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Showing posts from 2012

Thanksgiving

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It's kind of cool that we set aside one day a year to just be thankful. I like that. I try to be thankful daily, even though I might not have been posting it on Facebook every day for the past month. Of course there are things in my life that I wish I had... But there's plenty I should be thankful for as well.

Of course, I am blessed with an amazing family and I don't often stop and think about that. Not many people have parents who, 38 years after saying "I do" are still madly in love with each other. I do. That's cool. I am also blessed with amazing friends. It just takes one or two people you think are friends to royally screw you over for you to appreciate the friends who have been standing there beside you. (In theory, I guess I could be thankful for those bad friends for showing me what good friends really are, but I'm not there yet). 33 hasn't been so great a year, and without hesitation I can say I wouldn't have made it through without my …
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Holiday Cheer

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Last year, I lost my Christmas spirit. Well, in reality, I allowed people to steal it from me. For the first time ever, I did not put up a Christmas tree, and I had no desire to. I was missing any holiday cheer and I didn't care to celebrate or decorate.

Not this year folks! This year it's not even Thanksgiving (sorry Lish... but I promise to make a Thanksgiving post next week if that helps) and I've got my tree up, complete with a few new ornaments and a much needed new tree topper. I even finally bought a tree skirt this year (and someone is making a killing on those! Thank goodness for 50% off at Hobby Lobby!)

So here's to a great holiday season. My Grinch heart has grown three sizes since last year and it's not even December!

Happy Holidays everyone!





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Sometimes I get on my own nerves...

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I heard someone ask a man once how he was (I could've sworn it was my grandfather, but Mom says I am wrong... Anyway...), and he said, "I can't complain." Then added, smiling, "Well, I could, but it wouldn't get me anywhere..."

You know, that's a pretty accurate statement. Complaining really doesn't get you anywhere... But that doesn't stop us from doing it, myself included. I feel like I've been complaining a lot lately. Actually, scratch that, I feel like I've been whining a lot lately. (The ironic thing is whining bothers me maybe more than anything, and yet sometimes I still get sucked in.)

So if I've whined or complained to you lately, thanks for listening. Sometimes I just need to vent. And if I've whined or complained to you lately, I'm sorry. I could make excuses about how I had to deal with a pretty big issue in my personal life, and work has been very stressful this year (but then again, if I have been whining to …
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My Life (according to Pinterest)

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I have a board on Pinterest called "So True..." where I pin quotes that I really like. Tonight I was looking through them, and I noticed there were several that I identified with so much, I had apparently pinned them a second time without realizing it. Much like the victor's green cards in Apples to Apples, I feel like these describe me fairly well...





































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Blogging from the pool... Combining two of my favorite things.

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There aren't many people at the pool today which makes no sense to me, but whatever. I'm here and that's all that matters. :)

Just within earshot to my left are two teenage girls, 17 at most. Just within earshot to my right is a woman every bit of 50, and a guy friend of hers. One of the teenage girls and the woman are each talking about guy issues and I SWEAR to you, I wish they could hear each other, because they're telling basically the same story.

"And we went on two dates, and I think we had a good time..."

"So he said he'd call the next day and it was two days before he did..."

"I think I really like him, but I'm not sure. It's still early on..."

It just strikes me as funny. As someone living happily in the middle (by current proximity as well as age) of these girls, I've uttered these exact same phrases on numerous occasions.

I guess at the end of the day, age really is just a number, and we're all more alike than we…
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What a Difference Four Years Makes

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Tonight as I was eating ice cream and watching the Olympics (don't judge), I started thinking of the last Olympics, and how much different things were.  And not just that the Opening Ceremonies and Michael Phelps were better (too soon?), but other stuff too!

The last time the Olympics were held...
I was in my twentiesI was an elementary school teacher with no real desire to ever leaveI had not even thought of pursuing a Masters degree in administrationI had not met 6 of the 8 friends on my recent calls logI didn't have an iPhoneI still had a TV with a built in VCR (seriously)I had only been to 30 consecutive games at CommonwealthThis blog had one postI was still six months away from "White Death 09" UK Basketball was coached by Billy GillespieI had never heard of Kentucky Sports RadioI was not on Twitter...But I am pretty sure I still had a MySpaceI still had three grandparents living I'm sure there is more too... that's just what I can think of off the top o…
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Rain

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We've had an especially dry summer, but finally the forecast is calling for rain for a week. This morning when I woke up at 9:45 and saw nothing but blue sky out the window, I decided to head to the pool to squeeze in all the sun I could.

