Disinfectant Thief

You know how grocery stores now have containers of disinfectant wipes so you can degerm your cart? As I was leaving the store yesterday, I saw this guy reach into the container and pull out the whole roll of wipes. He slowly stuffed it in his bag as I gave him a dirty and disgusted look. Who steals a roll of wipes like that? As soon as I was outside the store, I felt terrible. I wished I hadn't given him that look.

For some reason, stealing the stuff meant for cleaning carts seemed more shameful than swiping a container of Clorax wipes from the Dominick's shelf. Maybe because if you got caught with the container, you'd have to return it. If you got caught with a roll of sopping, disinfectant-smelling wipes, what are they gonna do? Make you stuff in back into the container? So this got me thinking about why he was stealing them. Maybe he's got a kid at home, and baby wipes are not in his budget. Wet Ones ARE expensive. Or maybe he's homeless, and he uses these wipes to keep clean. There was something going on, and I didn't know what it was. Sure, it's wrong to take a roll of disinfectant wipes from the grocery store. But I still felt judgey and awful. I automatically judged him for doing something I do never do, but he probably has some problems I will never have.

Romantic Roller Coaster Weekend

This weekend started with a very important backstory; I have been nagging Jake to go to Six Flags pretty much ever since we started dating. So, um, for 4 years? He always has a great excuse, such as it's too hot, or too far away. Last year around this time, I had planned a trip with a very dear friend of mine for the very last day of the season, but she backed out at the very last minute. To this day, I don't think she knows how crushed I was. I cried over it and moped around my apartment like a mopey mope pants the whole day. I was SO upset that my plan to ride roller coasters was foiled once again.

Finally, yes, this year, it is true, Jake caved and said we could go on a trip. But no, not Six Flags, he said. If we were going to go ride roller coasters, we were going to go to Ohio to Cedar Point, home of the biggest baddest roller coasters on the planet (or something).

He booked the hotel room, I rented the car, we headed out on our grand adventure Friday after work. Our trip was much upgraded by the satellite radio — there was an 80s station and a 90s station, which we both muchly enjoyed — a very comfortable hotel bed, and great weather for our day at the park. Although we spent a lot of time waiting in line with awkward 14 year olds, the rides were definitely worth it. They were much more exciting and scarier than our memories of Six Flags. Especially this crazy one:



We waited extra long to ride in the first car, and that one was our favorite. But even the wooden rides that didn't flip upside down were fun. We want to go back again next year and ride some of the coasters we missed. There was also a Christian metal band called Skillet playing that we could hear while we waited in line! (::sarcasm::)

New Season

There's no doubt about it. Fall's here. This is how I know.


The Big Star patio, usually packed, was empty yesterday.

One of the coworkers who graciously drove me home yesterday evening joked about turning on the heat.

Another coworker noticed the yellow tint of the leaves on the trees outside our office.

Someone came to work wearing a hat.

I have a hankering for pumpkin scones and cider.

I sipped a fall-flavored pomegranate martini while preparing dinner.

Every time of year is my favorite time of year in Chicago for different reasons. The reason I like this one is because it's a season of transition. Fall is very short in this city. But it's nice to have these few weeks where I can bike to work without packing a change of clothes, a necessity both in the summer and the winter. And it's still warm enough where the windows are open. When I unlock my bike in the morning, I can here American Girl from one neighbor's apartment and If You Leave from another's.

Saying Thank You

30 gifts to 30 strangers in Sydney from Lucas Jatoba on Vimeo.

I found this wonderful little 30 gifts to 30 strangers video via Operation NICE. It brought a tear to my eye. When you are living in a foreign country, you appreciate SO much the niceness of strangers. You are far away from friends and family, and when someone goes out of their way to do something nice to you, it makes this strange faraway place feel a bit more like home. I come from the overly friendly Midwest, where everyone is generally nice and helpful. You take it for granted, until you realize the whole world isn't like that.

I love the idea of turning it around and saying thank you to strangers.

Favorite Things of August

My friend Erin over at Alcoholics Conspicuous posted about her favorite things of August, so I thought I’d do the same. Here we go.

Goodwill

This has actually been a favorite thing of mine since I started working at Threadless in March. It’s a 3-minute walk from work and has amazing things such as this beautiful dress for $9.95.

