consumers provide mutual support and sharing of the risks and benefits of food production. Members of the group, through the purchase of membership fee's of some sort, help cover in advance the costs the farmer will incure throughout the season and, in turn, will share in the harvest throughout the growing season. A downside is that you also share in the risks of farming and, on occasion, may be affected by reduced harvests due to disease or bad weather, but in general you will be graced every week with a box brimming with fresh produce. By providing the money directly to the farmers, the farmers receive better prices for their crops, gain financial security (ensuring you will have great produce next year!) and have to worry less about marketing and distributing their products.

Most CSA programs work by forming relationships with local producers and farmers to provide a relatively consistent supply of seasonal produce. Many also provide, on demand or special order, special products such as: honey, cheeses, meats and herbs. The variety of produce that you get varies from region to region, and season to season. You have little to no say to what you actually get in most CSA programs, but you are ensured to receive fresh, generally organic, locally grown produce. Most CSA programs provide you with a plethora of recipes on how to convert those formerly unknown veggies into a steamy, yummy meal. A downfall of the CSA programs is that tropical fruits and veggies are not available, so don't expect any banana's or pineapples in your box...that is unless you live in Hawaii!

For more information I found a few websites to help you on your way to supporting your local farmers and providing yourself with tons of fresh veggies!

In the Reno-Sparks area, the local CSA program if offered by Great Basin Community Food Co-Op and runs from June to October.

Depending on location, your local CSA may run year-round.

For information about a CSA program in your area, you can visit the following websites:
Local Harvest
Land Stewardship Project
Green People

When did Wal-Mart get their family values?

2008-03-24T22:29:00.000-07:00

This weekend I helped plan and attend a bachelorette party for a girl I work with. Part of the gift was a gift card to Bed Bath and Beyond, however we needed to add a little spice to it so we were going to stuff the bag the gift card was in with slutty, trashy g-string underwear. I went to Wal-mart to buy a plethora of slutty underwear (you know...the highly classy kind - 3 for $2.99) only to discover that APPARENTLY since the last time I really shopped at Wal-Mart (a whole 'nother story, but I hate Wal-Mart because (a)the second you walk through the doors of the store, you apparently leave your brain/manners in a basket at the door and (b) they are a horrible, horrible corporation that is causing the ultimate downfall of American society...but like I said, another story)...where was I??? Oh yes, since the last time I shopped at Wal-Mart, they have apparently stopped selling slutty underwear. I have some pretty trashy, slutty g-stings that I picked up for like $1.00 at Wal-Mart years ago. Now they only sell granny panties, cotton briefs and boy shorts, and a few thongs here and there, but not the ones that will cause a stir at a bachelorette party. Geesh, one more reason for me to hate Wal-Mart. That's what I get for being unfaithful to my long-term partner, Target. Ahhh, I love Target. Or at least I have since Shopko closed it's doors. For those of you not from the Reno-Sparks area, you will not understand my love affair with Shopko, but it was a store similar to Target, but so much better in my opinion. Anywho, I am done. Wal-Mart sucks for 3 reasons now: (1) everyone that works there/shops there is a raving idiot, or at least they are while they are in the store, (2) they are a horrible horrible company that is destroying independent business and supporting the importation of sub-par products and, essentially, indentured servitude at their foreign plants AND (3) they no longer sell slutty, cheap underwear. How are all the Gretchen Wilson listening red-neck girls gonna impress their cowboys if they can't buy slutty lingerie at Wal-Mart?

Was that random enough for ya'll?

The Mall

2008-03-18T16:45:00.001-07:00

I hung out at the mall on Sunday. Not really by choice, more by necessity. Our local mall has a Sear's and part of that is they have a Sear's auto center. And my car needed new tires, so I dropped it off and they told me it would be 2-2 1/2 hours. F.U.N. So I went to the mall to return some items. Bad idea. I avoid the mall like the Black Plague! On the rare occasions I actually go to the mall, it's a quick in and out just to get my business done. I haven't "hung out" at the mall since I was in middle school. When I was in middle school, the mall was only about 4 blocks away. This meant, that as conniving teen agers, me and my friends somehow convinced our parents to let us walk to and hang out at the mall after school for a few hours. Apparently this is still the cool thing to do for teenagers. And on Sundays it is also, apparently, the most popular family bonding event. It was OVERRUN with families with screaming children, snotty teenagers and obligatory PDA couples. You all know I am single. Most days I still want children. After leaving the mall on Sunday I had myself fully convinced I NEVER wanted to have a child, that's how bad it was. Sooooo...instead of spending money I didn't have, or dealing with the screaming mass of people in the mall, I hibernated in the Borders Express. The quiet solitude of the bookstore. Ahhhhhh, it was like putting in ear plugs the second I walked through those florescent-lit doors. No more screaming children, no more snotty teenagers, just the crazy old man sitting in the corner whispering to himself. After perusing the bargain books, I found a quite little bench in the cooking section and planted myself for the next 2 hours. I looked at about a zillion cookbooks and then proceeded to buy "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto" by Michael Pollan because I couldn't justify buying ANOTHER cookbook! I might have also bought a bargain version of a karma sutra book...because remember, I have no money! And it's not like I am getting any action, but at least when I finally do, I'll know what I am doing (or...well..at least the bargain bin moves!). But, the point of this entire story is: HOW COOL AM I? I hang out the mall all afternoon and where was I, not in the food court, not looking at expensive shoes, but hibernating in the book store. I am such a dork!

Another brief highlight from my trip to the mall. I had to return some bra's at Lane Bryant. As I was walking through the store, right past a set of dressing rooms, I hear the following conversation between husband and wife:

Husband (from outside the dressing room): "As long as it's not blue or green"
Wife (from inside the dressing room): "WHAT?"
Husband: "Huh, what. I didn't say anything."

Such a brief glimpse into the glory that is the male-female relationship but it was hilarious to hear the husband totally talking shit behind his wife's back, and denying every bit of it to her face.

The call

2008-03-16T22:35:00.001-07:00

So be called earlier today. I actually didn't even hear my phone ring so I haven't actually talked to him, but he was just calling to "see how I was doing today" and said to give him a call whenever.

Should I call back? He seemed like a nice enough guy until the other night, now I'm not so sure...

Maybe Mother Nature Knew Better Than Me...

2008-03-16T12:52:00.000-07:00

I did call the guy. And I did have a date this weekend. Or, well, was supposed to have a date this weekend. But Mother Nature had other plans in mind. I was supposed to meet him for drinks in South Lake Tahoe (where he lives, about 45 minutes from Reno where I live). For those not familiar with this area, Reno is in a valley, you have to drive over the Sierra Nevada Mountains to get to South Lake Tahoe. Too bad it decided to snow on Friday night, I actually got about half way there but the road were really bad, icy and snowy and blah, so I called to cancel. We were maybe going to do something on Sat. but it was even snowier last night. So I told him to call me next weekend. But here's the thing, I'm not so sure I want him too after my brief look into his personality the other night.

