Not so wordless Wednesday

I would love to just post a picture. But then you wouldn't understand my meaning for posting it. So it can't be a completely wordless Wednesday.

There is this slight anomaly in my life right now where R and I live in different states. So during the week I am all by myself. Which sometimes I absolutely love. But sometimes being alone here makes me miss him more than I know what to do with. Lately I have been really missing him. So here is a picture from a recent vacation. Gosh, I want to be with him right now...

Call Me Ishmael

I have decided that I like this blogging thing. I like it and I like the outlet it gives me. I like it and I don't want to share it.

To this point my blog has been pretty anonymous. I have decidedly not put my real name on this blog. I have also decidedly not put anyone else's real name on my blog. This is not to avoid stalkers or anything like that. I have not told anyone in my real life about this blog. I do not want to share it.

Though to be fair I have been using real initials for people, including myself. And today I decided that should stop. Today I decided that I want to make darn sure no one in my real life could look at this blog and recognize the initials and go oh hey this is her blog. I don't want a friend or family member or coworker to walk up to me and go are you K? I want to keep my anonymity. I want to keep my blog separate from people I know.

I suppose you could say that I am hiding. And in a way I am. But I just do not want to have to deal with all the drama I think would come from people in my life reading my blog. I do not want to feel like I have to censor myself or tiptoe around subjects being afraid of backlash. I want to be me, all me, all the time. I do not want to have to worry about my mother reading this and being disapproving of anything I post here. I do not want my boyfriend reading this and getting upset with me for sharing personal things. (Though to be fair I do not think he would mind one bit. If I told anyone that I blog, I would tell him.) I do not want friends or family or coworkers approaching me upset because they felt like I depicted them wrongly, or hurt that I spoke my mind. Currently I do not really post anything negative that people could get upset with me about. But I do not want to have to hold myself back later on just because I know they read my blog and might get upset.

I know that I should not care what other people think and I should post exactly what I want to post. But, I just can't do it. If I knew that people in my real life read my blog I would always be wondering what they thought about me and if I hurt their feelings. Plus sometimes you need to vent and get things out of your system. It is not necessarily gossip, but it is something you would not normally say to a person's face. It is something that once you have talked about, you get over and it doesn't matter anymore. It is something I would not post if I knew they might read it or hear about it. Theoretically it is something I should just not post at all. And I can't do that to myself. I can't censor this blog. I just don't want to.

You can fuss at me for hiding my real self from the people I know. But I don't see this blog as hiding my real self. I think I am usually my real self, just my real self who knows there is such a thing as tact. And if I am ever not my total, complete, true self well then those are my issues to deal with. And maybe I am not ready to deal with them yet. Maybe I am still discovering who I really am and posting on this blog is my testing ground. I want to be free to post everything I want to post. I want to be able to write things I normally might not say. I want to be able to express myself and not worry about what other people think of me. Maybe one day I will get to the point where I tell people about this blog and will be able to not worry about what they think. But I am so not even close to that yet.

So the whole entire point of this was to say that I think I need a new name. I need a name that has nothing to do with my real name. I need a name that no one in my real life would recognize. But I still need to be willing to answer to it in the blogosphere. I need a new persona. I need to find something that just feels right. A name that I can embrace and make real and make my own.

I am having a hard time coming up with something. I had a hard time naming this blog in the first place. I know I will come up with something soon. And if you have suggestions I would be happy to hear them. I might not even settle on a new name right away. I hope I don't go through too many. I do not want to confuse those few people who might actually read me too much. I think whatever I choose for my own name will probably stick the first time I use it. The new name for R might be more difficult for me to settle on. So if in the future you see funny names you don't recognize I hope they still make sense to you. And just know that I should sort all this out soon. I hope.

Smell Me!

No this is not a joke. I smell pretty good right now. I just got back from the mall and a visit to Bath & Body Works. I am looking for a new perfume and I smell pretty good after testing them out. Plus I need advice.

I like Bath & Body Works because they have some good fragrances. I do not like them for being a corporate pain in the you know what. I mean what is this fascination with discontinuing fragrances? Just when I find one I like they discontinue it. And of course it was like the only one in the store I really liked. And of course I only figured out it was discontinued after they had no more in the store and could not stock up on anything. But maybe it will come back for the semi-annual sales. Or maybe you can still get it online. Or maybe it is just gone for good, ha ha ha ha. Or maybe you should try this other fragrance that smells like the old one, only it really doesn't. Blarg!