Pricey for a Goodwill purchase, but totally worth it, obviously. I wonder how this dress got made in the first place. Maybe it was a bridesmaid's dress? What lucky bridesmaids!

Losing 5 lbs. or maybe 7

Your beautiful Goodwill dress might fit a little baggy, but that’s okay. Also you will probably gain them back after you stop training for your triathlon. Speaking of which.

Doing a triathlon

My mom reminded me that I mentioned doing this in high school. I have entertained the idea of doing a this since I was 14, which means it’s taken 11 years for me to get around to it. If I were smart, I woulda done it in high school so I could have guilted my parents into buying me a multi-thousand dollar bike because I was on the honor roll and stuff. Just kidding, I wouldn’t have done that. Anyway, I finally trained for and did one, the biggish Olympic distance one, and even though I wasn’t too fast, but wasn’t too slow either. Also, I rode on my old vintage Schwinn, which prolly weighed 20 pounds more than any other bike on the course. It was a lot of fun. I have already signed up for subsequent swim practices, yay.

Winning a trip to Paris

Remember when that happened? SO AWESOME. We submitted our ticket requests today so hopefully we hear back soon if we get the dates we want. Jake and I hope to be in Paris in October.

Learn Vest

Muchas gracias to my manager who recommended this email newsletter and website. It’s a finance and budget website specifically for women. If you are a lady, check it out. Lots of tips and really interesting information from a female perspective. Since I am already super cheap and save heaps of money by doing things like riding my bike to work, shopping at Goodwill (SHHH don’t tell anyone I got my prom dress there), and cooking at home, not much of their information is helping me save that much more money, but I really like the articles and thought starters it provides otherwise.

Freelancin’

I’ve picked up some smaller gigs here and there this month. I haven’t received the checks yet, but when I do they are going straight to the Paris fund. The best meal I ever ate was here, but it’s not cheap. Thanks freelancing cash, you're really going to help me out! Can’t wait to pay taxes on you later.

Purging my closet

One of my roommates and I donated a ton of clothes to Howard Brown earlier this month. Going through my closet and getting rid of stuff was so much easier than I thought it would be. I just got invited last-minute to a clothing exchange, but it was easy to go through my closet again and pull out more stuff that I haven’t worn in forever. My style is changing as I grow older or hipper or whatever, and I just don’t wear the same things I used to.

Reverbin': August Prompt

Describe an unexpected moment, activity, sighting or conversation that touched you during July.

I betcha you didn't guess this was going to come back to Paris! But I absolutely cannot think of any other way to respond to this prompt than by talking about how surprised I was by how many people helped me win this trip (if you somehow missed it, I won a trip for 2 to Paris and 5 nights in a hotel I would never be able to pay for otherwise). I'd like to think that 600 people voted for me in this thing because they know how much I love France and know I would do the same thing for them. But... I don't know 600 people that well. No way, jose. So, what really happened is a buncha people that I know hardly well — maybe once worked with or went to high school with or studied abroad with ages ago — as well as a buncha people I have never even met — friends of family and friends of friends — went and voted on this thing because someone asked them to and they thought it would be a nice thing to do.

Once again, I'll bring up that my victory was nearly derailed by a nasty cheater. Even as his number of votes continued to grow, mine kept creeping up, too. I was fairly confident he would be removed from the competition, but even so I was blown away by all the people that kept working to get me votes so that I could still win. I'm a writer, so I should have a better way to say it, but simply put, it was just nice. Really, really, nice.

A few weeks later, I'm still not finished thanking everyone I know who voted for me, and I don't even know how to thank those I don't! But all this excitement made July one of the most bestest months ever.

Wake Up Call: Biking is Dangerous

A biker got killed in Chicago on Friday night. She slipped under a garbage truck and wasn’t able to get out fast enough. The driver didn’t see her.

I love riding my bike everywhere and wouldn’t have it any other way. I love the exercise and the freedom to get from point A to point B without having to wait for a train or bus or pay oodles of money for a cab. And even though I am one of the safest bikers I know — I always wear my helmet, have bright front and back lights, and anticipate that drivers won’t see me anyway so bike proactively — it’s still dangerous. This biker’s horrible death reminded me of that.

