doahleigh - Holy Waste of Teabags!

Because I have a few vacation days to use up before my departure, I didn’t go to work yesterday. I didn’t have anywhere to be, no plans or obligations. It was just a day at home. Let me tell ya, there should days like that for everyone at least once a month. I was in such a good mood all weekend, partly because of the excitement of all my upcoming events, but also because I knew I had three whole days off. In a row!

Brad was gone much of Sunday and almost all of Monday, which meant I had the whole apartment to myself. I watched Gilmore Girls, read a whole book and a half, got lots of little tasks accomplished, and even did some packing in preparation for the big move.

It’s hard to pack right now though because whenever I look at something I think, Yeah we might need that in the next three weeks. So nothing gets done. I have, however, managed to pack about five or six boxes of junk that we won’t use before we move. How do we have five or six boxes of crap that we don’t even use on a regular basis? Most of it is clothes and shoes we won’t wear again until winter, extra sheets and towels, and books I won’t have time to read. The rest is stuff from the kitchen—pots and pans and the like—because oh yeah, we don’t cook anyway.

Brad’s mom owns a little gift shop so she hooked me up with a stack of collapsed cardboard boxes and a tape gun. Add to that a pile of magazines for crumpling and a Sharpie, and I was high on packing half the weekend.

While I was high, I decided to catch up on laundry too. Brad does his own laundry because somehow he always has about three times as much as me, and I wash the few things I need when I need them. But neither of us washes the linens until we’re on the verge of sleeping on a bare mattress and drying off from showers with paper towel. So I did five loads of laundry yesterday. This was annoying only because one of the two dryers in our building’s laundry room doesn’t work at all, and the other does a half-ass job. Rather than pay $2.50 to dry every load twice, I instead opted to hang up all the damp stuff to dry in our apartment.

I had sheets draped over the shower curtain rod and towels hung over doors. Shirts dangled from chairs and desk drawers, and our tv stand (actually a baker’s rack) was decorated in underwear. I thought about posting a picture, but then the Internet would have seen a dozen pairs of my underwear, and I’m just not cool with that.

It ended up being a very productive long-weekend, yet somehow I still feel overwhelmed by all that needs to be done. If you could see our apartment right now, you wouldn’t believe that I had packed anything. It’s still cluttered and crammed with crap crap crap.

Even so, my day off was delightfully delicious. I think I’ll have another please.

Per a recent request, here is an update on my weight training regime: I’ve made moderate progress, and that’s about it.

I think there may have been some confusion about my goal with this. I didn’t expect to have fabulously sculpted arms in a matter of weeks. I know that lifting weights does not burn fat, I get the whole need for cardio thing. All I wanted was to build a little upper body strength, because lemme tell ya, I’m weak.

As it was explained to me, I should have expected to see results in six weeks, and I’m proud to say that with the exception of a day or two, I stuck to this routine the whole time. It’s now been over seven weeks actually. And yes, I can see a slight increase in strength. Wait, let me rephrase. I can feel a slight increase, I can’t see shit. No visible difference, but I didn’t really expect that.

So I’m gonna go ahead and not recommend this to anyone. Not because it failed, but because I’m sure there’s a better routine out there somewhere for toning upper arms. As for me, I’ll just keep doing what I’ve been doing. Until I get bored or something.

Remember the financial, uh, situation I alluded to the other day? Well I’m finally able to share what that’s all about…

I quit my job.

And I don’t have another one.

And I live in the state with the worst economy in the country.

And the highest unemployment rate.

Yes I’m a frickin’ crazed lunatic.

That’s the bottom line for all you bottom line type people, but for everyone craving details, here’s the story. About a year ago I started to feel restless and unhappy in my situation. I live in a town where I have no friends and no family, a place where I have no hobbies or connections. And I started to get really lonely. My whole life was work and Brad, and I was no longer getting fulfillment from work. So we started to talk about what we should do.

It took us a long time to figure that out. We both knew we wanted to move out of this place, but we weren’t sure where. Eventually we managed to identify four very important goals that needed to happen no matter where we ended up:

1. Brad needs to finish his bachelor’s degree
2. Shannon needs to start a graduate program
3. Brad needs a job
4. Shannon needs a job

Since last fall, we’ve been exploring all kinds of ideas across the country and world. In March I started applying to jobs all over the place, but we quickly realized that we wouldn’t really be able to afford school very easily if we moved out of state. So by mid-April, we had pretty much narrowed our searches to Michigan. By May, my entire family (four siblings, two half-siblings, two sets of parents, a niece and a nephew) had returned to and settled in the Grand Rapids area, and I was eager to join them. So I began to focus on GR.