Years ago I loved Juniper Breeze and they discontinued it. Then it took me a while to find Country Apple, but oh how I adored it. I honestly think this was my all time favorite, ever. Then that only came back for the stupid semi-annual sales. Sometimes, if I was lucky. Until they came out with some new crap they called Irresistible Apple, which is NOT the same I do not care how many times you try to brainwash me into believing it. It is quite different and not what I want, though it may be growing on me. Next, I moved on to the Breathe, pink colored lotion which was the only acceptable scent at the time for me. Which I still have some of because since R saw me buy some he went ahead and bought me some for my birthday. And when he bought it they were having the 3 for $18 sale or some nonsense so of course I got 3 or 4 of the exact same thing which I had just purchased 2 of, so I still have plenty. After that I had a very brief stint with the Calming, blue body wash because our introduction came by way of a sale bin because it was being discontinued as was my pink Breathe. Tonight I went looking for some of my current fave, Magnolia Blossom and well of course it was discontinued and they had absolutely nothing. Not only did they have nothing, the sales lady was so frank about telling me it was gone for good I was almost speechless. I asked her if it might come back for the sales and she said probably not. I was devastated. I mean why do they discontinue all the ones I really ever liked. I do not like any of the other signature fragrances they have right now. I think I smelled them all.

I do not think that "discontinuing" items is the smartest sales tool. I guess it might get you more income when you bring things back for a limited time only and people want it so they come and stock up on it. But this has never appealed to me. I have never wanted to try a McRib, no matter how many times it comes back. I know I will get sincerely pissed off when I have kids because I will want to buy them a certain Disney movie which will be "in the vault" and unavailable. Why don't them have them all for sale all the time? I mean I am a bargain shopper. I do not buy things full price unless I really really really want it. And that does not happen very often for me. I will wait until what I want goes on sale and then if they are out by that time or if they no longer have my size then it wasn't meant to be. So I am not going to go out of my way to remember when your semi-annual sale is taking place so I can stock up on full price items, maybe, if you have them. Because I have tried that route before when I really wanted the Country Apple. And I was too late because one woman had bought the entire case the first day of the sale and that is all they were getting. Screw that. I mean even if you take it out of the store and only sell it online or something would be better than having it gone completely.

So now that I have vented about my discontentment with the whole discontinuation process I can tell you why you should smell me. I think I might have found something I like. I did not buy it tonight and they better still have it when I go back next week to test it again and make sure I like it. And then they need to keep it forever. Along with bringing back my faves full time. But back from dream world, I did find a new something something. There is this Pink line of stuff. Apparently it is from Victoria Secret. They have a clean smell and a fruity one and I like the fruity one. It kind of smells like apples and that makes me happy. My only hope is that if I do start really liking this one that if Bath & Body Works discontinues it that I might still be able to find in the the Victoria Secret smell good store. I suppose I should determine if this is true before falling for the fragrance. I am tired of being let down when my favorites disappear. Smells can be soothing and help you feel good. I want to feel good again.

So do you think I should do it again? Should I trust that Bath & Body works will have this fragrance long enough for me to get tired of it first before it gets discontinued? Would you go for it or would you find a real perfume somewhere else that probably won't get discontinued? I want to like this fragrance. I really do. But I don't want to be let down again.

Everyone loves a good story

Tonight I finished a really good book. I really love to read and have recently discovered audiobooks. Audiobooks are wonderful and really help to pass the time on my weekend drives. I was at the library last week and had no audiobooks on hold so I had to browse the shelf hoping to find something good. I found a couple of decent ones before I came across The Girl Who Stopped Swimming by Joshilyn Jackson. I got so excited when I found this in audiobook on the shelf. I had been meaning to request her latest books and was so happy to find it waiting on the shelf just for me. I knew I had postponed my trip to the library for a good reason last week. Normally I am more of a crime mystery reader but I absolutely loved Joshilyn Jackson's first book Gods in Alabama. So far both of her books have included tales set in small southern towns and I love the way she describes them. Her books are really about the characters though. There are these amazing women who come from the small towns with secrets that followed them out. Those secrets are woven deeper into the fabric of these small town families than you would ever expect. Just when you think you have discovered the big bad secret, there is even more to it. I get caught up in the story and find myself imagining myself as one of the characters. I really like Joshilyn's work. I have always thought of her as an easygoing person who writes stories that could be about any one of us. But, I suppose I might feel more of a connection to her now that I have been following her blog, Faster Than Kudzu. She is honestly just so friendly and hilarious. She tends to think less of herself than everyone else, for some reason I cannot fathom, because her antics are great. Heck when she recently joined the world of Facebook I even friended her.