The following night, I was biking to meet up with friends and feeling a bit skiddish for obvious reasons. I was being extra special careful, and just as I was about to pull up to the bar, a cabbie suddenly pulled over and cut me off. Stuff like this happens all the time. If you’re paying attention, as I was, it’s not a big deal. He didn’t come close to hitting me, but that’s because I knew if I didn’t get out of the way, he would.

I was perfectly fine, but annoyed and angry. I’ve had much closer brushes with injury, but his lack of concern pissed me off. He’s a cabbie, I know. I can’t expect otherwise. But because of the recent death of the biker, I felt especially irked. Normally I would forget about something like this, but this time I decided to say something to the dude. Before he had a chance to zoom away, I walked up to him and said calmly, but sternly “Hey. You just cut me off. You can’t say you didn’t see me, because I know you did. I’m trying to be careful out here. You need to do the same.”

He said he was sorry. I said “Okay. Well it’s my life. And ‘I’m sorry’ won’t save it.”

I didn’t really feel better after giving the cabbie my two cents. Maybe he’ll be more careful for a few hours, but it’s his job to get places fast. He’ll forget. Also, he’s only one cabbie in a city of thousands. I’m not going to stop riding my bike, but I’ll do my best to be even more careful, if that’s even possible.

!! On #WINNING !!

As you probably already know if you follow my Facebook or Twitter or know me in real life, I WON the Air France USA contest. When the contest closed, I had more than 600 votes and the second place person was somewhere around 250. The cheater dude, skeezy Eric P. was disqualified a couple hours earlier for his magical ability to instantly acquire 750 votes. Shortly after voting closed, I received an “official” congratulatory email from Air France USA’s social media people. They said: “Internally you were easily one of our favorite candidates and we are thrilled to see the way that the votes fell in your favor, congratulations again and thank you for participating!”

So what do I win? I win two round-trip tickets on Air France to Paris. And I win five nights in Pullman Montparnasse (initially I thought it was Montmartre. I was wrong, but this hotel looks pretty swanky). Pets are allowed so I can bring Libby!!!! She does love Paris. I am hoping to go in the fall sometime and will be taking Jake, who ever so patiently maintained his cool this past week as I was literally freaking out 24/7 about winning this thing. If Jake can’t make it because the Cardinals are playing, I’ll take my sister. If my sister can’t make it, I’ll take my aunt. If my aunt can’t make it, I’ll take my mom. If none of them can make it, maybe I’ll take you. Let me know, and I’ll add your name to the waiting list.

I still can’t believe I won, and I really can’t believe how many people helped me do it. First off, for my entry I have to thank coworkers Nikki and Alex for helping me out. And then, once I made it to the top 10 I contacted every single I person I knew asking for votes, but I certainly do not know 600 people. I had so many people rallying for me. My whole triathlon club voted. The Threadless community voted. My neighbors voted. My whole work voted. I am pretty sure a lot of my old coworkers voted, too. My aunt asked people she knew on her train, my sister’s boyfriend asked his coworkers, my dad asked everyone at his favorite restaurant, Jake’s mom asked all her friends. Once the nasty cheater revealed himself and jumped ahead by 200 votes, I was so surprised by how many people were pulling for me and asking everyone they knew to help me out. The cheater kept going, but so did my fan club. I was somehow able to pull in 100 more votes yesterday, and that was long after I had asked everyone I knew. I’m fairly certain those last 100 people didn’t even know me. And I don’t know them, so I can’t even thank them.

If you voted for me, thank you. If you got your friends to vote for me, thank you more! You have no idea how excited I am. Paris is my favorite city and I am so excited to go back.

Everyone's asking me about the cheater, and I don't know much about his tactics. All I know is that he had about 50 votes Sunday morning, and suddenly had 400, gained 200 more overnight, and by the time he was removed from the competition Monday afternoon, was up to 800. I personally think he wrote a script or code or application or something that was automated. His votes wouldn't move for hours, then would suddenly shoot up in a short amount of time. He was a very unintelligent cheater, and I am happy for that. :-)

SO Close to Paris!