About three hours into my stay, it barely started to rain. No "storm," just a sprinkle. Lots of parents were scrambling to get their kids out of the pool and into the car, and even some adults without kids left as well. But not this girl! I'd decided I was staying til they kicked me out... Plus it was still sunny and hot so the rain was actually refreshing. Less than five minutes later, the cloud passed and the skies were clear again. Of course within the hour, thunder rumbled and we were all forced to leave the pool, so I sadly packed up and came home.

As I was driving home, I couldn't help but think of the saying "If you want to see the rainbow, you've got to put up with a little rain." I've always loved tha…
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Sand

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I know there are some people out there who don't like the beach.  I don't understand those people.  It's like not liking ice cream or puppies... it just doesn't make sense.  Do these people not like smiling?  Are they communists?  I just don't get it.

If you ask most non beach lovers, they will complain about the sand... that it gets everywhere and you can't get rid of it.  Not me.  I love the sand.  When I went to Hilton Head for fall break, I think I was as close to a stress related break down as I had been in years. And that first day, even though it was raining, we went to the beach just to see the ocean.  When I took off my flip flops and took my first step in the sand, I literally think that I could feel my blood pressure drop.

As far as the sand getting everywhere... I think that's one of the charms of the beach.  My beach/pool bag has two kinds of sand inside. My car is sandy, and as psychotic as I have been about my car, I am hesitating cleaning …
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Resumes and Interviews and Waiting, Oh My!

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I've always been a fan of The Wizard of Oz.  I can remember when I was a little girl, it would come on TV once a year and I always watched it.  Once I even got to record it on my VCR and watched it I think until the tape broke (oh, the things this generation of children doesn't have to deal with!).  (Of course now that I have seen the musical Wicked twice, I watch it with different eyes thinking "Well, that's not how it really happened!" but that's beside the point...) So I have seen the movie too many times to count, I know the characters and I know the lines, but the past few weeks I have definitely come to identify with the movie more than ever before.

The past couple of months I have felt like I was in the middle of a tornado. The position I currently have with Jessamine County Schools was eliminated, and I had no idea what I would be doing next school year. Having finished my coursework and tests for my principal certification, looking for an administra…
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Waiting

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It was a long week at work this week. The days felt longer because I'm in the office more than out because no one really wants to collaborate on technology with less than ten days of school left, and because I was waiting for a couple of important phone calls regarding possible job changes for next year.

By mid morning Tuesday I was already worrying too much about things. Trying to busy myself in order to take my mind off things, I decided to open one of the internal websites I help manage for our school district, and do a quick check for any missing information. I went to open the site from my bookmark folder and there was a random site in that folder. Last week, a friend had told me about a website that had daily deals for etsy (veryjane.com if you care) and I'd bookmarked it, but somehow I'd put it in the wrong folder. Oh well, I thought, and decided to give it a quick look. One of the first things I saw was a print of this image and it stopped me dead in my tracks.




I h…
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#BBN

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Have you seen Fever Pitch? It was part sports movie/part chick flick (leaning more heavily on the latter) that came out in 2005 about Lindsey (Drew Barrymore) falling for Ben (Jimmy Fallon) who happens to be a teacher (trust me, no teachers are actually that cute and funny) and a Boston Red Sox fan.  I am pretty sure this was not a big box office hit, although I saw it in the theater and own the DVD.  There comes a point in the movie where Ben misses a game to be with Lindsey, and the Red Sox end up beating the Yankees, and he is uber pissed that he missed it, causing the following fight to happen:

Lindsey: Wasn't it you yourself that said just tonight..."It's only a game"?
Ben: Oh, that's great. That's great. Pile it on. Yeah. Kick me when I'm down. That's great.
Lindsey: It is just a game.
Ben: Clearly, it's not just a game! If it was, then obviously I wouldn't care about it this much. Twenty-three years. Do you still care about anything you ca…
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I'm ready for #8

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The last time Kentucky won a national championship was 1998.