I guess all I am really trying to say is that I like Joshilyn Jackson and I like her work. I can relate to her stories and they make me want to write one of my own. Have you ever read a book you liked so much it made you want to write one of your own? This feeling may have something to do with the fact that Joshilyn is so down to earth I feel like we could be friends. Or maybe it is the small town southern thing which I feel a connection to. But really I just think she is good at writing and making it seem effortless like the story just fell into place. I like her stories so much they really do make me want to try it myself.

And since she is so down to earth I really hope she doesn't mind me writing an entire post about her books. I think she would be flattered, if she ever even finds out about my little blog. Regardless I wanted to share her work with you all so you might discover her too. Finishing her book this evening made me happy. I am going to bed tonight feeling good and I like that. I am looking forward to reading her next book out called Between, Georgia.

Happy Reading!

Rivals

In sports it seems that every team has a natural rival. In my hometown it was our high school, football team versus our closest neighboring team. In college, while getting my undergrad the team was not much good and I can't tell you who the rival was. Then for grad school I went to LSU. This was different, because our team was good. Therefore it seemed we had a lot of rivals. But one always stood out and that was Alabama. From what I understand this rivalry went back decades. But recently there has been something added to the pot that makes it that much worse. LSU won the national championship in 2003 with Nick Saban as head coach. Then he decided to leave LSU. I will let you guess where he decided to go. That's right, he is now the head coach for Alabama. I think there was some brief NFL stuff in between maybe and a lot more to the story than I can tell you right now. But basically LSU players and fans were pissed to put it lightly. I mean the guy who we had just won championships with left us for our rival. The tension has been interesting these past couple of years. Saban has been the but of many jokes and lots of people feel he is a traitor. Last year LSU had to play Alabama in Tuscaloosa. This is the first year that Saban has come back to LSU and this game is a huge deal. Not only is there a great rivalry between the teams, Alabama is currently ranked #1 and LSU would love to beat them.

So today my day is all about football. I really hope LSU is up to the challenge and can bring something to this game. So far I have been surprised and the game is tied 14 to 14 at the half. Lets hope LSU can pull it out. I know I will be all about football and food the rest of the day. I hope you have a good Saturday and that your favorite college team wins too.

Go LSU!

Oh the Things I've seen...

Everyone is unique and everyone has a right to be who they are. But sometimes who you are just does not make a lot of sense to other people. I work in Houston, which is the 4th largest city in the US or something like that. So I get the opportunity to see lots of interesting people. This morning I passed by a person who truly made me laugh out loud. I think you would have laughed too.

Picture for me if you can that you have just driven into work and parked your car in the lot.

To get to your building you must cross the street at an intersection which looks not unlike this.

So you are waiting patiently for the walk signal which looks something like this,

and you hear a car drive up on your left and stop for the red light. Now seeing as cars are not unusual at intersections there has to be something different about this car to make you notice it. Now it is not something like this,
though to be fair I have seen a few like that in downtown Houston.

No, it is something more like this, which is to be expected in downtown Houston.

So there obviously had to be something else that made this particular Porsche Cayenne stand out. Well first let me say it was a pretty pearl blue color. And also that it had all the windows down. One would expect windows down and music blaring in the afternoon, but not this early in the morning. Yet here is a car with the windows down and music blaring at 7am. Let me say that before I recognized the music I was expecting to see a young male behind the wheel. Once I recognized the music I just had to see who was driving. And I saw an older man with white hair. It just made me laugh out loud. I mean who would ever expect an older gentleman to be proudly blasting this from from his Porsche at 7 am. And gosh I hope that link works for you. Once I realized what the music was, I was expecting to see something a little more like this.