There are few things that would make me jump up and down in my apartment, run back and forth, and screech like a crazy lady. 1. Winning the lottery (because then I could go to France) and 2. Finding out that I was really close to winning a trip to France.

Air France USA is running this contest. They asked their Facebook fans to create an image or photo around the theme "Picture Yourself in Paris," and that is exactly what I did. See below:



I mean I thought it was pretty good. I had help from some awesome coworkers named Nikki and Alex and I really thought it turned out smashingly well. And when weeks and weeks later I found out that I was one of the top 10 finalists out 1,800 to win this trip — two round-trip tickets on classy Air France plus 5 nights in a hotel in Montmartre (that's where a lot of Amelie was filmed. It's a beautiful area!) — I jumped up and down in my apartment, ran to and fro, and screeched like a crazy lady.

Wanna help me win? YEAH YOU DO.

Like Air France USA and then like my entry (the first one). If I win, I will send you a postcard or a baguette, whichever you prefer! Voting closes August 1, so do it now!

Death by Email

Reverb Prompt: What new thing will you try this month?

I notice when I make improvements in my life, other things start to slip.

So I joined this triathlon club, and for the most part, have been doing a great job at showing up to practices — some of which are at 5:30 and 6:30 a.m. — and kicking ass at some really hard workouts. And to do that, I’ve had to go to sleep at reasonable hours and been trying to put good things in my body (like Bloody Marys! Tomatoes are good for you!). So that’s great.

But now that I am running and swimming and biking at all hours of the day, I’m not staying on top of other things. Like emails. That sounds so minor, but when I realized I had 100+ unread emails in my inbox, I just stopped opening my inbox.

I feel compelled to respond to every single person who emails me, but I never have the time. So I mark emails as unread to remind myself to get back to them. And then, a few days later, I have more than 100 unread emails.

I went to a coffee shop last night with the mission of getting my stupid email inbox in order. I spent time unsubscribing from newsletters and listservs I don’t care for. I removed email notifications from many of my Facebook and Twitter notifications. I organized my labels so it’s easier to digest my inbox at a glance.

Also, I’m going to work on not responding to every email. I will delete some. People will not be sitting behind their computers wondering “WHERE IS MY RESPONSE FROM BETSY!??!?!” They will deal.

This month, I will try to declutter my email life and respond only to the important emails. Because who wants to spend their free time reading and responding to emails? Ugh. Life is too short to spend all of it emailing.

Try a Tri? Okay.

After my sunrise adventure last Friday, I was changing into my work clothes at the gym locker room when I heard a couple women talking about triathlons. I've always been interested in triathlons for lots of reasons: it seems pretty badass, triathletes have the best bods eva, and unlike marathons (of which I've run three), there's variety. I joined in the conversation and one woman told me she was in our gym's tri club. She said the club had a lot of new folks who'd never done a tri before, and she loved it. She recommended that I join.

So I did.

And the next morning, I was gathered with a bunch of strangers, ready to run five miles. That was a week ago, and I've since attended almost every workout. And I'm tired. Really tired. But I'm going to keep going to the practices and see what happens.

When I was unemployed, I told myself when I got a full-time job, I'd do a tri. These suckers are expensive including the race costs and all the gear. But of course I never followed through, even though I've been a working girl since last spring. Afraid of something? Maybe just sacrificing my social life. Also, even though I can afford to buy a wetsuit, do I wanna? Do I want to be that girl who has a wetsuit hanging next to her summer dresses in the closet?

About one week in, I'm thinking maybe yes. I haven't registered for an actual race yet, but there's one at the end of August. I know that if I'm going to do this, I'm going to go all out. I'm not doing a wussy sprint tri. I'm going to do the Olympic distance, mile swim, 25-mile bike and 6-mile run.

But I still haven't regiatered yet...

I've always wanted to do this. For years and years. I think before I even aspired to run a marathon I thought about triathlons. I was worried I wouldn't know what I was doing, but the tri club has three coaches who are there for exactly that reason. It is pretty hard, too. Even though I'm always swimming/biking/kinda running, these practices are faster and tougher. So maybe I'm worried about being tired for two months straight.

I dunno why I'm so apprehensive about registering. Someone convince me?