I called him on Thursday and we made plans to have drinks. I offered to drive to South Lake because I wanted the out option (the option to get out of the date if it wasn't going well by saying I had to get going because I had a long drive ahead). However, enter exhibit #1, he didn't even offer to drive to Reno, or meet me halfway. Strange, but I wasn't too concerned at this point because like I said, I wanted the out option. So the plan was to meet at 8 at a bar in SLT. At about 7:15 I was headed that way and it starting snowing, hard. It wasn't sticking to the roads but I wasn't even in the mountains yet. So I called to cancel/see if he wanted to meet me half way. He tried to convince me to come up there and I said I didn't want to drive in the mountains with the weather like that because I didn't have 4-wheel drive and didn't want to get stuck in SLT. We talked for a few minutes, I was still headed in his direction because there was no where to turn around on the road I was on. Enter Exhibit #2...I tried to convince him to meet me half way and he was VERY resistant to meeting me half way. And he kept just saying "I mean, if you get stuck up here you can stay here, it's not like you don't have a place to stay." Now, Enter Exhibit #3...I was totally thrown off by the fact that he was completely ok making me drive threw shitty weather to see him, but he wasn't going to do the same to see me. Men...this is not ok, by any standards! By this time it had stopped snowing and he said it wasn't snowing up there so I changed my mind and headed up there. I figured he might be nervous or something, and it's been forever since I've been on a date so I wanted it to happen. Then...It started snowing again, but not that badly. So I headed up into the mountains and the roads got bad, very quickly. They got icy, and snowy. And I decided I really didn't want to (a) get in an accident on my way there (b) get stuck up there with a guy that I barely knew and (c) possibly get stuck up there all weekend, if the weather got really bad. So I called and canceled. Then he got kind of weird. He kept trying to convince me to come up there, even though I was obviously not comfortable driving with the roads all shitty. And he kept just trying to convince me by saying I had somewhere to stay if I did get stuck up there. And seriously, even if he was totally just a one night stand, I still wouldn't want to get stuck with him overnight, or all weekend! So I turned around and told him to call me tomorrow (Sat.) if it was nicer out or next weekend and we would try to hang out. But then, enter exhibit #4, he said "yeah, you can come up here next Friday or something." Which wouldn't have been that big of a deal, except I just spent 1 1/2 hours driving half way there, to not even see him, and he was still going to expect me to drive up there again next weekend.

So there's my "almost" date story...maybe Mother Nature knew better than me and was just trying to show me he wasn't worth my time...or should I give him another chance...but either way, at least it's a step in the right direction!

You guys all suck...

2008-03-14T16:17:00.001-07:00

I can't believe only 3 people have voted on my blog poll. 3 people in like 7 hours! I KNOW more people have read my blog since 8am than 3 people. Geesh, what kind of readers do I have? THE KIND WHO LURK IN THE DARK CORNERS OF CYBERSPACE READING MY ~~INSPIRING~~ ~~MEMORABLE~~ ~~NOTEWORTHY~~ WORDS, THAT'S THE KIND! GEESH!

And you all obviously don't know me well enough, I can't believe all 3 of you who HAVE voted think I called the guy. Really, are you sure about that? I am kind of a chicken shit when it comes to this whole dating thing. I mean it's been like a zillion years since I've actually been on a date, why would you think that all the sudden I would throw caution to the wind and call some strange guy I barely know. What is wrong with you guys? You obviously have way more confidence in my dating skills than I do. That's not to say that I did or didn't call him...I'm not revealing that information quite yet.

Winds of Change

2008-03-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

So my alternative title for this post was "Ginger might finally get some action in the near future" but, well, I went with the more mature title (not sure why, it's like I'm that mature, I mean I just got finished having a conversation with my co-workers that involved the works 'jello-like', 'poo', and 'soft serve'...you connect the dots!).

With the exception of Dog Park guy, it's been a very long time since I've had guys flirt with me on a regular basis, let alone actually be hit on. I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe I haven't been putting out the 'I'm single and want to ~~get laid~~ fall in love' vibe enough, or maybe there is suddenly a plethora of single men that I, for some reason or another, have come in contact with. All I know is that, over the past couple of weeks, I've had more guys flirt with me, hit on my or just look in my general direction (is it now obvious how desperate I am when a guy simply looking in my direction is exciting?). And let me make it clear that by 'plethora' I mean 3 guys. But in a month, that's not bad, it's sure as hell better than the past few ~~months~~ years.

First there was this guy, I actually never caught his name, it might have been Andrew, but we flirted over Scottish trivia and scotch at a Scotch tasting event that I went to while I was in Salt Lake City for work. He was a little older, but cute, and funny and it made my evening talking with him. Nothing ever came of it, and I'm pretty sure he lives in Virginia so I will probably never see him again, but none the less, it reminded me how much I love flirting.

The second guy was just some guy that I happen to lock eyes with at Trader Joe's the other night. We never even talked, but catching the glismp of a cute guy, who you know has, at least, a decent taste in grocery stores, can be quite a rush on an otherwise mundane evening.

Yesterday I was at a trade show up in South Lake Tahoe. It was held at a casino, as are every other major event in this area because they have convention centers, food and lodging in one location. At some point in the day, I was walking back through the casino to go to my car and grab some more free shit to give away and I walked by this booth where they were trying to sell time-share things, or something similar to that. I barely even noticed the guy until he said "How are doing today Ginger?" It totally threw me off that he knew my name, I double backed to see if I knew him, and then I realized I was wearing a giant name tag. At that point he was either (a) still trying to sell me something or (b) trying to flirt with me but not doing a very good job of it. I, on the other hand, was just trying to get away before I got sucked into a 4 hour talk about the benefits of owning a timeshare. Plus I had to work. So...I ever so slightly blew this guy off, acting ever so slightly like a bitch, and extracted myself from the situation. The only problem being that I had to walk right by this guy again to get back to the tradeshow. I mean, unless I wanted to walk down 3 flights of stairs in the parking garage, shlep myself across a parking lot then take an elevator up 3 floors and, well, you get the point. Since I was wearing high heels, I figured this guy would probably leave me alone since, as I said before, I might have acted slightly bitchy to get out of him trying to sell me something. Not really bitchy, just a little "I have better things to do" bitchy. So I walked by him again, he saw me coming from a million miles away. This time he just said "Hi Ginger...I'm Jeff by the way." Trying to redeem myself from my former bitchy state, I said hi back. Then he asked me where I was from and the second I said Reno, it was all over. "Really? So, are you just down here for work? For how long? Do you come to Tahoe a lot?" and on and on and on... then came the big questions "Do you mind me asking you, are you single?" I am such a bad liar. So I just said yes, even though I still wasn't sure he was trying to hit on me, or sell me something. After I said yes, I was indeed single, he asked for my phone number. Instead I told him he should give me his.

Now I have his card, with his cell phone on it, just staring at me. Taunting me. I'm still not entirely sure about him. He seemed nice enough, maybe a little dorky, and he does sell timeshares for a living, which is not all that appealing, but like I said, he seemed nice enough and wasn't bad looking. Do I call? Do I not call? My reasoning is, at this point, I really could care less about him, and I need some practice dating, so if nothing else, even if he ends up thinking I am some crazy weird girl, at least I will get some dating pratice. How's that for a run-on sentence with WAY too many comma's?

Speaking of "The Rules"...

2008-03-11T22:04:00.000-07:00

Misguided Mommy has begun to share the utter dorkiness that was our friendship when we were younger in some of her guest posts, however she hasn't even begun to scratch the surface. As proof of this, I have unburied some of my old photo albums and scrapbooks and now have proof of the dork's that we were.

To start...we had a "Rules" card. If I remember correctly, this was created when we were in middle school (correct me if I am wrong Shannon, we all know you have an uncanny ability to remember every random fact of every story of every event that ever happened to us). If you look closely, you can see that our card was "laminated" (i.e. covered in tape) so we could carry it with us so we could always refer to our "rules" if need be while cruising the roller skating rink for older guys, or getting kicked out of the Hilton arcade (only to eventually end up in some guy's room...which, as you can see, was against our rules. We were always a bit rebellious (or at least Shannon was, and I got dragged along for the ride...)

The Rules...

2008-03-11T12:40:00.000-07:00

glitter-graphics.com

Highlight

2008-03-07T17:00:00.003-08:00

I came across this blog (thanks to BlogHer). I just thought it was a good post about traveling so I thought I would send some people her way.

A few remaning drops...

2008-03-07T16:21:00.000-08:00

First of all, my readers all rock. You guys are all great people and I am lucky to have you in my life (even if it is only through this blog!). I got a few more questions after the fact that I wanted to answer as well.

So here we go...

Misguided Mommy asked me "what is the thing hiding in your house that reminds you of a guy and something or other from one of your vacations?" A while back I had written this post about having something in my kitchen that reminded me of my dirty little secret. This, I am sorry to say, I will not tell you about. I treasure this stupid memento for what it stands for and I am not going to share with you what it is, that would take the fun out of leaving it up in plain view all of the time. I know, you AB. SO. LUTE. LY HATE ME RIGHT NOW! Too bad, so sad, on to the next question...

Babba Unknown asked "Anywho... I do have a question....... why did you originally start writing this blog. Was it out of boredom or did you have something that you needed to get out???? Also looking back has your blog turned out the way you intended?" I honestly have no idea why I started a blog. Misguided Mommy had one, and I enjoyed reading it and I saw that it gave her a forum to talk about anything she wanted, and here and there she would get some feedback about problems in her life, so I thought it couldn't be all bad. I figured if I didn't get into it, I probably wouldn't have any readers (except her) so if I decided to stop blogging it wouldn't be a big deal. Also, I has tossed around the idea of writing a fiction book and figured that this might be a way for me to try my hand out at writing and see if I was any good at it. I now realize that writing a blog is nothing like writing a novel would be, but it has still showed me that I actually really do enjoy writing (although who knows if I am any good at it) and that, maybe, my far-fetched idea of writing a book isn't THAT far-fetched. When I started writing I had no expectations of what my blog is, or should be, so I can't say that it has or hasn't turned out the way I expected. That's the problem with expectations, if you don't have them you can never realized that you never met them! Most of the people in my real life don't realize I have a blog, and only a few that know I have it, actually read it. I have written a few posts that have pissed off some of my real life friends. I don't regret them. They have caused me and those people to come to a much more honest place than we were before, even though there were some hard times in there as well. I haven't told most of my family I write this blog, not for fear that they will read it, but because I want a place that is outside the realm of my family. If that makes any sense?!? Now I think I am just rambling so hopefully that answered your question because I am going to stop myself before I lose you guys!

Ok, I think I answered them all. If I missed any, please let me know and I will try to answer them.

Pouring my heart out...

2008-03-06T16:53:00.000-08:00

To celebrate my blog being 1 year old, I gave my loyal readers the opportunity to ask me whatever they wanted and I would answer as honestly as I could bring myself to answer! So here we go...

I'm starting with Patty's question because it is the most fun to answer and the easiest. Patty asked "What are the top 3 places in the world you still want to visit?" Admittedly I thought this question would be the easier thing to answer but it's not, because I want to go so many places! If I had to choose, I would pick Belize (to go kayaking and diving in the Blue Hole), Costa Rica (because something has always drawn me to this place, plus I've heard it's an amazing place to visit) and back to Australia (but instead of traveling the East coast like I did before, I was to visit places like Ayer's Rock, Darwin, Perth and Western Australia).

Misguided Mommy asked me these questions (but only to make herself seem like she really cares about the answers when all she really wants me to answer is the REAL question she asked me via email...in case I didn't want to answer it...). Here are her easy questions first "would you rather give up alcohol or sweets if you were forced? And none of this, i don't have to make this choice so I wont answer, you have to answer. Your stranded on an island. You are supplied with all the food, water and necessities to thrive. You can bring 3 things that do not plug in what are they?" She knows me too well, normally when asked questions like this I always answer with "I don't know, I don't have to choose so why should I?" but I said I would answer anything so here we go. I would most definitely give up alcohol over sweets. I really do not drink that often (although I may drink to get drunk when I drink, I mean, why consume the calories without the freedom and craziness that comes with being drunk!). Also, if I gave up sweets I would lose the group of food products that I absolutely ROCK at cooking/baking. And you can't cook if you don't taste your products, right? Next, The 3 items that do not plug in, I would take to a stranded island, if I were given food, water and necessities to survive, I would take with me: "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert. I just recently finished reading this book but it is an amazing book, it combines everything from a modern day fairy tale to a spiritual guide for the modern woman into one book. It has the ability to make you think, and to take you to far away places, which is exactly the kind of book you want to be reading if you are stranded on an island. I would also take with me snorkel gear because I enjoying looking at the fish and it might also come in handy if I need to catch fish, and a kayak. A kayak might not get me off the island (as if I would want to leave a deserted island) but it would give me something to do, and also a mode of transportation around the island.

