Life. It happens.

I feel like I haven't blogged in forever! This is something I do for fun and as a release and honestly I really enjoy it. There's just something about the depth of words and putting your life experiences out there for anyone to read. Having said that, I actually had a friend this week tell me that she missed my mad blogging skills. Actually that's not exactly what was said but it's what I heard. I told her it was because my life hasn't been that exciting lately and not really blog worthy. Because, I mean really, if I'm not excited about the happenings of my life then why anybody else be?! I told her I would try to work on a little something for her so here's my best shot...

As stated in a previous blog, I decided to make some temporary life changes. One of my many mottos is 'Go big or go home' and as luck would have it I made some big decisions all at once. All within the same weekend I decided to take a break from my best friend who I have known since middle school, give up ALL alcohol until Easter (making St. Patty's Day and exception to the rule. After all, it is my favorite recognized non gift giving holiday.) begin a hard-core job search and focus on myself and try to eliminate unnecessary stress and drama. And then someone died. Great. Icing on the cake right! Please don't think that I am being insincere because that's not how I want to come across but in the grand scheme of things that's how it happened. For real. Back to the motto for a moment, I like it best when referring to diamonds, drinks, paychecks, trust funds and some other things ;) just to name a few but not so much in the bad way like when giving things up or having to deal with life. In those situations it's just not the right motto because after it all you think why didn't I just go home aka give up and call it a day.

The first week of the "new me" was the hardest! As if trying to be a good friend to friends that lost a very close friend, paying my respects to the deceased, not talking to my best friend and not drinking weren't bad enough but it was also a week where my boss decided to be let's say hormonal, even though I think she's menopausal, both of which are nice ways of saying she was in major bitch mode. That was definitely a stressful week and one in which I questioned on more than one occasion (per day) why I had chosen to not drink. But guess what, I persevered! I got through it with the help of prescription drugs and Tylenol PM. What did you expect? I can't just give up everything! One step at a time.

That was just the beginning. There was also a week where I was an emotional wreck thanks to my frienemy Dot and my face exploded in ways that can only be described as asteroids trying to escape from under the skin only above my neck. Turns out it was because of a $95 face cream! For that much money I expect greatness like a glow or shimmer or something fabulous not to end up looking like I slept outside without a mosquito net! Ugh! So as my face begins to regain its moderate terrain and color I think, 'things are starting to look up' WRONG! On my way to church I rear-end an elderly lady who happens to be on her way to the hospital to visit her sick elderly husband. I made a common mistake by not paying good attention. I mistook a green turn signal for the green light and CRASH. Thankfully little damage was done to her car but unfortunately for me there was lots of obvious damage to P. Soph. Long story short: Body damage, mechanical damage, Spring Break=Insurance adjustors on vacay, no rental on my insurance policy. The new me has quickly become a younger more fashionable and sober Miss Daisy. Rock bottom? Not quite. Then Josie gets a free ride to the emergency room where she was hospitalized for a short period of time. Miss Daisy had it good compared to me! I then decided I was more like Job, you know, from the Bible. I had skin issues and everything that could possibly go wrong had gone wrong.

So here I am. It is Easter weekend! I am still car-less although I do enjoy not having to drive. I am proud of my soberness 68 days (minus 2, one was a Sunday and the other was a holiday) and proud of my no facebooking. I have applied for a random array of jobs all across the U.S. And, I can honestly say that I think that after everything that has happened over the last three months that I have more faith than I have ever had before. I'm trying everyday to be more positive and compassionate to those around me. I have chosen to have a new perspective in hopes that it will make me a better person.

28 Days & Counting

For those of you who are unaware, I have given up alcohol on temporary basis. I originally had planned to do this for Lent and life happened. I decided that it would be in my best interest to start this fast early. Today, I am 28 days sober! It sounds funny, maybe like I am a recovering alcoholic or something (not that there's anything wrong with that) but I am one who likes to go out and have a good time. A good beer or glass of wine, after a really rough week, a shot of tequila really does a body good. I enjoy liquid beverages of the sort and it's not as hard to give up as some people may think. However, after I took this vow of sobriety I was tested a lot but have stayed strong.