In the meantime, Brad and I had both applied to and been accepted in programs at a college in GR, and Brad had figured out a way to keep his current job and work from home. Goals 1-3 accomplished! Now I only needed to find a job. Since March I have been searching for employment daily, which is the first problem because there are so few jobs in Michigan that I often go days without finding anything to even apply to. I’ve sent out countless resumes, I’ve done phone interviews, and I’ve traveled back and forth to GR for in-person interviews. I’ve been a finalist three times. It’s been nearly five months and still no job.

School starts next month, our lease is up next month, Brad is moving next month. Time was running out and I had to make a decision: stay here until I find a job in GR, all the while keeping my paycheck but setting myself up for serious depression and loneliness? Or quit my job, move next month, be broke and pray to God! that I get a job very very very soon? I’ve never been much of a risk-taker when it comes to life-changing decisions, but I went with the latter.

I heard a quote somewhere the other day. Google tells me it was someone called Epictetus who said it:

If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.

So go ahead and think I’m foolish and stupid. Hell, I think I’m foolish and stupid! But it’s done, I’m taking a chance. In a month I will be in a city I like, I’ll be with my family and my friends, I’ll be starting a master’s program. An yes, I’ll be jobless and utterly broke indefinitely, but I really think that at the end of my life I’ll be able to say I made the right decision.

Like I’ve said many times before, someday I will be on the other side of this. Someday I’ll know how it all works out. I’m scared to death right now, I actually felt sick about it this week, but people have done crazier things and survived. I think I will too.

Now, if anybody happens to know of any job opportunities in the GR area, I beg you to share them with me. Ideally it would be something in the nonprofit, higher education or communications fields, but at this point I just need income. And if anyone has any suggestions for freelance writing/proofreading/editing/transcribing work that pays, I’d love to hear about those too.

Along with continuing to job hunt, I also have to find a way to make money in the meantime, pack up our apartment, figure out how we’re going to move everything, figure out where we’re going to store it all until we can move into our new apartment in mid-September, figure out a place for us to stay in the interim, wrap up things at my job and prepare for the transition, and get everything ready to start classes in a month. Yeah, I definitely can’t wait to be on the other side of this.

When I posted my last craft project, a house-warming gift for a friend, a friend from work subtely mentioned that she had just moved into a new apartment, too. I was looking for another project anyway so I immediately got started on something for her. In another act of shameless self-promotion, here it is:

A glimpse at the process and necessary tools

Finished project

Upclose look at the detail

If you know anyone who would be interested in this kind of thing, please send them my way. I really enjoying doing these things as gifts, but I wouldn’t mind selling them either. The great thing is that they can be totally personalized. Show me a design you like and I’ll recreate it in embroidery. I can frame it, make a pillow, a small blanket, whatever. I’m open to ideas! I also do names and initials or words.

I’m in a bit of a financial, uh, situation right now (the reasons to be revealed soon, I promise) and could really use any extra buck I can get. I’m thinking of opening an Etsy shop, but I’d rather do custom orders if there’s interest.

Not that I think this is gonna pay dem bills, but I thought I’d throw it out there. If you know anyone who’d be interested in a hand-embroidered craft, send them my way yo!

When we were kids, my sister Andrea always seemed to get the coolest gifts. An art desk, an adopt-a-dolphin, a membership in the World Wildlife Federation. My gifts were great, no complaints, but hers always seemed so creative. I was especially envious the year she got a half-hour plane ride in a Cessna with a pilot friend of my dad. That was before any of us had ever been on a plane before, and even though I’ve flown on commercial flights a million times since then, I’ve always had this dream of taking a ride on a little 2-3 passenger aircraft. Even though I’ve explored the idea and even entered contests to win rides like these, the right opportunity never came along.

Until last weekend when we were up north. The father and brother of the groom told us about the biplane ride they had taken only a few hours before the wedding. They showed us pictures and pronounced it to be “so awesome.” I looked at Brad with eager eyes. I wanted to take that plane ride! But we had spent too much money on this trip already, and we’re about to embark on some pretty expensive endeavors in the next couple months. How could we possibly justify $130 for 30 minutes of fun?

But it was a dream of mine, and if I’ve learned one thing from watching people pursue their dreams on reality tv for the last five years, it’s that you have to take advantage of opportunities given you or nothing will ever happen. Somebody was dangling this opportunity right in front of my face, a chance to fulfill a longtime wish, and all I had to do to make it happen was drive a half mile from our hotel and hand a guy a check. And when the father of the groom said, “You can’t think about the money. It’s so much fun and you’ll remember it forever and the money doesn’t matter,” I knew I’d be on the plane in the morning.

