Tis the Season

I only have time to blog when I'm working on papers, although technically it's not really that I have the time it's just that I'm sitting at the computer trying as hard as I can to not work on my papers. I actually only have one more to go, which you would think would be major motivation for me to just sit my ass down and finish the darn thing already, but alas, such is not the case. I am happy to have almost survived a whole semester however - only four more to go!

By the way, if any of you are reading this and do not have my new cell phone number send me an e-mail. I text messaged everyone in my phone with the new digits but it seems that not everyone got it, probably because I'm from the stone age and don't have expertise in the area of text messaging. Seriously, I was text messaging back and forth with this guy Andy from my cohort about class and it would take me something like 20 minutes to write one sentence. I hear that text messaging is becoming a problem at some middle and high schools because students know how to do it without looking so they can send messages really discreetly. Without looking! As it is I am probably already ruining my already legally blind eyesight by squinting and putting the phone right up to my face when I'm trying to text message.

You know what I hate? When people get mad at you for not knowing something they know and try to treat you like an idiot because of it. Case in point, I was voluntereing at Barnes & Noble the other day doing a giftwrapping fundraiser and I asked the manager if he wouldn't mind if I posted a sign on one of the racks. He snaps back with, "Yes I would mind, you can only put posters on the table!" in a very rude and annoyed tone. Well dude, why do you think I was asking?! I understand he was probably busy and all, but there is no need to be condescending to someone who just asked me a simple question. I'm a customer too you know. In fact, I spent almost 100 bucks there that day. Who knew volunteering could be so expensive?

Thankful

Welcome back from Thanksgiving break y'all.

What I'm thankful for:

1. That I'm #1 in my celebrity fantasy league - go Britney! And thanks to Heidi Klum for FINALLY having her baby.
2. More babies on the way - my nephew Marcus and Joyce's little girl due shortly thereafter.
3. Going to Joyce's baby shower in the same house where we used to study for classes in the 7th grade and seeing all of her Filipino family rockin' out on the Magic Mic.
4. Being done with my final presentation in one of my classes - only three more classes to go!
5. That after eating about five Thanksgiving dinners I was somehow miraculously able to squeeze into the jeans I bought last week with the Macy's gift card I got for my birthday (thanks again Grandma Bobbie!).
6. Eating five Thanksgiving dinners.
7. My new cute pink Razr phone that really looks more purple to me in certain lights. One step closer to being just like my idol, Paris Hilton (puke)!
8. Swearing off alcohol the morning after a night of binge drinking. Then breaking said promise later the same day.
9. Seeing how happy mom and dad were to spend time with Kyle and I at Pechanga, even though it didn't quite turn out to be the romantic vacation we were hoping for.
10. Patient husbands who endure their quirky wives and families, all with a smile on their face.

What a lucky girl I am.

Do the Shuffle

I'm working on another major paper right now and listening to my iPod shuffle for inspiration. I've decided that I am the epitome of random. One minute I was jamming to a profanity laced Dr. Dre track, the next I've transitioned into the swinging sounds of Michael Buble. Now it's on Jack Johnson. Do you think my eclectic taste in music is a sign of indecisiveness? Nah, I'm not indecisive. Or maybe I am??

My newest obsession is my Celebrity Fantasy League. Now that Kyle has Fantasy Football, I had to have my girl version. I did good picking Britney right after the breakup, but whoever has Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes is going to be doing laps around me this weekend! My only hope is that Heidi Klum will have her baby soon...I don't understand what it is with most of the females I know being fascinated with celebrity lives but it just seems to be the norm these days.

You Say It's Your Birthday!

Happy birthday to me! Haha, feels weird to wish myself a happy b-day but I think I really wanted an excuse to post this funny picture:



Should be an exciting day waiting for the electrician to show up and going to back to back classes tonight from 4p-9:40p. Yay!

My sweet sweet husband sent me a nice birthday e-mail so that certainly makes it all worthwhile. :) Oh yeah, and Pam from The Office accepted my friend request so I'm excited about that too. Love The Office!