My life is changing everyday and I have decided to do the best that I can to make it change for the better. Some of the things that I once believed made my life better are no longer part of my life. But everyday is a new day and life goes on with or without them. My quality of life is neither better or worse but my days and goals are much clearer and I am moving towards them faster.

2009: An Epic Year

Another year has flown by and the shenanigans of 2009 hands down beat the happenings of 2008! (see My Ode to 2008) If you’ve already read that and you’re thinking that’s impossible just remember, the possibilities are endless! So put on a diaper and get ready to roll on the floor...

I have found that the best way to remember things is through photographs because my memory is not great and often times it is fuzzy or altogether forgotten. This remembrance is a combination of my memories and the photos from the past year.

We all know how 2009 began...HUNGOVER! That’s a never a great start for a day much less an entire year but we pulled out just fine! (that was for you mb ;) lol) So after recovering from that we had a fun photo shoot and a mini pre-birthday warm up celebration one random night at The Kudu. That night we were on the bar,on the stage, behind the sound controls, head in trash cans and spinning in capes. The beginning of that sounds a rap song...just a little bit. :) Then there was my actual birthday festivities! I joined forces with MB for a celebration at Chuck E Cheese and it was fabulous! Great friends and lots of fun and the best peanut butter cake a girl could ask for. The celebration continued and was nothing less than fantastic. For birthdays, this was just the beginning and some would refer to theirs as the best birthday ever!

We celebrated Rebecca’s birthday in February, more fun times at The Kudu! Skip ahead to April-May-ish and lil Jac turned 21 and Buzz turned 30! Of course Jac had to be initiated into the world of The Kudu and she’s been a fruitloop lover ever since. Her birthday also fell around Crawfish weekend so we also enjoyed some LL Cool J, Katie Perry, Jason Mraz and some other fun musical guests and then jumped on a short bus only to continue the fun times and memory making. And for Buzz, what better way to celebrate than with a theme?! Golf Pros and Tennis Hos it was! And this is when the murf began! Lots of fun times, scandalous pictures and a little bit of beer glove action. Little did we know that this would be the last party we would ever have at Rebecca’s Southside home.

Next came Tiff and 2...Tiff has finally given in and let me tell her exactly how and for how long to celebrate her birthday. So this was her making up for bad birthdays birthday celebration and it lasted a long time! We first celebrated with a beach trip (see Girls’ Beach Trip 09: PCB) but unfortunately not everyone could make it. We had a blast at the beach and by that I mean by the pool 2 feet from a tiki bar. =P But because everyone could not make it to the beach we had a reason to celebrate more when we got home. Tiff had lots of surprises in store for her! She got everything she wanted and more. We all met and had dinner at Jacksons and then head to our favorite home away from home for some ColdStone cupcakes, drinks and oh yeah, a live band! Worth getting barefoot for, right?! Then to IHOP for some lingdon berries and the explanation of the brown towel. And a week later we all gathered again for Kimberly and A2’s joint tye dye themed birthday celebration. Let me just say, duh-runk! We began with pizza and lots of beer before heading to the Lakeview District for an unexpected bar CRAWL! We started at The Kudu and worked our way around the block to On Tap and then crawled our way back to The Kudu.

There were also other happenings between all of the birthday festivities. St. Patty’s day (one of my favorites btw) Memorial Day, bridal parties, wrecking a Hummer, beach trips, pool days, weekends at the lake and unfortunately an unforgettable Labor Day weekend. Trash the dress, a boy on a big green tractor, LSU/UA game, renewal of wedding vows, a new pool boy, motorboats, silent auctions and Martinis & Mistletoe. Fun times all year long and the best ending to a great year: A birthday party for Kerri and a NYE party. 2009 all year long was the best! I was surrounded by great friends and had a blast doing most of the things that I did. You know it’s a good year when your regrets are minimal, your pictures are good and plentiful and at the end of the day you still have people to call your friends.