Brad and I got in a fight that night, and we weren’t really talking in the morning. It would have been so easy to say screw it, I don’t want to be buckled into a tiny biplane with you. Let’s just go home and save the money. And I think we almost did. But I knew this opportunity might never be so available and accessible again. We had to go, and so we did.

I’m scared of heights and Brad is a nervous flyer, but neither of us felt anything but safe and exhilirated the whole time. It was definitely worth $130 even though I don’t know how I’m eating this week. Or paying rent.

I’m so glad we did it. And I think I may try taking advantage of other opportunities thrown my way in the future. Turns out it’s pretty fun.

(See the whole photo set here.)

We went to a wedding this weekend in nothern Michigan. Many of our friends were there so we had a lot of fun with much dancing and eating and drinking. Except me, not the drinking part at least, because I was the designated driver at both the rehearsal and the reception. It wasn’t a hard role for me to take on though because I feel really strongly about having a completely sober driver at all times, but mostly because I just don’t like to drink that much.

I was never a big drinker anyway, but my taste for all things alcohol seems to have almost completely disappeared in the last couple years. Believe it or not, this often makes for really uncomfortable situations. Unless you’re pregnant or a recovering alcoholic, people don’t understand why you’d be drinking a Sprite when everyone else is downing 22oz drafts.

So here’s the deal. I need help finding “my drink.” You know, the drink that I can always order when the situation calls for ordering a drink. Not that I feel pressured to consume alcohol when everyone else does - if I can make it through four years of high school and two years of college without succumbing to peer pressure, believe me, you’re not affecting me now - but isn’t one of the joys of adulthood that you can order a drink with your meal?

Yes. I need a drink. Something that’s easy to get just about anywhere, something respectable, something relatively inexpensive. Here are my barriers:

Beer: This is generally my drink of choice when I do choose to drink alcohol. But it can’t be too dark or thick or strong or wheaty or watery. The only beer I almost always like is Canadian-brewed Labatt Blue. Everything else is usually too… something or other. Also, once it becomes anything but ice cold, I’m done. So I usually hand Brad my beer about half-way through and rarely order another one.

Wine: I’ve tried to acquire a taste for wine, really I have. Not happening. White, red, blush, it all tastes the same to me. Bad. I went to that wine-tasting once and tried sips of many varieties, all of which tasted alike to my palette. Again, bad. Even the 10 on the sweetness scale tasted like sugar-coated badness.

Champagne: Only Asti, the rest is shit.

Mixed drinks and cocktails: Anything that has liquor right in the name is out (Jack and Coke, Gin and Tonic, etc). If liquor is one of only two ingredients, I definitely won’t like it. Even if it’s the primary ingredient in a longer list (ie: Cosmo) it’s no good. I choke on the taste of liquor so it needs to be heavily disguised.

Frou-frou drinks: I used to be a big fan of the margarita until I drank one on the same night as my stomach virus. Now the very smell makes my stomach churn. I can handle other fruity drinks as long as they taste fruity, not alcoholy. But outside of the rare Girls Night Out, these drinks are too expensive and generally ridiculed.

Shots: I gag. Bottom line. Back in the day I could throw back a shot now and then, but in my old age I seem to have developed an extremely sensitive gag reflex. Don’t even suggest a shot I might like. Ever. The next time I hear, “No really you can do this one. Seriously, it tastes like candy, just try it,” I will slice the speaker’s tongue out with my homemade shiv.

What am I missing? What else is there? Suggest anything (except a shot) and I’ll give it a try (unless I’ve already tried and rejected it). I’ve been on a mission to find “my drink” for awhile now, but I’m so clueless I never even know what to sample. What’s your drink? What do you recommend?

After dinner last night, Brad and I were having a serious conversation about a big decision we’re trying to make. We’ve been talking about it for a long time, but it’s been especially intense the last few days. I know what I want to do, but he’s still unsure about his opinion in the matter. So after a long conversation and continual indecisiveness, suddenly Brad said he knew what he needed to do.

He got up from the couch and returned with…

His Magic Eight Ball. Back in our dating days he bought this as a joke because we could never decide what to do. You may recall that we spent a lot of time sitting around in cars with no place to go. The Eight Ball often directed us in entertaining ourselves, but I hadn’t seen the thing in many months. But here it was again to give us guidance, this time on a very important matter.