Though he may very well dress like this on the weekends. And who am I to judge him. I am not judging, I am appreciating his uniqueness. I am appreciating it by laughing, but still I am appreciating...

Happy Friday Everyone!

Express Yourself!

Presentation is everything. So are first impressions. Therefore it seems like a good idea to present yourself in the best way you can. It shocks me sometimes that there is so much ignorance about the fact that what you say or do reflects upon you. How can you not see that certain things will reflect negatively upon you and other's perception of you?

Today I encountered a really good example of this. It is performance appraisal time at work and we are all having to write up our goals and accomplishments. Our bosses see our written explanations of what we have accomplished this year and use that to evaluate us. Therefore you would think that everyone would try to make themselves look good right? You would want to come across as polished and professional. You would use this as an opportunity to convey the fact that you are a valuable asset to the company. You want to keep your job and get a big bonus. Yet, I noticed that some people did not take this seriously. There were a few people who just threw some words onto the form and expected it to be enough. Our immediate supervisor has been nice enough to give us advice on how to do this, in other words do this and this and this to make it look good. Then in turn we make her look good too. I find it amazing that people just do not listen and choose to ignore her advice. I know of one person that the boss has told at least 3 times to make their goals better and proofread it properly. Today when the boss told them yet again to proofread their goals they came to me and asked me to make corrections for them. I was expecting to help make the sentences sound better and was amazed to see the amount of grammatical errors in such a small amount of writing. Did this person not even realize how this made them look? Are their grammatical skills that bad that they cannot put words in the correct tense? Do they not understand what "use complete sentences" means? Do the honestly think words are spelled that way? Did they honestly think this was acceptable? I was in shock. This was a person who is very good at their job and for the most part puts off a professional aire (I so do not know if that is the proper way to spell that). I could not believe that their writing skills could be so poor. How can you ever expect to get far in a job when your writing and speaking skills reflect negatively on your education? I am not saying that you need to have attended an Ivy League school, shoot you don't even need to have finished high school to know how to present yourself. Somewhere along the way you will learn how to act properly. You will figure out how to make yourself presentable and make yourself look good to others. Sure you can talk in slang with friends and you can write improperly in certain mediums. But there is a time and place for that, and there is a time and place to present yourself well. If you never learn that fact then you will never get very far in life because there will always be people looking down upon your for your inappropriate actions. Even if you can talk and write well, if you choose to be lazy and your work shows errors, no one else knows if it you being lazy or if you actually thought things were okay. Either way you gave a bad impression and people lose respect for you. It has become so simple to make yourself look good in writing. We have spell-check and grammar-check and you should use them. Even if your English is not perfect you should be able to form a complete sentence with prepositions and all. You have to be able to get your point across. Throwing words on the page will not do that.

It always takes me by surprise when I realize some people do not even realize that they are presenting themselves poorly. And while I do not say that there is anything wrong with the person they are, what their culture is, or how they choose to act, they should know that certain actions are not always appropriate. That they are ignorant to how they might be perceived by others just baffles me.

I am very grateful to my parents for teaching me the proper way to act. I am grateful they saw fit to educate me well. For the record one parent has a high school diploma and the other does not even have that much. But you never would have known it. They knew how to present themselves, and they always made sure I did too. When I was friends with a few people from our small town and began talking with an accent my parents let me know how ignorant I sounded when I talked that way. And I learned from it, to this day no one can tell where I am from because I do not have an accent and speak properly.

To me there was just no question that you should be educated. I worked my way through college and grad school and did what I needed to, because that was just the right thing to do. It has paid off for me. I feel that while I am still young I have the foundation and this allows me to present myself accordingly. I have been approached by elders and supervisors for help with preparing presentations. I have been asked to help edit and proofread documents. I feel quite honored that a superior would ask this of me and trust that I will make us both look good. My goals and accomplishments were never returned to me for any corrections and I was actually complimented on them. Yet, I do not see anything extraordinary about this. everyone should be able to present themselves well and have others trust in them.

So on Love Thursday I want to thank my parents for helping to make me the person I am and for helping me realize that there is a time and a place for everything. I would have never made it this far without their guidance.

Make a Wish

So the election is over and we have a new President elect. I hope everyone that wanted to was able to get out and vote.