Early Morning

I had trouble sleeping last night. I was extremely nervous that I was going to oversleep my alarm, which was set to wake me up at 4 a.m.

Last week, a friend had the brilliant idea to catch the sunrise on the lake. He emailed the group and everyone was ecstatic about it, except no one wanted to wake up too early. Unfortunately, waking up too early is how you catch the sunrise. A few of us were ecstatic enough to do what needed to be done in order to achieve this magnificent goal. Hence the 4 a.m. alarm, which I ended up not even needing. I was awake a couple hours earlier.

As I was leaving home, some people were just trickling out of bars. But the streets were pretty deserted, as you would imagine. We met at Chess Pavilion at 5 a.m. and watched the sun come up.

It was every bit as peaceful and pretty and wonderful as you'd imagine. Then we biked over to Lincoln Park Zoo to try to see some animals, but they were all sleeping. Who woulda thought camels sleep?

We then biked to a diner, where we ate leisurely breakfast and accepted every coffee refill that was offered. And then we biked to work.

I was glad I snapped myself out my regular routine to do this. It made me love Chicago more, because I saw a different part of the city.

Get 'Er Done

I like to be a busy person. I like to fill my day with this and that, the gym and French class and volunteering and baking some banana muffins and then maybe running to Dominick's to get a great deal on Greek yogurt. I have trouble just sitting around, unless I'm reading a book. Sitting around bores me to death.

But then, I don't have time to do my laundry or catch up on emails or figure out what I'm bringing for lunch tomorrow. Then I get all stressed out. 'I'M SO BUSY' I *wail* to myself. Then my roommate will innocently ask me "How was your day today?" And I will say "Oh, fine. Busy." But in my head I'm thinking 'JEBUS CRIPES I HAVE SO MUCH TO DO! HOW DO PEOPLE FINISH EVERYTHING IN 24 HOURS??!?!'

But remember how I said I like to be busy? And that I'm the one who adds all this stuff to my schedule? So me not getting home until 9 p.m. last night and being too tired (and hot) to cook dinner was no one's fault but my own.

Really it's just about prioritizing. Before I went to sleep last night, I made myself cut down the unread 100+ emails in my inbox down to 10. It didn't take that long, only about 20 minutes. But I felt a lot better because something looming was close to not looming anymore. Then I woke up early this morning and made a delicious lunch and got some things in order and was ready to start the day before I really needed to. Now, when I get home tonight and my roommate asks me how my day was, I can say "Oh, fine. Busy." but minus the screaming in my head part.

* this is a funny word and I like it very much.

Doctor Recommended Preparation H!

I bought a travel pack of Preparation H wipes yesterday. No, not because of the burning and itching on my butt. Because CVS paid me $2 to buy it! (yes I had coupons and stuff, but it'll take me too long to explain it. Just go here.) You know what $2 can buy you these days? Well about a fraction of a whole box of Maximum Strength Pain Relief Preparation H Cream, that's what! Also one Big Star taco or one sip of a Violet Hour drink.

But in all seriousness, I'll either ask around and see if anyone's having hemorrhoid problems, and offer the PH wipes as a thoughtful gift for their birthday or just because, or, I'll donate them. Unlike Extreme Couponing hoarder people, I don't have extra rooms, garages and deep freezers to store my stockpile of worthless crap I got for free with coupons. I only have two tubes of Colgate stocked up, not 100. Although I have to admit, it's sometimes hard to resist "buying" all that free toothpaste at times, but I do often resist, because how much toothpaste do one girl and her cat need?

I watched a few episodes of Extreme Couponing when the show first started, and I quickly got bored and frustrated. It's the same thing over and over: stay-at-home mom spends 40-8,203 hours a week clipping coupons and scouring ads and stores for the best deals, makes a detailed Excel spreadsheet, heads to store where she buys 100 bottles of Gatorade, 67 boxes of pasta, and 74 Milky Way Bars, among other things, hits minor snafu when all coupons won't scan because the cash register cannot process 1,000+ coupons in one transaction, but then it works out, pays 1 percent of what the stuff is worth, rolls outta the store a few hours later with 7 carts of junk guaranteed to give her whole family diabetes, HOORAY! Sorry if you haven't seen it, and I just ruined the show for you. :-/

I'm frustrated with the show because it doesn't give a realistic vision of how average people can save money with coupons. How you can get a lot of healthier foods and most toiletries for cheap, and how saving money doesn't need to be a full-time job. I save money on lots of stuff: yogurt, oatmeal, shaving cream, and body wash for example. And I don't dedicate my Saturday nights to rifling through people's garbage in hopes of finding their discarded coupon inserts (well, maybe just that one time. OKAY FINE I will admit to finding some coupons on the sidewalk when I was walking home late at night once and picking them up).

I buy what I need, and that's it. And I save heaps of money doing so. You can't argue with that!

And also, you know what? I read that "Prep-H has a well deserved reputation tightening eye bags and for aiding in the healing of dry, cracked and irritated skin." Maybe I'll jut keep those wipes to myself then.

Lucky Duck

My dad always says “I’ve got more luck than brains!” I grew up with him saying it, and it lost it’s humor long before I even understood what it meant. Now that I think about it, I don’t rightly agree with that. I believe more strongly in a quote from Cal Hockley (Titanic, DUH!):

A real man makes his own luck.

Or, if you scoff your nose at this brilliant film, I’ll give you a quote by a real person, possibly more respected than Billy Zane’s character in the 1997 historical fiction masterpiece. Benjamin Franklin said:

I am a strong believer in luck and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

Whenever I think about people that I think are really lucky — the sucky copywriting student who landed a kickass job when her more talented peers didn't, my sister randomly being awarded a scholarship, my friends who moved to Germany and Jordan with grant money — I remind myself how hard those people worked to get to those places.

My sister for example, who has been rejected for what feels like 10 scholarships before getting this one. Or my friend, who has been learning Arabic for years. Of course he got a Fulbright, and of course when it ended, he was offered a job that'll send him around the world to travel. Because he speaks effing Arabic. (And because he’s awesome in general). Or a more trite example: I get amazing stuff at the Goodwill, like BCBG and Banana Republic dresses, and really cute heels, and brand new jeans. But I pick over every single thing in that store multiple times a week, so I see all the new stuff when it comes it and sweep it up.

For anyone waiting for a lucky break — and these days, especially for someone around my age, it’s usually job related — I don’t really think there’s enough luck out there to go around. It comes down to hard work, and repetition, and failing multiple multiple times before you succeed. Whenever I come across the folder saved on my computer with all the resumes and cover letters and portfolios I put together for the roughly gabazillion jobs I applied for over the seven months I was unemployed, I want to cry just at the memory of it. But, I have a great job now! Might I dare say my dream job? Yes I think so. I’m so lucky to have it.

* The only thing I can’t argue with is someone who wins a vacation via a sweepstakes. That’s lucky. I guess they deserve it by entering the content anyway. But I enter those things all the time and I never win. *

A Writer Who Doesn't Write

When I tell people I'm a writer, I feel like a liar. Yes, I write every single day, all day, at work, but I have a difficult time making time to write for myself. And, writers are supposed to read. I read on average, 1-2 books a month, but that's not nearly enough. I wish it were more like one a week.

I've been able to make myself read and write more at times, but only in spurts. I challenged myself to blog every day for the month of December and was able to pound out 31 posts throughout the month.

Saying that I don't have time isn't an excuse. It's like people who say they don't have time to exercise. I simply don't believe it. If exercise is something you really want to do, then you do it. "I don't have time to exercise" means "I don't make time for exercise." And it's the same with making time to write.

So what's the solution? To do it. Since I rarely have time after work (I'm at the gym, or at French class, or stopping by the store to get stuff for dinner), I'm going to start waking up a little bit earlier every day so I can write in the mornings. So see you tomorrow morning, and the next morning and the next. I have to get in the habit of doing this now before it's too late.

Where's The Toilet?

This evening as I was leaving the gym, I was greeted by a frantic text from my roommate.

"Sooo just got home... the toilet is in the shower and the sink is in the living room..."

Now, we were expecting our landlord and his maintenance crew to be doing some work in the bathroom. They notified us they'd be doing some pretty major work to replace the ancient pipes, but he told us the only inconvenience to us would be that the wall would be ripped out for a few days. No big deal.

But the toilet in the bathtub was a big deal, as you can imagine. I called our landlord to see what was up. I tried not to make any assumptions and be as nice as possible, but I was secretly pretty pissed. He had no idea what the state of our apartment was and apologized a million times. He said he'd figure out what the deal was and call me back.

Turns out their work was taking longer than they expected, and the guys were still working on it, but were in a different part of the building. They intended to come back and finish things up for the night (ie put the toilet and sink back where they belonged). We just thought they had left everything all over the place and went home.

In the end, it wasn't that big of a deal. And I guess the lesson here is to never make assumptions. I could have been really rude to my landlord when I called to ask wtf was going on. But I was nice, and he was nice, and everything worked out. Now we can pee and take showers!

What's Blossoming?

April #reverb10 prompt: What’s blossoming?

I started writing this blog post and stopped, then started writing and stopped again several times throughout the month of April. I never finished it, because I didn’t feel I had any “blossming” things worth bragging about. Also, I don't think I liked the question really. All I could think of was flowers.

I felt I had to answer something HUGE. Four months into 2011, and I had to have accomplished something gargantuan, right? When in fact, nothing huge was happening. Except that I started a new job, which was kind of huge. And I stood up in a good friend’s wedding, which was also huge. But none of those things felt huge enough to make a big deal about.

The hugeness I wanted to celebrate was that I could finally do a handstand or that I had written a novel or run another marathon. Something that had taken time, but something that I could finally say “yes. yes it’s true. I did that thing, finally.” But I am nowhere closer to doing those things than I was several months ago. And when I realized that, I felt that I had wasted these months doing nothing. But that’s not true. A lot of things take time, and what matters is that I am moving in the right direction.

I can’t do a handstand but I can do the six postures of vinyasa yoga without resting.
I haven’t written a novel, but I have been inspired to write more.
I haven’t run a marathon, but I have been running once a week.

The things I am trying to improve about myself are things that take time and patience. I am typically not a very patient person, so I don’t like to admit that. Getting better at something just takes continuous practice, and as long as I am sticking to that practice, then I should be proud of myself.

Muscle Definition Class = Not for Me

The pool is closed for a week for cleaning, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to branch out and try some other things at my gym. Muscle Definition seemed like it could be fun.

I wish I could recount a tale about how I was so helplessly lost amidst the other muscle definers that it was actually quite funny. But it wasn’t really. I was miserable and everyone could see. I thought I was being discrete setting up shop in the back of the room, but the instructor took position there instead of the front. So I was instead stuck in front of the mirror for everyone to notice that I was not 100 pounds, not wearing skin tight Lululemon everything and that my hair wasn’t blonde.

I disliked how EXCITED the instructor was. I disliked that I looked stupid. I disliked that the music was so loud. I disliked that I didn’t know we were supposed to switch arms during the weight lifting bit and only used my left arm. I disliked that something smelled vaguely of cat pee. Was it my shirt? My sports bra? My shoes? (My shorts, I later discovered. Dunno how that happened. THANKS CAT!) Really all of those things combined made it an absolutely horrible class that I couldn’t wait to leave. And I definitely would have ducked out early if I wouldn’t have had to crawl over everyone to get out.

I guess... I’m proud of myself for trying something new. And at least I now know that I’ll never ever go back.

Would you rather...

Yesterday, my friends and I somehow got on the topic of babies. ‘Would you rather have a baby right now or never have one?’ someone asked. ‘Never,’ I said. Most of my friends said the same. We had different reasons. Pretty much everyone said they wouldn’t be equipped to care for a child. They wouldn’t know how. They would be horrible parents, they thought.

I’ve spent a lot of time with kids, both in schools and as a babysitter and tutor. I like them a lot. I could take care of a kid just fine. I’m not saying it’s an easy task or anything, but I would genuinely enjoy being a mom, I think. But it’s not what I want to do right now, or anytime soon.

My reason for saying I’d rather be babyless forever than having one now is that there is so much I want to do before I’m ready for babies. Maybe I want to write a book. Or live in France (DUH). Mostly, I want to travel. I want to scrimp and save every last penny so that I can travel the world. You can’t do such things with babies. You really have to be more settled to do that. And I don’t want to settle right now.