Kiss Me Mint

I bought this new Colgate toothpaste the other day. The flavor was called "Kiss Me Mint". I'm not sure why I insist on trying different flavors every time I buy a new tube of toothpaste when 9x out of 10 I hate the new flavor. There was definitely a reason behind why I got this one though.

Kyle: "Did you buy this toothpaste because it's purple?"
Me: "It just looked so pretty..."

I have an unnatural obsession with purple. Anyway, turns out the toothpaste tastes like a combination between Koolaid (Kyle's take) and Laffy Taffy (mine). So if you like the feeling of a mouthful of foamy candy in your mouth you should get it. If not, stick with the regular mint flavors. I find blue and green are safe colors when it comes to toothpaste.

Lesson of the Day: Aesthetics are not necessarily a direct reflection of taste.

Haha, I just googled "Colgate - Kiss Me Mint" and someone is selling an 8-pack on e-bay. Really? Who buys their toothpaste on ebay?

My Life as a Celebrity

Somehow I find it hard to envision Laura Linney playing me in a movie version of my life. Who is Kim Smith anyway?

Noooo - Not Mr. Eko!

I am sadly in mourning over the loss of my favorite "Lost" character, Mr. Eko. This now means that all of the tailies (except for that one dude married to Rose) have either died or disappeared. Whatever happened to that one chick who disappeared in the jungle anyway? Even though I thought last night's episode of "Lost" was the best one by far this season, I am still devastated that we won't have Mr. Eko to look forward to anymore. And it is no consolation that they have added in that random chick and guy to try to compensate for their dwindling character base. Who the heck are they anyway? So not interesting to me. Their presence just feels so forced. Blah. I feel like one of the things I like most about this show is it's diversity but now they've gotta go and kill all the people of color. I just like to see more representation of different ethnicities in media. I know, call me crazy.

R.I.P. Eko.

Be My Baby

ubiquitous - adj. being or seeming to be everywhere at the same time; omnipresent

It's late, I should be joining Kyle in the land of slumberhood but thought I'd post a quick post now that I've just finished my homework. Here are some pics from my sister's baby shower yesterday:






My arm looks all crooked in that first shot because I'm trying to avoid the ubiquitous arm fat shot. Yeah, you ladies know what I'm talking about. And those of you who don't...I hate you. How cool is that car seat made out of playdough creation? Some people are just artistically talented. Don't Robbie and Kyle look excited? I'm not so sure the invention of the co-ed baby shower was such a great idea. I have a feeling most dudes were perfectly happy to not be invited to baby showers for years.

Tomorrow I'm going to be pregnant...pregnant Britney Spears that is. For a Halloween party. I'm doing Britney on Dateline. Denim shorts, smeared mascara, and chipped nails - the whole deal. Because of course, usually my nails are in perfect condition. Right. Just look back at all my old pictures - you won't see an ounce of arm fat or a chipped nail in any of them!

I spent the night at my cousin Cindy's house on Friday to help her with the decorations. She does the most awesome balloons and candy favors. Anyway, we hit up the new H&M in Pasadena. Can I just say I was in hog heaven? Oh how long I have awaited the arrival of an H&M within driving distance. I was wishing they would open one up in San Diego, but after practicing restraint and still managing to spend more than I could afford when I was there, I've decided I can wait a few years until there is an H&M within immediate shopping range. We went to dinner at Mi Piace afterwards, cracked open a bottle of wine and spent some quality bonding girl time together. I haven't had girls night out in a while and I sure needed it.

All right, time for me to retire. G'night all.

Warm Sock Weather

One of the great things about not having to go anywhere during the day is that one can walk around the house wearing a Hawaiian slip dress, purple warm fuzzy socks, and a hooded zip up sweatshirt and nobody is there to judge you.

