Celebrating Love in June!

Holy Time Warp Batman! How is June practically over already? It’s been crazy town here, which probably explains the fly-by. But it’s been a great month so far, with some great distractions. I know I sat down to type a post at least once every week since the last time I wrote only to get distracted or have something new come up that was more pressing, so I apologize on already shirking on my more posting promise. Time will only tell if I can actually make this a habit. Anyway, a quick update on my crazy, wonderful month:

June 1^st, the first friend I ever made at college, Stephanie, got married! It was a beautiful ceremony and reception, filled with dorky qualities, which the hubs LOVED, like the guys walking in to the Star Wars theme and a groom’s cake shaped like the TARDIS. As well as, some charming country style, the setting was a beautiful farm, and comfort food; hello honey chicken tenders and mac & cheese, not to mention a fun-fetti layer in the bridal cake!

June 4^th, my amazing hubby and I celebrated 3 amazing years of marriage! What did we do, you ask? We went to Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari! It’s a holiday themed amusement park with a huge safari themed water park attached in Santa Claus, IN. It’s a favorite of mine and it was so much fun to go just the two of us. The best part; we went on a Tuesday, when many schools in the area are still in session, so there were so few crowds that we could ride our favorite rides twice and the longest wait for a water slide was 15-20 mins!

June 8^th, one of my other great college friends, Lauren, whom I met shortly after Stephanie, since they were roommates, got married! Sadly, I couldn’t be there, because it was in CA and I had been asked to help chaperone a trip to DC with my hubby. While I was super bummed I couldn’t be there, especially since another one of my dear friends, Ellen, who was in the wedding, also got engaged that weekend, Loli was very understanding and I’m so grateful to her for that. She was a B-E-A-utiful bride both inside and out!

June 10^th – 13^th, it was off to DC with us! My amazing teacher husband had 5 kids make it to the national competition for National History Day! For those who don’t know, it’s kind of like the national science fair, but with history. It was my first time to DC and it was amazing! We drove, which wouldn’t have been bad if it hadn’t rained the entire time we were driving, both there and back. We were only there for a few days and only got to spend one day actually in DC seeing the sights, the rest were spent at competition things at the University of Maryland – College Park, but I definitely got enough of a taste to know I want to go back again and again!

June 15^th, was another trip to Holiday World with some girlfriends for our annual girls weekend in June. It was fun, of course, but I found I had gotten spoiled with the low crowd levels of my previous visit. First world problems, I know! If you ever find yourself even a few hours away from this great place you should definitely check it out! A quick tip to save you money, bring a cooler with lunch. Since drinks, sunscreen and parking are free why not eliminate the only other thing you’d have to spend money one while you’re there? I’d also recommend getting a locker and some ice cream, but it’s not a must.  

The rest of the month has been filled with testing stuff, more on that later, busy times at work, no one really wants to hear about that, and generally trying to be happier and optimistic. We’ve done some other minor activities but I figured I’d just keep it to the big points. Blake and I are both on the positive vibes and have good feelings about this summer, which is a very different tune than last summer! To be honest, it’s hard not to be positive, what with all the weddings, anniversaries and engagements that have been flooding my news feed this month, plus the news from the Supreme Court yesterday, I’d say June is a bigger month for celebrating love than February! How has love embraced your month? 

Reboot!

To say I’ve been in a funk for the last seven months would be an understatement. I’ve had a severe case of the doldrums, to say the least.

dol·drums: noun plural \ˈdōl-drəmz, ˈdäl-, ˈdȯl-\

1: a spell of listlessness or despondency

2 often capitalized: a part of the ocean near the equator abounding in calms, squalls, and light shifting winds

3: a state or period of inactivity, stagnation, or slump

2012 was one of the worst years of my life, so while I don’t know exactly what I was expecting from 2013, I was expecting something! Instead I’ve found myself just going through the motions of each day, waiting for that something to show itself. If I’m really being honest here, I had hoped that something would be a baby or at least a pregnancy. So far, no such luck there. Well, with another negative test in the trash I’m finding myself a little sick of waiting, so I’m going to attempt at pulling myself from this mud pit I’ve been trudging through and try something new.

I’m not 100% on what all this will include but I do know it will involve me doing some more talking. Don’t get me wrong, I could probably have a conversation with a tree, but that’s mostly because A) I’m not concerned about a tree judging me or giving me a “you poor thing” look, and B) it probably would be a fairly superficial conversation in which I don’t really tell the full story, just in case that tree somehow grows a face and gives me that look I’ve been hiding from.

This new stuff will involve this blog. I started it last September with no true direction to go in. Part of that lack of direction was because I wasn’t even sure how much of my life I actually wanted to share with others. As a result, it went nowhere, fast. A few months ago I came across this great blog called Sawdust & Embryos. I fell in love with her personality and I also realized that part of the appeal of the blog was the fact that she was honest about her struggles. It made me realize that my favorite bloggers are the ones that let a lot of their true colors show. They blog for themselves and we’re all just along for the ride, usually because we can relate in some way to what they’re going through.