Sara (hi there by the way, I don't think we've met before) asked me "Tell us about your favorite sexual encounter." My good friend Dyan asked "Ok... I have a question for you.... in all your traveling escapades.... have you ever had a secret foreign lover? Something I always wondered and never heard you say.... indulge me ~" I plan to answer both of these in one question so here we go...I have 2 very different favorite sexual encounters. The first one is the first time I slept with my fuck buddy. At the time, we were still kind-of, sort-of maybe trying to date. We were 18 and freshmen in college and both very inexperienced in the sack. We were SOOOO nervous. He had invited me over 'to study' (to his credit, we did have a class together, but I think we both knew there was no studying that was going to happen). I got to his house (that he shared with like 4 other guys, all older than us and, well, they were typical college guys...they had a poster in their living room demonstrating how to put a condom on. A handmade poster. Need I say more?). The one thing I have always loved about FB is that no matter how casual our relationship has gotten, he really is a great guy at heart. He acts like a bad ass around his buddies but he really is just a nice guy with a kind heart. This never showed more than this night. We 'studied' for a while, mostly just turned pages in our books and pretending that we were studying. We eventually started kissing and one thing led to another and the moment I will remember for the rest of my life is that right before we did the deed, he was holding his body above mine and he was shaking, just a little but, because he was so nervous. It was THE MOST ADORABLE THING I have ever seen. That is my first favorite sexual encounter. My second will answer both Sara's and Dyan's question. And sadly this one doesn't end in me actually getting any action, but it's a good story none-the-less. When I was traveling around Australia, about half way through my trip I found myself staying at a hostel in Caines. From there I took a weekend trip to some hostel in the Daintree rainforest. I had expected it to be all warm and sunny but it ended up raining and being cold most of the time I was at this hostel, and I only had a small weekend bag with me so I pretty much had nothing to do. Neither did anyone else there. The first night at dinner there was a group of people eating. A girl I had been talking with earlier was there, along with these 2 guys and this other girl. Since I was by myself I asked if I could join them. Turns out the 2 guys were friends and traveling together (from Canada) and the other girl was from Canada as well, but not with the guys. Me and one of the guys hit it off and started drinking. Did I mention at the time I was drinking A LOT and could keep up with a 200 lb guy from Canada (we drank a lot, I lost track after about an hour and about 10 pints of beer...). The other's hung out with us for a while but around 1 am (when the 'bar' closed) but we somehow convinced the 'bartender' to keep giving us beers, since she couldn't sell them to us anymore. I use the term 'bar' loosely by the way. Around 4 am (and half the supply of beer in all of Australia later) we finally decided to call it a night. Nothing happened that night, I just stumbled up the stairs to my cabin and passed out (luckily I made it to my bed first...I think). The next night pretty much the same thing happened. Again, ending with me stumbling back to my bed alone. I left the next morning to go back to the hostel in Caines and truthfully regretted not getting some drunken rainforest action. I got back to Caines and spent the next day relaxing and recovering from my 2 nights of severe drinking. The next day I had left to do something fun and when I got back that evening, I ran into my drinking partner in the lobby. Turns out they had decided to come to Caines a few days early because of something to do with his buddy (I didn't really get along that well with his buddy so I didn't pay much attention to him...). I should explain, these guys were a little older (he was 37 and his friend was about the same) but they loved traveling. My drinking partner had gotten recently divorced and had come with his buddy for the hell of it, but they tended to do their own thing a lot so I ended up hanging out with him quite a bit without his friend. That night we all went to dinner at a bar in town. After dinner his buddy left and it was me, my DB (drinking buddy) and the other Canadian girl. I should also explain that the other Canadian girl was a bitch. An annoying, weird looking giant of a girl (she was like 6 feet tall and wasn't skinny, although not really fat, just a little heavy) who thought that she was god's gift to the planet and was so much smarter than everyone else just because she was (a) Canadian and (b) doing medical research or some shit like that. She annoyed the fuck out of me. Plus she liked my DB because she annoyingly followed them to Caines. Ohhh, she pissed me off. Which just meant that I wanted to piss her off. Which means I let my DB buy all my drinks when he offered, and not to her, and I let her buy my drinks because she stupidly try to buy DB drinks and then he would order a round for all 3 of us and she wasn't rude enough to say she wouldn't pay for the round. It also meant that every chance I got, I put my hands all over DB and sat next to him any chance I got. So there were all 3 of us, drinking and hanging out and dancing. We were all hanging out by the dance floor and pool tables when DB left to get me and him another round of beers. While we were standing there, these guys playing pool came up to me and one of them said "hey, it's my buddies birthday, will you give him a kiss." And right then DB came back and I said, "Nope, sorry I can't" and then I leaned into DB's side and said "that guy right there was trying to convince me to kiss him because it was his birthday" in a (drunk) attempt to get him to kiss me. He responded "it's starting to look more and more like my birthday..." and then we kissed. With the other stupid Canadian girl standing right there. And we kept kissing...and kept kissing...and kept kissing...get the drift yet? No, ok, well we kept on kissing for a very long time. Finally she interrupted us to say she was going to take off. At that point we just wanted to do more than kiss so we said we would walk back with her. She tried so hard to not to have to walk back with us but at that point I was being a total bitch to her and he just wanted to get laid so we all walked back together, stopping at the store to buy some more beer and some snacks. We held hands and were all touchy touchy the whole way back. It was like a 10 minute walk. We got back to the hostel and all sat down in the courtyard area. DB had me put my feet in his lap and was stroking my legs and the Canadian chick had had enough so she went to bed. We sat there and talked for a while, not entirely sure how to get back to the intense kissing we had at the bar, and not entirely sure were to go to have sex. We were both staying in shared rooms so we each had like 4 other people in our rooms, and no matter how drunk I am, I cannot have sex in front of that many strangers, especially if it means waking them up from a dead sleep. In our drunken horny haze we decided the men's bathroom would do. Did I mention how drunk we were and how horny we were? In retrospect, there were much more suitable places but it was the closest and we were VERY DRUNK AND VERY HORNY. So we 'snuck' into the bathroom, went in the shower stall and stared making out and getting undressed. Then someone came in the bathroom. We froze, hoping it was just some late night guy going piss. Nope, it was the damn night manager for the hostel. All I remember him saying is "Is there a female in here" and us trying to hide my flip flops and DB trying to lie and say he was just taking a shower. All the while trying to get my clothes back on. We eventually had to give it up and admit we were in there, he took our names and sent us to our rooms. So even though I never actually got any sex, this is a great memory because it was hilarious and also I was proud of going after the guy I wanted like I did. Plus, like I said, I hated that stupid Canadian girl and I totally stole the guy from her.

Whew...ready for a break yet. I am, I'll be back soon...

I left the question asked by Misguided Mommy until the end because it was the hardest question for me to answer. I actually cried a little bit when I first read this email because I know it came from a place of love and caring.

Misguided Mommy said "okay, so something i've wanted to ask for a while now. Why do you really have no interest in losing weight? I no longer look at this from a vein image sort of view but from a health, heart point of view, what is the actual reason? DON'T KILL ME, IT'S JUST AFTER LEARNING THE DAMAGE I WAS DOING TO MY BODY I'M REALLY LOOKING AT EVERYONE AROUND ME SAYING HEY I WANT YOU TO BE AROUND FOR THE NEXT 50 YEARS YOU KNOW, JUST ASK ROB, HE ISN'T EVEN ALLOWED TO HAVE BACON MORE THEN LIKE ONCE A MONTH ANYMORE! I"M ALL OVER LISA ABOUT IT, AND ANGIE, AND MY MOM, AND MY DAD, AND MY KIDS, AND MY GRANDMA AND............ SERIOUSLY I'M TOTALLY HAPPY WEIGHING 160 RIGHT NOW BUT NOW, IT'S ALL ABOUT BEING HEALTHY FOR MY KIDS AND FAMILY SO PLEASE DON'T KILL ME FOR ASKING THAT. ALSO I SENT IT VIA EMAIL SO YOU CAN TOTALLY CHOOSE TO NOT POST IT IF YOU WANT! Some things I've learned lately, any thing over a 40" waist is considered a heart attack waist. The weight around your belly is the worst for you (which sucks cuz thats where i have the most) and that women are so much more susceptible to heart conditions. A size 40" waist isn't even bad I'm about a 40 now and again I think I look fine. You know I've been hinting about this for a while with the Tummy Tuck blog, I just honestly reallllly worry about your health. I'm such a moron, but I just love you. be honest let me know if i'm pissing you off!"