I love wearing warm socks when it starts getting cold outside. I love the fall, when the air starts getting brisk and cool and that lovely cold weather woodsy smell fills the air. I don't know where that smell comes from, but I don't care because I just love to take it all in. It's times like these when I can really see myself living somewhere that the sun doesn't shine year round, although being the wussy California girl I am I don't quite know how true that is. At the first sign of weather dipping below 50 degrees I'd probably be out of there. But, if I could "weather" the weather, I would probably get used to it over time. I always think about how nice it would be to live somewhere that you don't have to pay a ba-jillion dollars in order to buy a decent house for your family. If it wasn't for mine and Kyle's family being here in California, I might be all over it. Of course wherever it is would have to have a mall close by because according to Kyle I can't live anywhere that is more than an hour drive to a major shopping center.

Mom and dad were supposed to come today but I talked to dad and it seems that they are going to sit around the house in their socks/Hawaiian garb/zip down sweatshirts today too. It won't be long until they visit though, now that Kyle and I live near their newly discovered favorite Filipino restaurant. Last time they were here, they had lunch there, then went back to have a snack, and then, had it not been for their other favorite place calling, Pechanga Casino, they would have gone back again for dinner. Gotta love mom and dad.

I Don't Want to Want My MTV

Sometimes I think that if I watch enough hours of sleazy MTV shows I'll automatically be sent to hell when I die. For some reason last night I was sucked into watching "Parental Control". That's the show where the mom and dad who don't like their son/daughter's girlfriend/boyfriend set him or her up with two different dates and then watch the dates with said girlfriend/boyfriend. The whole time, they trade "witty" remarks such as the girlfriend saying to the dad, "Look how ugly that girl is you picked out. You must like ugly girls - look at your wife!" What the...? Seriously, who talks like that to any adult, much less the parents of your boyfriend? Yeah, if that show isn't really one big joke with a bunch of bad actors then I think the entire corporation of MTV may be going to hell too. Ew, and the dad in the episode I watched last night was a total perv. The entire show was just wrong.

On another note, Kyle doesn't know this yet but I almost adopted a cat last night. I was having another bout of insomnia and trying to get myself to fall back asleep again when I heard a cat meowing outside of our apartment. Me being the crazy cat lady that I am opened the door and there was a cute little kitty just sitting there looking up at me with big eyes. So I went up to it and started petting it, and it was the cutest little purrbucket. Then she went into our apartment, and I gave her a bowl of water which she rejected, but after that I was having trouble getting her to leave (probably partly because I didn't want her to leave). I contemplated bringing her into our bedroom where Kyle was sleeping soundly and begging him if I could please please keep her but then reason and flashbacks of our crazy cat Emma (may she rest in peace) got the better of me. She went away eventually but I am secretly hoping for more visits from my new little friend. For now I will stick to my weekly volunteer visits at the Rescue House to get my cat fixes.

Birthday Boy

Happy Birthday to Kyle! Cutest birthday boy ever. Also biggest trooper birthday boy to move tons of boxes during his birthday weekend.



Looks like the birthday boy is happy.










It's amazing how much c*rap one can accumulate over the course of one year. How can we be moving for 3 days straight and not be done yet? Okay, maybe not straight since there was the pet sitting jobs, dinner at grandma's, etc. but Kyle and I have certainly had more of a workout in the past 3 days than we have in the entire past year. Actually, I shouldn't speak for Kyle but I know I did.

Umm, funny story about our move. The first night in our new apartment we decided to take the big room in the front of the apartment even though it was less private and shares a wall with the people next door. We were so exhausted the first night, we were just ready to pass out. Just as soon as the neighbors turned off their TV. Any minute now...still on...they've got to go to sleep sometime, right? WRONG! 11:30 hits and not only is there banging against the wall and a blaring TV combined with people shouting at each other, but the light on the patio just outside of our room still has not turned off so it's like Viva Las Vegas in our bedroom. Seriously, why do apartment complexes feel the need to leave the outside lights on all night long? I mean, I understand it's for security reasons, but really can't you just invest in a sensor - I'm sure it would be cheaper than wasting energy on the lights all night long.

Well, once 11:30 rolled around Kyle and I were having none of the noise and the bright lights, so we made the decision to move all of our bedroom furniture around in the middle of the night from the big room to the small back room just for our own sanity in the long term. Turned out to be a good decision, because even though the other room is smaller it is also pitch black and perfectly quiet at night.

The best part? The loud neighbors moved out today. Happy Birthday to Kyle!

Computer Illiterate

For some reason it has taken me this long to figure out how to post pictures on my blog, but I think I've finally realized how to do it. You'd think that "image" icon on the top of the post would have tipped me off - duh. Hope this works.


For my first pictures, here's me and Kyle on our wedding day (July 17th, 2004).


Here we are one year later on our first anniversary in Hawaii.




And here we are on our 2-year anniversary this year - first picture was when we celebrated a few days before the actual day at Bali Hai (the restaurant, not the vacation spot) with mom and dad, second is when our broke selves stayed at home to celebrate. A big change from celebrating in Hawaii, but still just as special!

Okay, I'm supposed to be writing a paper right now but I'm doing what I do best - PROCRASTINATING. I'm outties 5000.

Trying to Digest

I fear something is wrong with my digestive system. Not in a way that I need to go to the doctor or anything, but it just feels a little off. It probably has something to do with the fact that since I started grad school my diet has been totally inconsistent. One day it's Greek food for lunch and then big globs of pasta for dinner, the next it's cereal for breakfast, Starbucks coffee for lunch, then a sandwich and pita chips for dinner (today). Ugh, how unhealthy is that?! Part of the problem I'm discovering is that since I have class at night and sometimes go to campus all day beforehand, it's hard to find things you can bring from home that won't go bad during the day. Anyways, you guys all know how important food is to me so I'm finding this to be a really difficult conundrum for me.

The other thing I'm trying to digest is all this knowledge I'm learning from my classes. The other day we talked about whether thought must be preceded by language or if it can occur even without it. At some point I just want to throw up my hands and say beats the heck out of me! It is really interesting though. Some people argued that babies have thoughts, but the professor countered by saying thoughts of hunger are actually reflexes. The basis of all of this is the theory of social constructionism in post-modern thought, which argues that we construct our own realities through our interactions with other people and there is no such thing as one objective truth. Although I am religious and believe God to be an objective truth, the concept of having free will to me is in line with social constructionism, and I can see how our own constructs have a lot to do with how we perceive reality.

Tonight in my multi-cultural class we talked about white culture. It's interesting how the whole concept of white culture can be thought of as so taboo, but it is a culture nonetheless. The article we read in relation to white culture spoke a lot about white privelege and its existence in our society. As the wife of a white male, I know that I indirectly benefit from white privelege. I also know what it is like to be on the other end of it. I think it is easy for a lot of people to dismiss the notion that there is underlying favoritism towards white people in our society because it is a hard thing to swallow, but I give a lot of credit to those who are able to openly acknowledge it. As assimilated as I am, there have been a lot of times in my life when I have wondered if I would be liked more or get paid more if I were just a part of the white culture.

Busy Bee

Grad school has had me busy like nothing else so I'm feeling like I have less time to spend thinking of interesting things to blog about. Unless you find syllabi and shopping for school supplies at Staples interesting then you probably don't want to hear about my life right now. So I have a little bit of time before I have to leave for my hair appointment and just thought I'd drop in.

Not to make school sound as uninteresting as it really is. This week I had my first experience actually working at a school and it was such a change from my usual desk job in advertising. I'm really excited about the multi cultural class I'm taking as well. One of our assignments is to immerse ourselves into a culture that is different from our own via attending a gathering, going to a church service, and generally just spending time with a person of another culture. This is something I have actually always wanted to do in life but never had a really good reason to do it until now. Just seeing how different people live their lives is fascinating to me.

Justin is in town this weekend so I have a feeling I won't get a whole lot of school work done. He is one of those people that always has to be out and about doing something, which I don't mind, but it's hard squeezing in entertaining with the millions of other things on my plate. It's all a balancing act man, but totally worth it to spend time with friends who are visiting.