I was talking to my friend veggie librarian last night and she made a pretty funny point. Do you remember when you were little and you had to make a wish for your birthday or on a shooting star? Remember how you were never supposed to tell anyone or it would not come true? V said she finds it funny that people act the same way about their choice for president. Why is it that everyone doesn't want to tell who they voted for. Are they maybe afraid it won't come true like the wishes we made in childhood? Honestly friends should be able to tell friends who they voted for and not be all secretive about it.

I found this perspective quite amusing. I began to think of reasons for why we might not want to broadcast our political choices, even to our friends. I mean logically politics and your opinions about them have no place in the work place. Therefore we can't really have conversations about our political choices with our co-workers, so we avoid the subject. I can definitely see avoiding politics at the office, but why are we still secretive with our friends? I came up with only a few good reasons. We hide our political opinion because we are afraid of retribution and potential attacks by people trying to get us to change our minds. It is either that, or we don't trust in our decisions enough to be able to defend them in an argument. I think we all know at least one person who is not afraid to give you their opinion and chastise you for not believing in the same things they do. Those people will not stop trying to criticize your choices and will constantly try to get you to see things their way. And politics are no different. There are plenty of people who are proud of their choices and who are willing to get on their soapbox at any given opportunity.

But not everyone acts this way. So why do we feel the need to hide our decisions from friends? If we are all reasonably intelligent people we should be able to accept that our friends have different opinions and embrace them even if we do not agree. Yet for some reason politics is different. Politics gets people up in arms. I suppose politics get to the core of our lives and has a effect on us all. We can all find a platform to cling to or rally against. I suppose criticising someones political choices is a little like criticising their parenting skills and you should be prepared for backlash.

So maybe we don't want to start arguments with our friends. Maybe we don't want to seem pushy. Maybe we don't want to feel pushed upon. Maybe we haven't even made a decision yet.

But maybe, just maybe we want our wish to come true.

Happy November 4th!

So today is your last chance to get out there and vote. Your last chance to speak your mind and have your voice be heard. Your last chance to make a difference. So get out there and vote!

I am not usually a very political person. Often I feel that by voting I am not choosing the person I believe in but rather the lesser of the two evils. I used to rationalize not voting, because how much could my one little vote actually matter? If I am in the minority my vote only cancels out one in the majority and my state will be the color it always is. And if I don't vote I am showing how much I don't like either candidate and maybe it will get noticed and there will be someone worth voting for next time.

But one vote does matter. Whether your one vote matters in the overall election is debatable. But your one vote does matter. It matters to you! I do not care if you are the only person voting against what the masses want. In the end you voted for what you wanted and it made a difference. You may not have particularly liked either candidate but you did your research and made an informed decision. No matter what happens you know how you voted and what you wanted and no one can take that away from you.

So whatever your logic or reasons are I am asking you to get out there and vote. Go ahead and make sure that your voice gets heard. You might not change the outcome, but you made that margin smaller with your vote. Your vote does make a difference.

While I was looking for a simple image like the one up top to use for this post, I came across a lot of strange ones. I figured I could share a few with you and make you smile!

NaBloPoMo

This is not another post about funny foreign names. I am going to attempt NaBloPoMo. Which stands for National Blog Posting Month and means that I should post at least once a day for this entire month. I have to say I think this will be difficult for me, but I also feel the need to try it. I started this blog with the best of intentions and I am slacking. I began by posting a few times a week and I was happy with that amount. Then I got kind of down on myself and started posting less and less. Recently I have been logging into my blog just to have the links to read other blogs (yeah I haven't even set up a google reader yet either) and never even posting anything. I mean the blog world is give and take. I know I look forward to new posts from my fave bloggers almost daily and I suppose I should be willing to return the same. So here I go...I am going to try and post daily for the rest of November. I know I am late and all and should have started at the beginning of the month but oh well, get over it, I already have. This will not be easy for me, especially with holidays and travel and locating a computer but I pledge to try my best. If nothing else posting once a day for this month will almost triple the current numbers of blogs I have ever posted here and I think that would be awesome. So wish me luck!



See you tomorrow!

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Do you think it is cheating if the first post is a post only about the fact that I will be posting all month? Really? I tend to agree with you.



But all I have is this: