road rules

So this guy and I recently drove 12 hours to and 12 hours back from Michigan. In a car. With a giant dog.

And it sucked ass. Like really, I hate car trips. Put me on a plane any day.

I like short road trips where you aren't on a strict deadline and you can enjoy the open road and all, but when you just want to be where you are going and there is a half of a day in your way, no thanks.

I have done this hellish commute more times than I care to admit now though, so I have come up with a few ways to not go nuts.

-Eat everything. You can literally never have enough snacks on the road. I would estimate I have a snack about once every 12 minutes when I am in a vehicle.

-Choose your rest stops wisely. We were fools and did not grab dinner at the rest stop with a panera bread when we had the chance. Not sure why because it meant we wound up a Podunk rest stop with the only dinner option being Roy Rogers. I had never even heard of that. And it was not good.

-Better yet, pack your own dinner. I usually get some delicious subs to go with all our snacks in the car, but I wasn't on my A game this year.

-No road trip can begin without getting a gas station coffee to kick things off. I mean it. This is a rule.

-You will probably need lots of coffee on the road.

-Have a good play list of tunes to keep you happy.

-Bring a warm blanket and pillow. Especially if your travel buddy runs at 131241 degrees so he is turning down the heat any time you look away.

-Dress comfy. I refuse to wear real pants on anything longer than a four hour trip. For me it is leggings and ugg boots all the way.

-Get yourself some non-music shit to listen to. I go for pod casts and comedy Cd's. They keep you interested when you start to get weary.

-Have lots of waters, yes it will make you have to stop to pee a lot, but if you are snacking as much as I do, you need a little something to wet your whistle.

-Update your Facebook status every thirty seconds or so to keep things interesting.

-Play the if I win the lotto game over and over, but get real serious about it. Because, why not.

when I'm sick

As I mentioned, I got a little rambunctious while vacationing in Michigan recently.

As a lame ass adult who typically spends her week nights running or doing yoga followed by a nutritious dinner and a little TV time, it was quite a change of pace to spend a week getting hammered at the bar every night and sleeping an hour or two before waking up to day drink and eat candy....it was only a matter of time before it all caught up with me.

I mean who knows, maybe I would have gotten sick anyway, I was hugging and kissing like 864545 people every day during the holidays, but I am going to blame the debauchery with lowering my immune system and rendering me sick as a dog.

I never get sick. Like it had been years. And then the day of our twelve hour trek back to Maryland it hit me. Fever, cough, chills, aches, all of it. So awesome.

I wasn't even able to go back to work on Monday as I planned because I was too sick.

I did have time to think of a list of ways the plague turns me into a whole different human while i was laying in bed for 16 hours just in case you were curious however, so here you go.

-I don't eat. At all. I literally ate nothing for 2 days. Non-sick me likes to eat about five million times a day, and if I skip a meal I get real crabby, not sickling though, she don't eat.

-I hate leaving the house. I knew I should go out and get some cough medicine but I could not bring myself to leave the house, this coming from someone who loves running errands and can't stand staying home all day on a normal basis.

-I sleep like crazy. I am not much of a sleeper truth be told, but when I am sick I am like an infant. Put me to bed and I will not get out of it. I am shocked I don't have bedsores after last week actually.

-I am lazy. Like no energy, any little task takes a lot out of me, it's so weird to me. I am a bit hyper one might say so when wiping down the counter exhausts me it is a bit odd.

-I don't want anyone around me. I love to be surrounded by people. The more the merrier. But when I am sick I just want to be alone. Manfriend doesn't quite get this one but he does mean well.

Here's hoping this is the last plague I come down with for a few more years. Being sick just isn't my style.

humping and whatnot

It is long overdue that I link up with one of my favorite blogs of all the blogs, Vodka and Soda written by the sassiest Canuck around Kathy and post some of my confessions. Humpday confessions to be exact, sorry to get you all excited with the title, there will be no talk of humping actually.

-I love to clean with paper towels. This makes my little hippie heart so sad. I try to recycle everything I touch and be friendly to the earth all the time, but I am also a clean freak and paper towels do the job so much better. Don't judge me though, I am judging myself enough about it already.

-I leave my car at the bar when I drink too much so I am forced to run the next day. It is hard to workout with a hangover, but if you need your vehicle you have no choice.

Can you see the hangover in my eyes??

-I love the TV show Melissa and Joey, I really don't know why it's a pretty terrible show actualy. I have seen every episode though and I can't get enough.

-Every time the song Wrecking Ball comes on, I think ohh I like this, then I remember it is Miley and I hate myself for liking it. But I do. I think it is a great song.

-I never sleep well because my goddamn dog insists on laying on top of me. I try to kick him out of bed and he gets back in, my dog rules my life.

 

Could you say no to that face??

-I became a clean eater a while back. I would say I eat about 85% clean. Maybe even a little more, the only thing I really miss is fake nacho cheese. I love that shit.

-I get my dog a Burger King burger at least three times a month. My dog does not eat clean. He ate a key fab the other day actually, I am pretty sure that isn't organic.

 

Snatching shit off the counter

this one time in Michigan

So I went back to Michigan for eight glorious days during Christmas you guys.

And guess what?

It was fuc*ing wild. There is no other way to describe it.

Amazing, and nice, and fun, but mostly just wild.

I drank like a little fishy and somehow never got a hangover, I'm still trying to figure that one out.

I hung out with my family, saw almost all my old friends, and just had the best time I could have possibly had.

And I miss it already.

Here are some pics, because the details are mostly not Internet appropriate.

Also as a result of my rowdy ways, I wound up pretty sick the day I drove back home. But more on that latter.

the cost of owning a dog

Would you like to know what costs a goddamn fortune?

I'll tell ya, owning a dog that's what.