Okay, I'm even boring myself right now. Guess I just had to chronicle the recent happenings in my life.

Addendum

I must point out an exception to my last blog - I did get to hang out with the lovely Cicely and Jay while I was up in L.A. Jay and Cicely are the type of people who have a bazillion friends but still manage to make time to hang out with you, so if they can take a night out for dinner and coffee than NOBODY has an excuse for flakiness. ;) Hehe. Thanks again guys for the delish adobo, but most of all for taking time to catch up.

Also, congratulations go out to Jennie and Brian for their beautiful little twin girls, Abigail and Sophia!!! We know Faith is going to be the coolest aunt around too.

I'm procrastinating right now. I don't have class until 7 and our apartment is a disaster zone, but I am taking time to check e-mail and blog instead of doing what I should be, which is cleaning. It's never fun to fold clothes and vacuum. Also, since we're moving I'm trying to go through the stuff we need to donate and that in itself is a monumental task. Oy vay.

Insomnia

I know I've been MIA and you have all been waiting with baited breath for my latest and greatest post. Ha! Is there anyone even still reading this? These past two weeks have been hectic what with being in LA, and while I did come down to San Diego for the weekend I've been spending all of my time either apartment hunting or writing this huge ass paper that is due today. Kyle was starting to wonder if his wife even existed anymore. Thankfully, we have found an apartment and I am almost done with my paper, so there is a light at the end of the tunnel! I technically was going to wait to blog until my paper was done and turned in, as that is what I should be working on, but since I'm suffering from yet another bout of insomnia and it's the butt crack of dawn right now I figure now is probably not the best time to work on a paper. My blog probably won't even make much sense as it is, but here goes.

LA was a blast, I got to see and do most of the things I was hoping for. Although considering last week was the week before the Emmy's, the closest I came to seeing any celebrities/Emmy action was watching workers set up the tent for the post-Emmy party at the Pacific Design Center and driving past the Ivy, where I think I may have caught a brief glimpse of...wait for it...Byron Allen getting out of his car! Yes, THE Byron Allen! Somebody actually asked me, "Who is Byron Allen?", and I couldn't even remember what he was (semi) famous for. The only thing I could come up with was his cheesey interview show and I also think he played Alfonso's dad or uncle on Silver Spoons. Google him people. He's one of those obscure actors that probably only me or Nina know about.

Since I haven't blogged in so long, there are a few things I wanted to talk about regarding my time in lala land. So here are my blogs within my blog, my meta-blogs if you will:

Flakiness
Now, I'm not sure if this is an LA thing or not, but all I know is that I made multiple plans with people that were changed/moved around/cancelled at the last minute, and that doesn't seem to happen to me much in San Diego. Granted, I don't really know very many people in San Diego to make plans with, but still. I made a point to e-mail/contact the people who I really wanted to see weeks before I came out, and after receiving e-mail confirmations of dates and times I got the old, "Oh, I thought we were meeting NEXT week, not this week!" Grrr, come on peeps, how can you confuse the dates when we've been talking about this for weeks and weeks and we have the date going around in several different e-mails? I don't expect to be at the top of your list, but really, sometimes you've gotta wonder. I guess I'm just one of those people that likes to make plans and actually stick to them. Call me crazy.

Wardrobe Malfunctions
So, I was getting ready to go out for dinner and drinks with Kathy, Nina, and Cheryl for a good old Rowland reunion. I came across that ever present dillemma in a woman's life: what shoes do I wear? Do I wear my diva platform shoes with the cute little flowers printed on the heels or my fallback comfy casual yet cute black flip-flops with a bow? Remembering that I am a married woman that doesn't need to worry about impressing anyone with my shoes, I opted for the flip-flops. What can I say, I'm a comfort before beauty type of gal. Actually, I think the shoes would be more to impress other women since I am 99.99999% sure that straight guys probably do not check out what shoes girls wear. In fact, their line of sight probably doesn't make it further down than the calf of a woman's leg. Okay, so that's a gross overgeneralization, but I digress. Just what do you think happens to said flip-flops at the end of the night? Somehow, a tear developed in the straps of my flip-flops, causing them to come precariously close to falling apart. If not for the cute bow holding them together they would have been goners. I don't know what I would have done w/o my very favorite pair of shoes, but luckily the week prior I had spotted the exact same pair at Ross Dress for Less when I was home for the weekend. So where do you think the very first place I hit up was upon my return? You guessed it. My only hope was that they were still there. To my dismay, when I checked the place I last saw them they were gone, so I thought oh well, I'll go look for sunglasses. As I was perusing the accessories section, I caught a glimpse of a separate rack for flip-flops and lo and behold there were my coveted shoes! In my size! It was like divine intervention. The shoe goddesses were smiling down on me that day.

NKOTB
I stayed with Kathy and Greg for the majority of my time up in LA. For those of you who don't know Kathy, we go way back to junior high. I've known her for over half of my life. During our tween years, we were absolutely OBSESSED with New Kids on the Block. I can't even begin to describe to you the level of insanity we were at, but this story will give you an idea. While I was in LA, one of Kyle's co-workers, knowing what a big NKOTB fan I was, sent him an e-mail telling him to let me know that she heard that they were going to be having a reunion. Kyle, being the devoted and sweet husband he is, forwarded the e-mail to me much to his reluctance, which I proceeded to forward to Kathy, and upon her recipt of it she and I started going ballistic and regressing back to our teeny bopper years. Coincidentally, Kathy's mom had just moved and was getting rid of boxes out of her house, and Kathy told me that she was pretty sure one of the boxes held all of her NKOTB memorabilia from years gone by. Well after hearing that I just couldn't leave LA without going through that box, so you know we cracked open that box as soon as she told me about it. Sure enough, there were the gigantic buttons, concert programs, tapes (yes, tapes, not CDs) with NKOTB songs, and endless stacks of posters. The very best part? Kathy found old old mini magazines that we used to make for each other. We titled our magazine, "Teen, Bop, Beat Party" and we wrote fake articles about how Jordan had a girlfriend named Kathy and he is no longer a single man, pasted in posters of the New Kids with our own pictures skillfully doctored in using scissors and glue (hey, there was no Photoshop back then!), and I even made a fake subscription card to be filled out and returned. The best was I even wrote a birthday rap for Kathy in the vein of the NKOTB rapping style. How I had time for all of this, I don't know. Needless to say, Kathy and I were up half the night going through them and practically peeing our pants at the things we put in those "Teen, Bop, Beat Party" issues. I'm telling you, I missed my calling as a magazine editor. If you saw those magazines you would know what I'm talking about.

If you've lost all respect for me, I understand. I'm kind of wondering about myself at this point. Gotta go look up those reunion dates now.

Return to L.A.

I'm going back to L.A. for a temporary two week stint at my old job. Should be interesting - I haven't been back in forever thanks to the crazy cost of gas. I'm looking forward to it though. Two weeks should be the perfect amount of time for me to try to get in and do the things I miss the most, like:

1. Eat a chinese chicken salad at California Chicken Cafe
2. Walk down Robertson Blvd. and join the papparazzi in staking out the Ivy for celeb sitings
3. Walk down to the Beverly Center and have bignettes at The Grand Luxe
4. Window shopping on Santa Monica Blvd.
5. Traipse down Main St. between Santa Monica and Venice enjoying the fresh ocean breeze and people sighting
6. More eating at: Minori Sushi, California Rock N' Roll Sushi (Hawaiian roll), any Indian or Korean BBQ restaurant
7. Visit the Farmer's Market and the Grove just for old times sake

I know most of the above involve eating, but I can't really justify spending on anything else since we are supposed to be saving money. I'm sure I won't make it to every place on the list, but it will be nice to visit my old haunts. Brings back fun memories of our times up in L.A. Too bad I'll be working during the day so I won't really get to see the beach or anything.

I'm sad I'll be apart from Kyle for so long though. :(

Issues

vitriolic - adj. corrosive; sarcastic

I'm taking this class right now that's all about exploring your issues and feelings on things. I'm finding these are my major issues right now:

1. Avoidance of confrontation
2. Feeling rejected/loneliness
3. Thinking too much before speaking/not living "in the moment"
4. Middle child syndrome (goes into #2 - not feeling like I'm worthy)
5. Low confidence level
6. Uneasiness with public speaking/large groups

I don't know if it's right for me to categorize those things, but there you have it. I think the hardest part for me is that we are discussing everything in a large group of 23 people, so for me to try to deal with #s 1-5 while simulataneously feeling uncomfortable talking in front of so many people is really hard. Plus, usually I deal with things through my vitriolic sense of humor, but it seems that is not the healthiest way to go about things.

I think the underlying issue for me right now is my fear of rejection and loneliness. I've thought about it a lot since moving to San Diego. A lot of my friends are not down here, and I'm not the type of person who makes friends easily. I thought it would be easier once I got back to school, but I'm feeling like I'm looked at as an older person that others wouldn't want to hang out with outside of class. Even though I'm only a few years older than most of the other students, I probably have this stigma to me that I'm just a married lady who doesn't like to have fun. I don't really look at people by their age, but I get self conscious that that is how I am seen. Some of my best friends are the same age as the people in my class, but I've never really thought about their age.

It seems we all have a tendency to put people in a box and label them. I know I'm guilty of it from time to time, but I really think I've done a pretty good job of really trying to get to know people for who they are and not basing my assessment of them on pre-conceived notions based on how they look, their age, their marital status, etc. I think the human mind works in a way that we need to categorize in order to make sense of the world, but if everyone could just try to break that tendency and open up, I think the world would be a better place. Again, I am not saying I am free of bias, and I probably never will be. I feel that it's healthy to acknowledge that we have biases, and at least try to be self aware of what they are so that you can work on them. It bothers me when people think they are just soooo open minded and everyone else is so ignorant. I feel lucky to have been exposed to so many different people in my life and to have had training that has allowed me to open up my mind. I can't blame people who have not been as fortunate as I have been. Guess I'm just a fortunate fool.

I am an Aunt!

Today was a crazy emotional day. My parents and I went with my sister to see the sonogram that would show the sex of her baby. I won't disclose the sex here, since Cathee probably would like to be able to tell people herself insteaed of having me post it on my blog for all to read, but I just have to say how amazing it is to sit in a room and see your future niece/nephew (ha, thought you had me there, huh?) just kickin' it, waiting to be born. He/she waved his/her little arm and started moving his/her mouth, like he/she was talking, and we joked that there was probably a cell phone in there since my sister is notorious for her marathon cell phone talks. Mom started crying (of course), and dad acted like he didn't care when I could really tell inside he was just swelling with pride. And Mike and Cathee are sooo ecstatic -how exciting!

It just made me realize, that despite any differences I may have with my sister, we are and always will be family, and that little kid is sure going to be loved to death by his/her aunt. Hopefully this blog will stand the test of time and one day my little niece/nephew will get to read how loved he/she was even before he/she was born. Whew, I'm getting exhausted now just trying to make sure I'm covering my bases with the gender thing. Anyway, just had to share with you just how awesome it was.

Drunk Dialing

I got drunk last night and was drunk dialing people at random. So if I left a message or spoke to you, please let me know what I said. It's all a blur. I think I have a hilarious alternate personality when I'm drunk, but am curious to know if it's just all in my head - kind of like beer goggles, except I suppose in this case it would be personality goggles.

I'm getting too old for this shizz. I think I need to lay off the drinking. Every time I do it now I feel like I've gained 20 lbs. And then I can never get anything accomplished the next day. Add that to the fact that I seriously think I have killed a million brain cells via alcohol - if that isn't a clear cut message to quit I don't know what is. I feel like I was so much smarter in college than I am now. Thinking just seems to take so much more effort nowadays than it did back then. I am much less Owl and much more Eeyore these days. More Hagrid than Hermione. More Joey than Ross. Anyway, you get the picture.