Shannon and I have been friends for a very long time and I know that she cares about me. In person she has never asked me about by weight, and we have had very few conversation about my weight. We talk about hers all the time. I am going to start this off my saying that I know it all. I know all of the facts about weight, about belly fat being the biggest indicator of future heart problems, I know about the good food, I know what you should eat and what you shouldn't. I am very educated about calories and nutrition and exercise and weight problems. I also know that most of the reason's I hold on to weight are emotional. While I could definitely eat better than I do, I actually eat pretty good and always have. I do eat fast food, but only 1-2 times a month. I do eat sweets, but I generally feel satisfy after 1 piece of chocolate or a few bites of cake. I eat fruits and veggies. I don't fry very many things and I use olive old and eat mostly organic products and try to avoid overly processed foods most of the time. I also don't generally overeat when I am happy, sad, depressed or any of those things. All of these things are generalizations because I do eat crap as well, I have a slightly addictive relationship with Fruit Gushers and Marshmallows, and I also enjoy soda (I limit myself to 1 a day, most days I drink about half of that soda and toss the rest) and I also enjoy foo-foo coffee drinks. Foo-Foo coffee drinks are my ultimate downfall. They are like crack for me! I am completely obsessed with them even though I am fully aware the havoc they wreak on my stomach, my waistline and my wallet! That being said, I have always been a little on the heavy side even though, as a family, we eat very well. Most of my family is. Not that that is an excuse because my sister isn't and she came from the same gene pool as me. Even when I was in the best shape of my life (on the varsity swim team, kickboxing a few days a week, going to the gym 4-5 days a week, hiking, backpacking, etc.) I was still what most would consider plus size. This was ok with me because I knew that i was in shape. I have read several articles saying that also long as you are cardiovascularly fit (could walk up x number of stairs or some shit without getting out of breath) that you are actually at no more of a risk than a skinny person of the same fitness level, even if you carry a little extra weight. This was me, I was very fit, very muscular and still a little on the heavy side. This is until I went to college. I got lazy and overwhelmed. My weight has actually changed very little since my sophomore year in college, the only difference is that my muscle is no longer muscle, it is now fat. My body has totally changed even though I essentially weigh the same (give or take 10 lbs). I mentioned that a large reason I have held onto the weight I have is emotional. There are a lot of things about my life that I am unhappy about. I am unhappy that I have a very large amount of credit card debt, that which only is getting larger and larger because I spend more every month than I make. I am unhappy that I have no idea what I want to do with my life, and that I work at a job that I am not really happy about. I like it but I know I will never like it more than I do now, and that just doesn't settle well with me. Plus I work long hours, don't get paid for anything past 40 hours, and take a lot of shit from clients and from people I work with. I am unhappy that I let myself get this out of shape, but am too tired at the end of the day to do anything about it. I am unhappy that it seems like everybody's life is moving forward and mine is stagnant. I am unhappy that I've never had a real relationship, and have no idea how to proceed to get one. I am unhappy that I feel like maybe I don't deserve a relationship, don't deserve to be loved by someone because of whatever reasons... All of this translates into why I don't want to lose weight, I deep down, don't really think I deserve it. I've always day dreamed a lot. I still do once in a while. Almost without fail, all of these start out with "when I lose some weight" or "I'm skinnier by then of course" and then some rendition of 'he likes me' of 'I finally got the dream job' or 'I finally paid off my debt.' I use my weight as the excuse why I am unhappy. Why I am single, why I am stuck in debt, why I can't figure out what I want to do with my life. Logically, I know that my weight has little to no affect on me being single, in debt or unhappy with my life, but it is the one thing I can understand, and it is the one thing I blame for all my misfortune. Losing the weight would remove my scape-goat. It would make me face those factors without 40 extra pounds masking the view. As a logical smart person, I know this is what needs to happen for me to get past my unhappiness but I haven't accepted that I deserve that yet. I am not sure where to go from here. I have made recent efforts to eat better, eat veggies more often, eating breakfast (more than just a foo-foo coffee drink) and now the next step is getting my ass exercising more often. Then you have the whole 'accepting that I deserve to be healthy and love myself and blah blah blah'. That whole thing.

So there we go, that is why I haven't made any solid attempt to lose weight. I don't think I deserve it. I now I am crying because that seems even stupider written down than it does in my head.

Now that I am done pouring my heart out about everything from my weight to some hot and heavy details, I hope I let you guys see a little bit more about myself. As always, I welcome other questions (you didn't miss your one and only chance) or comments. I also have a few more questions I haven't answered but I am done for the day, I will post the rest tomorrow.

Blogiversary in it's final hours...

2008-03-05T17:48:00.001-08:00

So my blog is almost officially 1 year old. Ahh, I am so proud. Well, most of the time...

This is your last chance to submit questions for me to answer in tomorrow's 1 Year Blogiversary post. You can ask me anything you want and I will answer it with complete honesty...anything...here's your chance...

I quite obviously was not thinking clearning

2008-03-05T17:42:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I posted my Top 5 favorite posts and I wrote, and I quote (myself) "Since I am still in a sort of post-flu haze and I am not thinking entirely clearning..." THAT is why I didn't try to write anything more complex than the titles to my previous posts!

What the hell is that word anyways, some sort of marriage between cleaning and clearly. Maybe I can make up a new word, from here on out, 'clearning' is officially a word.

Clearning = cleaning with clarity

Oh shit, if I make it a word, then my prior use of it makes even less sense than when it wasn't a word? Ok, this definition only applies from THIS post and forward, there is no retroactive defining of fake words. Whew, glad we got THAT cleared up!

Sleeping in your car

2008-03-05T11:24:00.001-08:00

A few days ago I was listening to the radio and the station was having people call in to tell their best 'sleeping in their car' stories. My fondest (only in retrospect, by the way) memory of sleeping in a car took place right after I graduated high school.

In celebration of graduating high school, I decided to travel to Hawaii for a month. My sister was going to be traveling with me for the entire trip and my mom and a friend of hers where traveling with us for the first 2 weeks. This happened after my mom and her friend went home. My sister and I were on the island of Maui. We were camping at the time, moving from campsite to campsite whenever the mood struck us. For those of you not familiar with camping in Hawaii, it is generally very cheap (if not free) and I mean really, you're in Hawaii so your probably spending most of your time sleeping on the beach under a Palm tree anyways, why pay for a hotel? Every place we went was gorgeous and some of the best camping I've even been lucky enough to take part it. However, we had recently been camping up on Mount Haleakala and my sister had met this guy. Nothing happened except some friendly conversation but I didn't really like him. He was kind of weird and I was being pissy about my sister ditching me for a guy. Anywho, a few days later we were taking our ~~home on wheels~~ rental car out ~~mobbing on hardened lava that our rental car company had explicitly told us not to drive on~~ for a nice leisurely drive and we found this cool beach. We were hanging out and sure enough we ran into the weird guy that my sister had met. They were camping there and had invited us to stay there as well. I threw a hissy fit and said I wanted to camp somewhere else because I was worried that something might happen to the car and blah blah blah (when really I just didn't want to hang out with this guy).

After I threw my little hissy fit, my sister and I decided to camp somewhere else. We had seen a few campgrounds by the hotel we stayed in when my mom and her friend were still in town so we went to that area. Did I mention it was the 4th of July so all of the campsites were full except one. Ah, except that faithful ~~creepy, horror-movie, psycho, don't-drink-the-koolaid~~ campground. Most campgrounds in Hawaii are state or federal government owned. This place was a private campground for some religious group. THIS WAS THE WEIRDEST PLACE I'VE EVER BEEN. Most campgrounds in Hawaii are surrounded by lush, tropical forests with lots of pretty flowers and grass. This place was like the areas in Hawaii the Christians must have subject the natives to in order to make them comply with their wishes. The campground was next to the water, but the waterline was lined with these horrible nasty trees that had thorns the size of my arm sticking off of them that hurt like a fucking bastard when you inadvertently stepped on one and it poked you through your flip flop. Instead of lush, grassy areas to lay your tent down, this place has 8x8 foot piece of carpet caked in 10 years of Hawaiian dust and mud for you to put your tent down on. Instead of relatively clean sani-hits for you to pee in, this place has these creepy bathroom stalls that I am pretty sure probably had hidden camera's installed somewhere in them. And instead of any type of Hawaii flora anywhere surrounding the campground, this place has been weedwacked down to the bare ground. And on top of all of this, this place has some pretty nice cabins located directly adjacent to the campground, complete with indoor bathrooms, washing machines, dryers, a refrigerator and ice machine, phones and nice grassy areas with lawn chairs to hang out in. HOWEVER, "Those are ONLY for the people staying here with 'the church'." Did I mention that when we got there, after paying $15.00 for the night (like I said, most places in Hawaii are either free or like $5.00 a night to camp) this creepy religious weirdo had to give us a tour of everything I described above, included the entire cabin area. However, throughout the entire portion of the tour of the cabins, after every sentence he would say "Those are ONLY for the people staying here with 'the church'" I still to this day so not know what 'Church' he was referring to...

So whatever, we pay the $15.00, let the creepy little religious pervert give us a tour and then go sit in the hammock, underneath the death trees (with the giant thorns) and spend the rest of the evening at the park down the road because we are too creeped out to stay there. So we go to a BBQ at the park, watch the fireworks, almost get ourselves lite on fire by some locals who were setting off their own fireworks and then go back to the campground to sleep. The reason we almost got lite on fire was because it has gotten VERY windy late in the day. I know I've mentioned this campground has almost no vegetation. Which meant, as we were lying in our tent trying to sleep, every time a gust of wind would blow through our desert of a campground, it would catch a bunch of dirt and blow it right inside our tent. This kept happening, like every 30 seconds, for maybe 2 hours until my sister and I finally got so fed up that we went and sat in the car to try and decide what to do. You know, now that we paid $15.00 to sleep in the shittiest, creepiest campground in the world? And you know, because it was 2 am by then? We finally decide (as did about half a dozen other people who were in the same position as us) to pack up our dirt covered belongings and hit the road. We rolled up our tent, with all of our belongings inside of it, and stuffed it in the backseat of the car. We hit the road and headed back to the park we had left not long earlier. On our way there, we stopped at a Chevron to fill up on gas (so we could leave the car running with the heat on, since our blankets were covered in dust). While we were filling up, we had opened the truck to grab something and this bum comes walking over to us (he saw our cooler in the trunk) and asks for something to eat. We open in quickly and hand him an apple, hoping that will satisfy him and he will leave. We were wrong, he reaches in the trunk, opens the lid to the cooler and say, "No, I want that!" and points at some cheese we had. At this point we were totally freaked out and just handed over the cheese. Finally this tough ass night attendant chick comes out and scares away the bum, thank god because my sister and I had no idea what to do but hand over our food! So after all of this, we drive to the park and take our tent and sleeping bags out and shake them out and lay them on the grass to air out. We then take showers in their little outdoors showers (you know, the ones meant for rinsing off after you get out of the ocean) because we, as well, are covered in dust. We then get in our car and take a nap until about 6 am in our car in the parking lot of this park, with our shit spread out all over the park (in retrospect, we probably should have waited until morning to spread our stuff all over the place to avoid it possibly getting stolen while we were sleeping, but oh well, nothing happened!). After we woke up, we put some of our stuff away and proceeded to go back to sleep on our towels in the park for a few more hours. Needless to say, we rented a hotel room the next night!

Do you have a great 'sleeping in your car' story? Share it with me...

My Top 5

2008-03-04T21:15:00.000-08:00

Since I am still in a sort of post-flu haze and I am not thinking entirely clearning, I thought I would recap the glory that is my own writing and make a list of my Favorite Top 5 posts (in comparison to the other 200+ posts that were probably just so-so).

5) Pro's and Con's of Living by Yourself
4) Another Life...
3) An Open Letter to the Guy I was Forced to Sit Next to at the Movies.
2) On the Edge of a Cliff...
1) A Letter to my Body

By the way, you guys all suck

2008-03-03T12:33:00.000-08:00

So it's been like 5 days since I put up my little "it's my blogiversary, ask me anything you want" post and I have gotten 2, YES TWO, COUNT THEM...ONE...TWO QUESTIONS. You guys all suck!

You only have until Thursday since I will post my responses on Friday, my one year blogiversary, so they better start pouring in...OR ELSE...

If I fill my house with vegetables, I'll eat them, right?

2008-03-03T11:27:00.000-08:00

This statement should be the tag line for my life. Now, don't get me wrong, I eat a fair (I had to choose that word wisely) amount of fruits & veggies every day. By no means do I eat the recommended amount and my no means am I like my sister. My sister is an aberration. She eats enough vegetables that you could probably put her in a juicer and squeeze yourself a glass or two of carrot-celery-kale-spinach-parsley juice. Ok, that was a slightly disturbing thought I realize, but it's true, I'm not entirely sure she's actually human anymore. I think she has largely morphed into some sort of human-plant hybrid because of her unimaginably large daily consumption of vegetables and fruit. I, on the other hand, probably have 2-3 servings of fruit a day and 1-2 servings of veggies. Not great, but not bad. And I eat a pretty diverse range of veggies.

Since moving out on my own, my eating habits have definitely gone downhill a little bit. Some brie, crackers and salami often passes as a meal in my home. And by 'home' I mean my 850 sq. foot condo that houses me and my dog (part-time). However, I have also started eating some veggies that I haven't ate since I learned i could say no to my parents (like mushrooms, tomatoes and olives. Although I am not sure an olive counts as a vegetable, especially since it's salted and cured...).

I diverge...The point of my story is that even though I may not eat the recommended dosage of fruits and veggies, my refrigerator and counters are always stocked full of fruits and veggies. I buy tons of them, in the hopes that if, when I open my fridge, all I see to eat are veggies that I will EAT THEM. What a concept, huh? Too bad it doesn't work most of the time. As much as I hate to admit this, I throw away a very large portion of produce I buy. I know how much of a waste it is, not only in the food itself (starving kids in Africa probably wouldn't get my extra produce in time, even if I tried to ship it to them...) but in money and my time going to the damn store. Part of this is because I will eat something for a day or two, then get bored and leave the remainder until it is discolored and slightly odor-riffic, in which case it finds it's way into my trash can during my weekly refrigerator purge. Sometimes I honestly forget that I buy stuff, so I buy it again (this happens all the time with celery, for whatever reason my brain is not developed enough to hold onto the fact that yes, indeedy-do I did buy celery on Sunday...and Wed...and well now I just bought it again on Friday. Shit! And sometimes I get home from work, look in my fridge full of veggies and decide to order a pizza instead.

So here is my problem, I obviously have no aversion to BUYING vegetables, nor do I theoretically have a problem with eating them, but I still find myself wasting tons of food because in the end, I do not eat them. Well most of them.

The loneliest feeling...

2008-03-01T16:54:00.000-08:00

So I have been sick since Wed. Wed. I just felt like I had a bad cough, I figured I had just been working weird hours, traveled a bunch (I was out of town for a trade show for work) and I had been out late the night before. I figured it would go away quick enough. Then Thursday came around I realized that I must have caught whatever crap flu has been going around because I was sicker than I think I have ever been, alternating between burning up because of my fever and chills, coughing (or well, hacking is more like it), I felt like I was drunk because my head was so congested and blah blah blah. Just be thankful you don't have what I had (or hope you don't get it!).

Since Thursday I have spent about 90% of my time either in front of my TV sleeping, or in my bed sleeping. How's that for an exciting weekend? It got me thinking, being sick is one of the loneliest times when your a single person, living by yourself. I mean, when your a kid you have your parents and/or siblings around to take care of you, when your in a relationship you have your significant other to do those things. When your single, there is no-one to take care of you. No-one to whine to, no-one to bring you some tea, no-one to run to the store to buy you rice crispy treats because that is all you really want (so you end up going yourself, probably infecting half of the grocery store, and realize they are out of rice crispy treats, so you get so pissed off that you forget to buy dog food while you are there and don't realize it until you get home, which means that unless you want you hungry dog following you around the house barking at you because it is dinner time, you have to take your tired sick ass BACK to the store). (How's that for a run-on sentence?).

Ok, well truthfully that's all I really wanted to say and I don't really have the brain-power to think of anything more exciting to say right now.

But don't forget...it's my 1 year blogiversary on March 7th. Feel free to ask me any question you want to know!

It's almost my anniversary...

2008-02-27T22:02:00.000-08:00

I can hardly believe it but I've been writing this blog for almost a year. March 7 will be my official blogiversary so I ~~stole the idea from Shannon~~ got the idea to ask my readers (especially all those secret readers who are finally starting to come out of the wood works) to ask me anything they want and I will answer it.

In general I am pretty open on my blog but there are definitely things I have shied away from writing about but for my blogiversary no subject will be off limits. Ask away and who knows, you might all learn something know about me (although I can warn you that my life is relatively boring, hey, who knows, maybe I'll learn something new about myself!).