So here I am, getting ready to start a new month and the second half of the year, and I’m ready to reboot. For those who chose to follow along here’s a warning: I will be writing for myself, no one else, as a result, I will tolerate no negativity. I kind of have a sick sense of humor, a sarcastic attitude, and can bounce from the extreme optimist to the extreme pessimist in the same thought. It makes for a dizzy conversation to follow. I apologize in advance. In my everyday life, I’m a rug-pusher, bad, so there may be days when I have a vent session more than anything. For that, I also apologize in advance. Also, I tend to write like I talk and I tend to ramble when I talk. I will do my best to not make extremely long posts, but I make no promises. My goal is to be as open and honest about my life, both the good stuff and the things I struggle with, so if you have a question, feel free to ask in the comments.

I know myself well enough to know that if I take on too much at once I won’t do any of it, so I am not going to commit to posting more than once or twice a week, for now. Hopefully as this becomes more of a habit I’ll get better. That being said I’ll be leaving tonight for Nashville, as a dear friend of mine is getting married tomorrow, so I probably will not be posting again this weekend. Of course that means my next post will probably be light and pretty, since I’ll still be hoped up on lovey-dovey wedding juice.

Have a great weekend!

PS: I’ll finally be putting together a new header, so get excited for that! (It’s the little things)

Forgiveness

It’s officially been a full week in 2013! How are your resolutions going? Mine? Some are great! Others, like working on my blog more, ha, not so great. Note the typo that still exists in my title. (As an English major this is driving me up the wall!) The hubs and I made a sort of goal list for 2013. It’s long and intimidating, so we decided to also layout time frames for when we hope to accomplish/do the things on our list. This seemed to make it less daunting. Of course, I still came out of the gate full steam and had all these grand plans and ideas for how I was going to change and be better in every way! So, when I found myself falling back into old habits or not having worked on some things that were on my long list I suddenly realized I needed to gain a bit of perspective, IT’S ONLY BEEN A WEEK!!!! I also realized that I maybe needed to add something to my resolutions list: FORGIVENESS. It’s so easy to get down on ourselves when we set out to start something new and then struggle with it. I know I’m not the only one out there, maybe some of you are finding that you may need to add forgiveness to your resolutions as well. In my head it’s easy to be logical and recognize that I’m not perfect, nor will I ever be, as well as, change takes time and routines aren’t formed in a day. Of course than this nagging voice comes in and I start comparing myself with others, which makes me feel bad about myself and the fact that I haven’t fixed that stupid typo. As I’m in bed typing all this, that right, I’m writing a post at night and not at work like a responsible person (point for me!), I actually find myself laughing at my personal criticisms and what things I struggle with. I know a lot of people whose biggest struggle is with their weight and dieting. Once upon a time, I was one of those people, but then in 2008 I reached my heaviest and found out that not only was I a little over 30% body fat, but at 23 years old I was just south of the high cholesterol border! It was a wake-up call for me, so I joined Weight Watchers and made a lifestyle change. I’m still no stick, far from it, and honestly, I just don’t have the mental drive to ever work hard enough to have rock hard abs, but I’m healthy. What does this story really have to do with anything? Its part of what I’m finding so funny about myself right now. It took me almost 2 years to reach my goal weight and be happy with whom I was physically. And I became the kind of person that, when it came to food and making the right choices, I was able to take it one week, one day, and one meal at a time. I didn’t get down on myself when I had that piece of candy, and I certainly didn’t say “screw it” and eat three boxes of candy. I learned to not get down on myself or deny myself something I wanted that wasn’t the best for me. It was an amazing feeling when I realized how I had changed. Now, as I work to take off the extra 15lbs I put on during me emotional downhill spiral of 2012, I find I still have that mentality and my food and weight resolutions are the ones I’m sticking to the most. Yet here I am laughing at myself because I still have that wrong mentality when it comes to things that are not nearly as important as my health. But, in writing this, I’m hoping that I can start to forgive myself for not done, or even started on, every single thing on my great big list. Again I say to myself, IT’S ONLY BEEN A WEEK!!!! I actually struggled with myself to even write this post, not because I was afraid that I would expose some weakness to strangers, I didn’t really care about that, but because was this close to saying “f*** it” because I didn’t really have anything exciting to share or fixed that damn typo. But then I found myself reaching for the remote to watch an hour or so of TV before falling asleep and instead decided I could send that time aimlessly rambling on my blog instead, and you know what? I’m glad I did! Because, while there was no real direction or goal for this post, I find myself at the end here feeling slightly renewed in my energy to be better and the knowledge that tomorrow is a new day and another chance to get back on the new routine horse. I find myself, forgiving, and it’s made me happy, which is the whole reason I even started blogging; because it made me happy to do so. I hope you all are not giving up easily on your resolutions. Is there something that you resolved to do that you haven’t started on this week? If so, don’t worry, there’s always tomorrow.

FYI: I haven’t fixed the stupid typo yet because I haven’t quite decided on where I want to go with my blog facelift, as well as, I usually make my title with Photoshop, which I only have on my computer at work, and I have not found the time at the office to work on it. Sorry if it’s been bothering you. If you can’t tell it’s been driving me crazy too. Hopefully that’ll be a project I can take care of this weekend.