Are you really going to make your decision this way?

Yeah, whatever the Eight Ball says, I’ll do it. It’s always right.

To warm it up, Brad began by asking it a simple question.

Will we have fun at our friends’ wedding this weekend?

CANNOT PREDICT NOW the Eight Ball said.

It must not have the power yet, we should give it a minute, Brad suggested.

He shook it for a while then set it between us, and we watched as Magic Eight Ball conjured its powers. After a few minutes, assuming the powers had been thoroughly conjured, Brad dove right in, asking it our most important question.

We both trembled with trepidation as he slowly tipped the ball over.

OUTLOOK GOOD the Eight Ball said.

This was good news to me, but when I looked at Brad he seemed confused.

What does that mean, he asked.

It means we should do it, the outlook for doing it is good.

Glad that the Eight Ball had cooperated with me, I was eager for Brad to stick to his proclamation that the magic toy knew all.

So are we gonna do it? I asked, anticipating that of course we would.

Maybe, he said. This is very helpful, I will definitely take this into consideration.

What! What happened to whatever the Eight Ball says and all that crap? If you’re not going to listen to it, what’s the point?

I am listening. This answer will weigh very strongly in my decision.

Whatever dude, you suck.

So that didn’t help us much, but this morning I asked it if I was going to marry Johnny Depp someday and it said yes, so I’m pretty sure Magic Eight Ball knows what it’s talking about.

(Also, one time my brother was pissing me off and I had finally had enough. I chucked a Magic Eight Ball at him from across the room and hit him in the eye. His face required stiches.)

Dear Life,

This is one of those blog letters, you know where someone writes a letter on their blog to a person they’ve never met or an inanimate object or maybe even an abstract idea. I didn’t want to use this method of communication, but Life, you’re not responding to anything else. I’m hoping you read my blog.

Life, I really need you to get yourself in order. You’ve been teetering on the brink of some major changes, but you can’t seem to get it all together. I really need you to get it all together. Fast. I know there have been a lot of decisions I’ve been making regarding you, or decisions I’ve been trying to make at least. But you’re really making it difficult for me.

People often say that you get in the way of things. Like, Oh I was going to call you about lunch but you know, Life got in the way. But for me, you’re not getting in the way really, you’re just not doing what I need you to do.

I can’t figure you out. My brain, my heart, my soul, they all want the same things to happen right now. But you, you insist on something else. You insist on being difficult, on keeping certain things from me, on being so utterly frustrating.

Listen Life, something has to change. I’m thinking it’s gotta be you. Can you do that? Like, soon?

Thanks,
The one who seems to have no control over you lately

I decided that I needed new shoes. Athletic shoes that wouldn’t make my feet sweat. We wanted to play tennis the other day, but we couldn’t because of the shoe situation. I didn’t want to wear tennis shoes because then I have to wear socks and then my feet get hot and sweaty. I would have worn flip flips, but they seemed silly and ineffective for tennis. So instead we just didn’t play.

So. I ordered these from Payless.

I love them. They’re really comfortable, they let my feet breathe, and they slide right on. Yet, they’re supportive enough to play tennis, take a walk, ride a bike or do any of those other semi-athletic things I do. The first day I wore them, just to break them in, I asked Brad if he liked them.

Yeah. But they don’t seem very athletic.

But they are athletic! They’re even under the athletic section on the Payless website.

Okay.

I can’t believe you don’t think my shoes are athletic. I’m going to tell everyone you said that.

I never said they weren’t athletic.

Um, see above please.

I’m a little behind because I only have basic cable, but I recently discovered Project Runway. Well I always knew about it, I just never watched it. Until I got Netflix. In the last few weeks I’ve watched all of season 1 and season 2. And I have two things to say…

1. Tim Gunn is my new favorite person.

2. I want to get it on with Daniel Vosovic. I’m so glad he said he’s bisexual, it keeps the fantasy alive.

My favorite number has always been four. I don’t know what it means to have a favorite number or why people have them, but I do and mine is four. 4444!

I have a couple things happening today (the discretion is not to be cute, I just can’t write about these things yet), both of which I’m a little nervous about. I had a hard time falling asleep because my mind was racing. When I finally dozed off it didn’t last long. I snapped awake in the middle of the night for no reason, but when I looked at the clock it was 4:44am.

I took that as a sign that things were going to be okay today. I smiled and fell back asleep. And had a vivid dream about four foreign fornicators forever foraging for forty forks in a forest. With fortitude.

Kidding about that last part.