Fred the dog in particular.

Fred was a rescue pup, so the actual cost of purchasing him was pretty low. All dogs need to go to the vet and eat and shit so I anticipated those expences.

What I did not anticipate was the money I would spend as a result of things he destroyed.

Don't get me wrong, Fred is one of the most well behaved dogs on the planet. I mean it. He is so good almost all the time.

But once in a while the mood strikes him and he just wrecks shit. And it is always something expensive.

I figured I would do a little tally of the items my little angle has cost me just to depress myself. So here you go.

I know this song is terrible, but so is the realization that Fred has destroyed over a thousand dollars worth of stuff, so deal with it.

bring it on 2014

So another year has come and gone. And as I am socially obligated to do according to my Facebook newsfeed, I wanted to take a minute to reflect on the year that is about to end. Sorry this one is going to be a little more personal than I usually like things to get around here, but whatever right.

This was a year for me where nothing particularly out of the ordinary happened.

No giant changes.

No horrible tragedies.

Just a lot of little things that have made it a really huge year for me despite it not seeming that way at the time.

Are you confused yet? Good, me too.

I guess what I am trying to say is I find myself in a very different place in life than I was at the beginning of the year and I don't know why really. I am happier than I have been in quite a long time and more content than I have frankly ever been.

Something I have long struggled with is just being satisfied. I have always want more. And in a lot of ways I like that about myself. It makes me work really hard when I want something, and keeps me motivated to succeed.

But sometimes it can be really shitty too because I often found myself wishing I was somewhere else instead of enjoying where I was or what I was doing. I think somehow I have finally got a good balance. I still want to work hard to change things I am not happy with, but I have also learned to just Let it Be. Seems simple, but for me it wasn't easy to get here.

I just feel pretty content finally. I feel a sense of accomplishment more than ever before because I have really taken life by the balls this year. I have become pretty bad ass at my job (if I do say so myself, my boss says so too), gotten myself healthy as shit (another long time struggle for this cat), and come to a point where if I want to do something I just do it for the most part (this primarily applies to travel and day drinking).

These are all things that have happened slowly and steadily over the last year. And man am I ever glad.

At the beginning of January I made a set of resolutions as I do every single year along with the rest of America. The difference was this year I stuck to almost all of them. That is a first for me.

And just because I feel like over-sharing some more I am going to go ahead and tell you all about my resolutions...feel free to stop reading now if you're bored already.

1. I set a weight loss goal. I have done this for about thirty of the past 28 years of my life. I always say I will get to a certain weight each year, and for the past 5 years or so I have instead just gotten a little larger. This year though for whatever reason I became one of those assholes that goes to the gym every day and eats healthy. Who knew that was the way to loose weight? I sure didn't. I won't tell you how much I weigh or how much I have lost because honestly we all have different "ideal" and healthy weights and I would never ever want someone to feel bad because of a silly number, but let's just say I have never felt better. I am at a point where I do not care what I weigh I care that I am healthy. It is also really nice to enjoy shopping again and to feel confident in a bikini, but honestly the most shocking thing for me is how much I love working out. I really always thought people who said they loved to work out were lying. And that they were just really dedicated and forced themselves to do it everyday, but now I get it. It is so cool to see and feel yourself getting stronger and gaining endurance, and I now get ticked if I have to miss a class at my gym because of something dumb like work instead of dreading going. Even though all I really talk about on this blog is yoga (cuz it's my fave) I have been running 2-3 times a week, taking a spin class, lifting weights, zumbaing, and going to a class called sweatshop where you essentially do squats until you die. I also do yoga and pillates as much as I can. I work out like a beast and I love it. I love it so much.

2. My next goal was to be able to run 6 miles. It took me until May to start working on this goal. I started out running around my block once a few times a week. That is a half mile. And it was really hard. I slowly added on laps and then started adding mileage as I was able. Last week I ran 7.5 miles and it wasn't all that hard. Not nearly as hard as that half mile was a few months ago. That shit is crazy. Craziest part is I now enjoy my runs. Who am I?

3. I set a resolution that I would have a new job and move to a city. I did not accomplish this goal. It is no secret I live in a rural ass area and I don't love it. I do however love my job. If I was willing to take just any job I could easily make this happen, but at this point I am not ready for that. I want to find an awesome job in an awesome place, and I have my peepers open, but in the meantime I am going to be happy with what I have. A great job, amazing coworkers, and a gorgeous river view from my office.

4. I have always loved to write, long before this little blog of mine. I used to write short stories and poems and all kinds of shit. I decided in 2013 I would start writing a book and I did. I started two actually. Hopefully I will be richer than the women who wrote Fifty Shades of Gray soon.

5. Next was to take a great trip. I went a little wild with this one and took 16 trips in 2013. No wonder I have no money. A few of them were small like overnight benders in Baltimore, but most were full fledged bad ass trips. New York, Seattle, Outterbanks, the list goes on and on. 2014 has a lot to live up to in this department, but I already have the plane tickets booked for New Orleans and Austin so I think I am off to a good start.

6. My last resolution was to become good at yoga. Now I have a long way to go to get to where I want to be, but when I think back on my first few yoga classes I am amazed at the shit I can do. Yoga has changed my life for the better in a lot of ways and I can't recommend it enough.

I am going to keep my 2014 resolutions a secret for now, but I am hopeful that 2014 brings lots of good things for everyone I know. I find myself in so much better a place that I was just a year ago, which is strange because I never felt like I wasn't in a good place. Let's hope it keeps getting better.

Happy New Year Bitches.

may old acquaintance be forgot

I actually don't want to forget any of my acquaintances, I don't get that line...can someboby splain it to me?

I do want to wish all of you a very happy new year's day however. Let's make 2014 our bitch!