Splenda vs. Sugar

I’m a sugar girl. A substitute is just that and I like the real thing. Sometimes you can’t get sugar even though that’s what you really want. So what other choice do you have but to have a little Splenda? You have to make due with what you’ve got; love the one you’re with right? In life you have to make choices. I’ll be the first to say that I’m not the best decision maker. Sometimes, scratch that, lots of times I make bad choices. Don’t get me wrong, good ones usually follow right behind the bad ones but it’s the bad ones that get me every time! My question is that in world full of Splenda and very little sugar should you hold out or just enjoy the Splenda?

love

Love. Love is many things. Love is multifaceted and can be uniquely defined by each individual experiencing or yearning this whirlwind of emotion and feeling. Those who know me, know that I have relationship issues. These issues are in conjunction with love but not to be confused with love or the idea of it. Today I realized how special love actually is.

I’ve always had a jaded sense of love. I guess because I over analyze things and there’s not a clear cut answer about love- not because I grew up with a lack of it or experienced it in a perverted way or anything like that. I have a lot of love in my life and sometimes I take it for granted. I can be a lot of things but nice sometimes most times, well, that’s all debatable but that’s not my point. Point being, that no matter my dislike and/or bratty attitude I still love those that I loathe. This got put in perspective for me today in a big way. Love isn’t perfect and though people fuss and fight it doesn’t mean that they don’t love one another.

I remember love at different stages in my life. When I was in high school I used love as an argument. I would ask my teacher to define love, being that this was a Religion class he could reference Biblically for days. I didn’t care to hear the answer. I used this as a ploy to buy me time to do other homework or study for tests that I had later in the day. I also manipulated the idea of love to get my way, “If you love me you’ll...” This worked on my parents and boyfriends for a long time (maybe that’s why I’m the brat that I am today.) I also remember working close to a cafeteria and every Sunday after church I would watch the little old men and women go to lunch. Observing these elderly couples was one of the sweetest things that I’ve ever witnessed. The men would walk around the car and open the passenger door, offer a hand getting in and out of the car and offer another hand when stepping on or off of the sidewalk, they opened doors and kissed the cheeks of their significant others. As I got older, I began to notice other patterns of love. The changing of relationships and love not being what you thought it would be and learning the difference between infatuation, lust and love...getting your heart broken and learning how to overcome that and try it again.

In a world where there are more broken homes than there are successful marriages, it is easy for love to be cheapened, forgotten and taken for granted. This is ironic to me because no matter how lost or hopeless, people still yearn to find and to experience love. My parents have been married a long time but my grandparents have been married even longer, almost 70 years! Today, at the hospital, the nurses were inquiring about how long my grandparents have been married. They commented on how they could tell how much my grandfather loved and cared for his wife. At that moment, I realized that my grandparents are those people that I used to watch every Sunday at work, my parents probably will be those people and one day, I want to be those people too. I am 26 and not married and that is because I am waiting for my person who I can be those people with one day.

And btw, this is why people fell in love with The Notebook! ;)

Hiatus Resulting From Randomness

Truly blessed, educated and single, yeah, sounds like a singles ad in a church bulletin but that’s me. After four years of college and achieving a BS degree, lots of job experience and having quite the social life (lol...so I’m told by some of my married friends), I have decided that I may be stuck in a rut. The economy is not good and doesn’t seem to be getting any better which raises my concern about having any kind of job stability.

Am I ready to begin a job search? Am I willing to move? If I move, there is still a chance of unemployment. Is it worth it? Should I go back to school? Am I smart enough? If I do go back to school should I still consider changing jobs? These are just some of the questions inside my head and that’s just concerning my professional future! Add in all of the questions and doubts about my personal life and you’ve got a ginormous mess! Not to mention that part of my head is still being used to function daily. Don’t be surprised if one day my head just implodes! Then I’ll need all kinds of surgeons, neuro and plastics especially. Well, that’s probably not even possible, so no worries there.

Anywho, I decided to go on hiatus to try to sort through some of the many thoughts ricochetting inside my head. So far so good...