Fourteen years ago, folks. That's a long time. How long? you ask (ok, maybe you didn't ask, but I'm telling you anyway). I was a freshman in college. I was a teenager. I only had six nieces and nephews, not ten. I hadn't met some of the great friends I currently have. I had my very first cell phone, which did nothing except make phone calls, and looked remarkably like I had stolen it from Zach Morris. I watched every second of that game with bated breath... It was UK's third national championship game in three years. They'd won in 96, and come so close in 97, and I was ready for another championship. Of course the Cats did not disappoint, coming back from a ten point deficit at the half to beat Utah 78-69.
Then the drought. I'm not here to "blame" anyone for that (I will adore Tubby Smith until the day I die), but it happened. No final fours. Four NCAA tourney second round losses, the hi…
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For sale

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My parents live in the same house that they built when my mom was pregnant with me, and no one in my family really did much moving when I was younger, so I have a hard time letting houses go.

When each set of grandparents sold their house in Florida, it was sad, and I didn't like it.

When my Mamaw and Papaw sold their house in Auxier (the house that my mom had grown up in) to move to Grayson, it was sad, and I didn't like it.

Yet somehow, seeing the For Sale sign in Gurnie's yard when I was home this weekend was the saddest.  It's not like I didn't know it was happening.  When she died in September, we'd talked about selling the house.  When the family got together at the end of October to go through the things in the house, we talked about selling the house.  Over the past few months, I've often talked to Mom and Dad about things they were doing to the house to get it ready to sell.  When they had the estate sale a couple of weekends ago, I knew selling t…
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Love

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I saw this picture on the Post Secret app (back when Post Secret had an app) and it really resonated with me.  I took a screen shot, set it as wallpaper on my phone, uploaded it to my Facebook, and even broke my "Why is your profile picture not of YOU?" rule and set it as my profile pic for a while.

And today, on Valentine's Day, I really realize how true this is. My heart is full.  It is. I don't think I even knew how full it was until yesterday, but it really is.  I have the best friends a girl could want (even better ones than when I've said that before), a family that loves me (and makes me laugh) and a life that somewhere out there, someone is envying.

I'm happier than I have been in a while (exponentially happier than I was this time last year) and I have learned more about myself in the last year than maybe in the previous 30+ combined. I know what I want and what I don't want.  And I am okay if I find it or if I don't.

So my big Valentines p…
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I finally got to Z!!!

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My To Do list is possibly longer than it's ever been. I have grad school in less than 20 minutes and I need to be studying for the ISLLC test that I take tomorrow, but I am stressed.  And I cannot focus.  So I am writing...  Because that's what I do.

So I think maybe it's time I finish my ABCs of Happiness posts. When I wrote my A post on October 10, 2009, I did it because I felt like I was starting to be sad again... slipping into somewhere I didn't want to be.  So I decided to go through the alphabet looking for things that started with each letter that made me happy.  Some letters were easy, some were more difficult, and I still don't know how I left Patrick Patterson off the P post the first time I wrote it!  So over two years later, I am finishing.  And I know this isn't the only thing that kept me out of the "funk" I was slipping into, but I do think it helped.

So here goes the final one...

Ziti: C'mon, you can't be surprised.  I Heart …
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Not What I Had Planned...

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It was a long week at work... And yes, I realize I only had to work four days, and that was after a four day weekend, but it was a long week at work.  And I also realize that every day is 24 hours and no day is really longer than another (someone I was once close friends with liked to point that out whenever I mentioned a day being long, yeah, it was annoying), but still... it was a long week at work.  It seemed that I couldn't get one thing done without several more things being dumped on my desk delegated to me, and I just felt like I was drowning.  Add to it that I haven't left work before dark since the new year (and my day ends at 4), and maybe you can see a little of my stress and frustration...

I was excited last night to get to spend some time with my siblings.  Most of us live in central Kentucky, but we don't get together as often as we should, so this year, we've decided to do family game night once a month.  (If you know my competitive family, you know this…
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