Going out of town.

2008-02-23T22:45:00.001-08:00

So I am going out of town for work until Wed. I will try to post between now and then but can't promise anything. If you get bored while I am gone, well, that's not my problem, I'm out of town!

But if you get really bored, I stumbled across The Source: Slang Dictionary the other day (because, YES, I was looking up a slang word I didn't know the meaning for...I am such a total loser some days). Have fun looking up some slang words...But just remember, "This dictionary isn't so you can try to talk like someone your not."

Look up "fo' shizzle" just for the fun of it. Dy- you'll like that one.

A traveling soul...

2008-02-22T12:28:00.000-08:00

Sydney Harbor, Sydney Australia - Sept. 2005

I've been traveling for as long as I remember. Until I was a teenager, most of these, obviously, were family trips. Once I got to middle school, I've taken every opportunity to travel I could. In 7th grade I went on a school trip to Spain (Madrid), France (Paris) and England (London). I loved it. I was hooked. The traveling bug bite me and I've never looked back. When I was 16 my grandma took my sister and I on a month long trip to the British Isles, we traveled around England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales (mind you, on a bus with mostly elderly people) but it just reinforced my love for being surrounded by the unknown. I am not a very outgoing person, many considered me to be shy for most of my life. But something about being in another country, another culture, another world, makes me feel more comfortable being the person I am than living the life I live everyday, in the town I've lived in for more than 2 decades.

My birthday is July 12. That makes me a Cancer. For those of you who don't follow astrology, Cancer's are especially prone to be very family and home oriented. Something I have noticed, however, is that many Cancer's can carry their home on their backs (like Crabs, the astrological sign for Cancers, do). This is probably one of the truest statements for me. While I may not be technically 'home', as long as I have certain items with me, I can feel at home where ever I am. No matter where I go, even if it is on a weekend trip, I bring a journal. I, however, never actually write in the journal. Well, barely ever. I have no idea why I bring it with me, but I do. I traveled around Australia for a month and the only thing scribbled in my journal are a few peoples names, email addresses and a few notes about hotels I made reservations at or flight confirmation numbers. Well, there might be one actual journal entry, but that is it. For a month, I backpacked around a country, carrying my entire world on my back, and I insisted on one of those items be a journal that barely wrote anything in. But like I said, no matter what trip i am on, it's almost a guaranteed bet that I will have a journal in one of my bags or tossed into the trunk of my car if I happen to be driving.

The other night I was having drinks with some people I know through work/school. I started talking to one of the girls about my last trip to Mexico and she made a comment that she's never been to Mexico. Actually the only place she's ever been is to Hawaii because her parents have a timeshare. THIS BAFFLED ME. I have friends who don't really travel, or who say they would like to "travel" but that means staying in an all inclusive resort where, besides the shuttle ride from the airport to their resort or cruise ship, they never see anything except what the resort wants them to see. I'll fully admit that traveling like that may be easy, it may be relaxing in many ways, and it may mean that you never come down with a case of Montezuma's Revenge from eating the local fair from the street vendor...

It also means that you may never eat the best strawberry ice cream you've ever had (somewhere in London) or play Dance Revolution with a bunch of 12 year olds in a Mexican arcade (so fun, take my word for it). You might never find those hidden hot springs down that deserted dirt road or the little 'tienda' that sells 24 bottles of Dos Equis for like 5 bucks. You might never have one of the most intense relationships you've ever had, even if it only lasted for 5 days. You might never make love on a beach. You might never skinny dip in the ocean full of bioluminescent plankton, on a night with no moon, making every movement of your body light up the water like the fireworks light up the sky on the 4th of July. You also might never get stung by a jellyfish swimming, or step on a sting ray while wading in the water, or sight a shark out of the corner of your eye while scuba diving. But even those moments (and even that case of Montezuma's Revenge) were worth every precious moment I've experienced while traveling.

I also understand that traveling (at least MY idea of traveling) isn't meant for everyone. I also get it that some people just could care less about seeing other parts of the world, but I still can't help but be baffled when someone says they don't have any desire to travel. It is something that fulfills my heart and soul so completely that I can't believe it doesn't do that for others.

What fills your heart and soul so completely that you are completely baffled when others don't feel the same way about it?

Scuba Diving in Cozumel, Quintano Roo, Mexico - Feb. 2008

A letter to my body

2008-02-21T21:36:00.001-08:00

This is part of BlogHer's Letter's to My Body Initiative.
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Dear Body,

I know you've always been a little on the heavy side. I also know that it was never a problem until society's little judgemental ideals started getting implanted in my head. Or until hormones entered the scene and it seemed like the boys were only interested in the waspy thin girls. Either way, you know I love you. We have a passionate love affair that is comfortably carried out within the privacy of our home. We watch movies, we cook tasty meals and divine desserts that we enjoy without judgement, we make love, we sleep and we read to each other while cuddled up on the couch, watching the snow fall, warmed by a fire.

But I'm like a boy dating the girl that he knows his friends wouldn't approve of. I love you and feel confidant about you. Until we leave the front door, until we go to the bar for drinks or to the store to buy something nice. Then the judgemental thoughts start creeping in. I try to ignore them, but they are there. Insinuating that those skinny girls who just walked by were laughing about you. Or those guys were joking behind our backs about you. Or that the size-4 salesgirl at Lane Bryant isn't looking at your with that pitiful "I feel so sorry that you have to shop in the big-girls store, but if you just ate less, or exercised more, or..." look. I am sorry for this. How do you handle being bombarded with all of these negative comments about you? And how have you stuck by me when I haven't always held our ground against them?

I know that I blame you sometimes. I blame you that I am single, I blame you that THAT guy didn't like me. But I know it's not your fault, and I want to take this opportunity to apologize to you for placing that blame on you. I also want to apologize to you for treating you like the temple you are. You deserve to be feed the best food, given the opportunity to dance in the rain, or warm under a lover's touch, without feelings of guilt or embarrassment.

A while back, you may remember, we were out taking a walk. We were huffing and puffing our way to the top of a hill. I was cursing at you under my breath for not making that journey easier. When we got to the top of the hill, we ran into this lady who was so happy and blurted out to any person who would listen to her "Isn't it great? Isn't it great what your body can do for you? Isn't it great your body can bring you all the way up here to see this beautiful sight?" After that my mentality changed. And I hope that you have noticed it. Because it is true, you deserve all the credit in the world for carrying me to the tops of mountains, the depths of the sea, across Mexico, Australia and everywhere we've been in between! Without you, none of this would have been possible. And I thank you for that.

So I can only hope that you enjoy the time we spend together as much as I do. You are amazing and I thank you for carrying me through this thing called life.

Love,
Ginger

I'm making up for not posting by posting like a zillion times tonight...

2008-02-21T21:19:00.000-08:00

I was tagged by Patty for this Book Meme. I, as well, LOVE books. Believe it or not, but I had more boxes of books when I moved into my condo than I did boxes of shoes. Hard to believe, I know!

Here are the Rules:
1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people & post a comment here once you post it to your blog, so I can come see.

First of all, I had a really hard time picking a book because the closest books were all on my ottoman and I had 6 books sitting there. Yes, 6 books sitting on my ottoman, all of which I have started reading, admittedly two of them were cookbooks (yes, I read cook books like I do novels).

But I choose Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho because is the only one that I have actually finished.

Page 123: "So, he was rich and single. They went into a hall from which a staircase ascended to the second floor, but they went straight ahead to the two rooms at the back that looked into the garden. There was a crowded dining table in one of the rooms, and the walls were crowded with painings."