A Week (or two!) Of Birthday Celebrations

As you may or may not know, I whole heart my girls and I whole heart birthdays and the celebrations that go with those girls’ birthdays! As it is, six of my girlfriends have birthdays within days of each other over a two week span. (Kimberly, 7/24; Tiffani, 7/30; Angela, Sara and Joanne, 8/7 and Megs, 8/9) A birthday celebration, on average, is approximately one week. Boiling it all down means not sober days outweigh the sober ones for those two weeks! So here is my blog on the happenings of those two weeks...

On Kimberly’s birthday, I was headed to my annual ‘girls’ beach trip’ which worked out because she wanted to have a double celebration with the other Angela. Tiffani began her birthday celebration on that beach trip. (The beach trip has its own blog!) The week that we got back from the beach was Tiff’s actual birthday week. She had plans with Brett and family so we decided to party hard that Saturday. I had to work but Tiff, Brett, Jac, Rebecca and Matt went to the lake that day and had fun in the sun.

That night we (Tiff, Brett, BA, Jay, MB, Kerri, Buzz, Rebecca, Matt, Sara, Jac, Keith Shoemaker, and myself) had dinner at Jackson’s. The weather outside was monsoon and inside the restaurant was like 500 degrees, no joke. After dinner and pressies we headed to the Kudu for Cold Stone cupcakes and more tasty libations. We lost some peeps but gained Greg Lee. After lots of beverages were consumed and we had completely cooled off from dinner and dried from the torrential downpour of rain, we were ready to get our party on! Many photos and funnies later we decided to go in and listen to the band. You know people are having a good time when they get barefoot in a bar! JS.

After a little drunk drama we decided it best to get Thanksgiving Dinner so we headed to IHOP. Tiff decided to have an inappropriate conversation with a server outside about whether or not he sold drugs and then announced abruptly in front of a cop how wasted she was. Nonfiction. Don’t forget Keith was with us so we were the loudest group of people everywhere went and at this time it was early in the a.m.! Talk of lingdonberries, intestinal issues and brown towels kept us rolling. And I’m pretty sure that everyone in IHOP thought that we were all too inebriated, loud and crazy and were probably wishing and hoping that we would leave! Several hours later, sun up, we were headed to the lake. Boats and beverages always make for a good time ;). Weekend 1 down!

The next week, my friend Jenny was in town from San Francisco so I met her for lunch one day and hung out with her and some peeps in Calera one night. Friday was Sara, Joanne and 2’s birthday. 2 had to work and we had planned to celebrate her and Kimberly’s birthday on Saturday and Sunday. Friday night, I met Sara, Joanne and some of their friends and significant others at the Garage for dinner and drinks. For me, no dinner and many drinks later, we decided to go to Rogue. After more drinks, shots and the closing of Rogue there was talk of going to The Nick :& Jonathan and I decided that we were going to fold on that note and go get something to eat.

I got home somewhere between 3-4 a.m. and had to be at work at 9:30. Work sucked that day! After work I met Tiff, Brett, MB, 2 and Kimberly for Kimberly and 2’s birthday celebration. Kimberly and 2 were late so by the time they got to Dave’s were several pitchers ahead of them. We had more beer and some pizza before heading to the Kudu for presents and cake. After an unfortunate sequence of events causing me to find the place of ‘funk and ill’ we did presents and cake and departed. We bar hopped around Lakeview until the wee hours of the morning. So, we started at Dave’s and from there went to the Kudu, Nana Funks, Innisfree and On Tap where we met up with Megs and several of her friends. From On Tap we went back to Innisfree, Nana’s and ended at the Kudu. We had at least one drink at every place that we went. By the end of the night my mood had improved and our hop had become more of a crawl! Back to where we started from-in all aspects... The next day off to the lake for more fun times, birthday brownies and a make out session with the sun. Birthday week 2: Complete.

Not everyone can do what we do. It’s survival of the fittest from July 24 until August 9 and we all survived! Every year gets harder because every year we seem to get older...so put your big girl panties on and start getting ready for next year!

Behind the Scenes:

*Falling out of cars

*Beer Gloves

*Projectile bodily fluids

*Drunk texts

*Lots of mini dramas