I now tag: Dyan, Jen, Babba Unknown and any two other people who read my blog that I can't think of right now, it's too late for my to figure out who to tag.

Let's talk about me for a moment, shall we?

2008-02-21T20:58:00.000-08:00

Jen tagged me for this meme, so here we go...

The game
A) Each player answers the questions about themselves. B) At the end of the post, the player then tags 2 people and posts their names, then goes to their blog and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

By the way Jen, you did not leave me a comment on my page letting me know I was tagged, you're lucky I read your blog!

10 years ago:
I was 15 (holy shit that is young). I was a sophomore in high school. I was on the swim team and had my two best friends. We were awesome. I was probably slightly obsessed with boys (as all teenage girls are). Ummmm, is it a bad sign that I can't remember anything significant about my life as a 15 year old?

5 Things that were (are) on my “to-do” list for today:
1. Get up and go to work early. I obviously did not do!
2. Go to social hour after work. I did do this, obviously, it involved drinking.
3. Pick up my dog and 4) Pick up pizza from Shannon's doorstep. Done and Done
4. Put laundry away. Not done. Will not get done. As it has not gotten done the last 3 nights.

I Enjoy:
* Daydreaming
* Trying to justify quiting my job to open a bakery
* Playing with my dog
* Reading
* Sitting around watching it rain
* Staring at my pictures of my past vacations to cool places like Mexico, Australia and Hawaii

What would I do if I suddenly became a MILLIONAIRE?:

* Pay off my credit card debt (ha, that would bring me down to about half a mil...ok, just kidding, but not my much)
* Travel
* Quit my job
* Travel
* Open a bakery/deli
* Travel
* Buy another house with a yard for my dog, and rent out my condo
* Buy my sister and my parents a house
* Travel, have I mentioned that yet?

5 Jobs that I have had:

* Receptionist for my friend's parent's business
* Library assistant
* Field Technician
* Lab Technician
* Customer Service Manager

5 Things People Don’t know about me:

* I am not entirely sure I want kids anymore...but not entirely sure I don't want kids so all you mommies out there, don't give up on my yet.
* I prefer to travel by myself (well anyone how has traveled with me may have picked up on this one)
* I was named after a character on Gilligan's Island (the 3 hour tour, the 3 hour tour).
* I was almost a month old before I had a name
* I was born at home, by a doctor.

Ok, I now tag Dyan because she is new to this whole blogging thing and....ummm, another person who hasn't been tagged yet.

A little bit of randomness...

2008-02-21T20:55:00.000-08:00

Do you ever wish that you were from another country just so you could speak English with an accent?

Or is this just me?

I mean, how cool would it be if I had a French accent and I could walk around saying my name with a french accent?

Good friends...

2008-02-21T20:35:00.000-08:00

...are the kind of people (Shannon) who leave pizza (that Patty sent for her all the way from New York) on their doorstep because you wanted to try it and they just want to go to bed.

As weird as that is...

...and garlic knots...

(please, no comments about my horribly old and black cookie pan, I just can't throw it away)

...but I do have one request, shall we take a closer look at one of the garlic knots:

Next time, can I have ones that don't already have bites taken out of them?

The pizza is pretty good, but not the best I've ever had (I am such a pizza snob) but the garlic knots kicked ass! Thanks Patty, even though this wasn't intended for me.

I lost my mojo...or cook-jo..or whatever

2008-02-20T21:19:00.001-08:00

I am a pretty decent cook. I mean, I enjoy my food, my friends enjoy my food, my parents enjoy my food. I've always been better at baking and making sweets than actually cooking but all in all, I'm a pretty good cook.

Not this fucking week. I seem to have lost my mojo in the kitchen because my meals this week have sucked ass. Tonight I tried to make steak and peppers with rice. I made this exact same dish like a week and a half ago. IT ROCKED LAST TIME I MADE IT! This time, umm, not so much. And I don't understand because I did everything exactly the same, but this time the steak was overcooked and tough, the sauce didn't taste quite right and, well, I ended up eating mostly rice with melted butter for dinner. Monday night I tried to make some rendition of chili-cheese burritos...they also sucked ass. Well, they were edible but by no means food I would feed to anybody except myself, and I threw away the leftovers because I couldn't imagine eating it again. UGGGGG, I am so frustrated because like I said, I'm normally a pretty good cook but I am totally off my game this week.

Maybe I should just bake cakes and cookies instead, who needs actual food for dinner? Chocolate cake for dinner anyone?

I know, I know

2008-02-20T09:24:00.000-08:00

I suck! I promise I'll get my ass back into writing...

A little Saturday morning laughter...

2008-02-16T10:00:00.001-08:00

I was searching Google for something and stumbled across the Rules of Mike's Place...thought I would share it with you guys because I found myself laughing hyterically to some of these rules, especially #14.

I am so weak...

2008-02-13T15:08:00.000-08:00

First of all, I realize I have been totally MIA. I guess I haven't been in much of a blogging mood and haven't really had much to talk about. I've just been into laying low and not doing much (which is why my suitcase from my trip to Mexico still lies mostly unpacked in my spare room).

However, I thought I would share this 'a minute in the life of Ginger' moment. So lately I haven't been eating many sweets. For me this is out of the ordinary. I normally always have a little something sweet after dinner but I've been pretty good about, if I am full, not eating anything else. I've also been cooking and eating pretty good food since I got back from my trip. Today though...not so good.

I went to lunch about 2 hours ago. I went to a burrito place in town and polished off most of a very large burrito. After this I got in my car to go back to work and this INCREDIBLE craving for something sweet came over me. And not anything would do. All I wanted was a Chocolate glazed donut from Krispy Kreme...just one. So I drove like 20 minutes in the other direction from where I ate lunch to get this f-ing donut. Luckily I had plenty of time. TIME = TROUBLE. As I got closer, I also realized there was a frozen yogurt place and Marie Calendar's (i.e. COCONUT CREME PIE HEAVEN) right around the corner. I almost exploded because I was having this horrible sweet craving and was giving in to but couldn't make up my mind about what I wanted. I eventually went to Marie Calendars for a piece of pie. Only they are an evil company that decided that 1 slice of pie is $3.59+tax and this month AN ENTIRE PIE is $5.99+tax. SERIOUSLY FUCKERS I HATE YOU RIGHT NOW. So I fucking bought an entire coconut creme pie. WHY THE HELL DO I NEED AN ENTIRE PIE. I left MC feeling shameful and degraded because I just bought an entire pie. An entire pie that I theoretically could have shared with my office. But I am an evil pie obsessed person by this point in time and DO NOT want to share my pie. About halfway back to my office I realize that I didn't get a fucking fork. So now I have no way to eat ANY of my pie until I get home tonight, because remember, I don't want to share my pie so I therefore cannot bring it inside my office. So I might have found myself opening the lid to the pie box and sticking my finger in it to scoop out a little bit of coconut creme yumminess. Then I might have found myself doing it again. And again. And once more as I pulled into my parking lot. Now I have a pie hiding shamefully in the trunk of my car. That I realized I could bring with me for dessert because I am having dinner at Misguided Mommy's house tonight. I would just have to cut around the part that I stuck my fingers in. But that would bring me full cicle to the whole issue of having to share my pie. HAVE I MENTIONED THAT I SOOOOO SHOULD HAVE NOT BOUGHT THE PIE IN THE FIRST PLACE!?!

Welcome to my day today!

My vacation photos!

2008-02-05T21:05:00.001-08:00

Ok, hopefully this works better...plus this way you guys get to see all of my pictures!

Although, mind you, that I am still learning how to use Flickr so bear with me!